Jacob Heilbrunn is the editor of the National Interest.
On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and a scant month before NATO celebrates its 70th anniversary in London, French President Emmanuel Macron is disrupting the party. During an interview published on Thursday in the Economist, Macron blew a loud raspberry at the military alliance, declaring that Donald Trump’s presidency has inflicted “brain death” upon it. Ooh la la! His fellow European leaders are dismissing Macron’s remarks as Gallic impertinence; German chancellor Angela Merkel frostily remarked on Thursday, “This view does not correspond to mine,” while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described Germany as being “at the heart of NATO.” They need to get over it.
