Replacing what the Americans do for the NATO alliance would take money, personnel, time and cooperation. None of those is easy.

Less than a fortnight after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Vice President J. D. Vance read Europe the riot act at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February, Donald Trump followed up with a performance that would not have been out of place on an episode of The Apprentice.

European Union leaders committed to working together to bolster the continent’s defenses and to free up hundreds of billions of euros for security. The agreement emerged Thursday after U.S. President