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Rutte told member countries to stop “complaining” and come up with concrete, positive ideas, while Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said “Europe’s security is at a turning point” and Europe needs “an urgency mindset” and “a surge of defense.”

Even if Trump were less insistent about spending and had warmer feelings about the alliance, the fact is that the United States may at some point be consumed with responding to a crisis in the Pacific, and Europe will have to be prepared to defend its backyard regardless.

If Europe won’t spend more for the sake of its own security or the good of the alliance, it should — when its embarrassing panic subsides — at least do it out of self-respect.

Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.

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