ANGELO CODEVILLA: “Europe was never a full partner in its own defense.” But wait, it gets worse: “The very question—Will Europe ever fully partner with the U.S., or will the European Union and NATO continue to downplay the necessity of military readiness?—is no longer meaningful as posed, because the political energies of Europe’s elites are absorbed as they try to fend off attacks on their legitimacy by broad sectors of their population. The notion that Europeans and Americans were full partners in the NATO alliance and that this ‘kept the Russians out…etc.’ was always a fiction, albeit a useful one. Today it is dysfunctional, an obstacle to all sides’ understanding of what useful cooperation may yet be possible.”