Editorial Board
NATO Doesn't Need a European Rival
A plan to create a non-NATO military bureaucracy would only play into Vladimir Putin's hands.
A force to be reckoned with.
Photographer: Marit Hommedal/AFP/Getty ImagesAfter years of focusing on the Russian military threat to its eastern border, Europe is now awakening to the grand scope of Vladimir Putin's expansionist dreams. It's a welcome, if belated, realization.
The threat from Russia was the dominant topic of a recent meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. Two proposals -- rejuvenating the alliance's naval command in the Atlantic and creating a new logistics command -- make a lot of sense. A third, establishing a new non-NATO "permanent structured cooperation" body among European Union nations, would simply duplicate (or worse, compete with) the alliance's existing command structure.