, Columnist
Trump Asks a Good Question About NATO (and Botches It)
No, the Western alliance is not "obsolete."
Another bad idea.
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Donald Trump is weighing in on the future of NATO, a topic about which he admits to knowing little and on which he is -- not for the first time -- spectacularly wrong. But he isn't wrong to pose the question of whether the alliance is now obsolete.
The case made for maintaining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has often been woolly. On Monday, President Barack Obama said that the alliance remains "the lynchpin, the cornerstone of our collective defense and U.S. security policy." It was a tacit riposte to Trump. The unaddressed question is: how?