MATTIS’ BLUNT ULTIMATUM: So much for just listening. On his way over to NATO headquarters, the soft-spoken but hard-nosed Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he would be mostly listening to concerns of his fellow defense ministers. But when he got to the table in Brussels yesterday, he delivered a stark warning to the 23 member nations who aren’t paying what they should. “America will meet its responsibilities,” Mattis said. “But if your nations do not want to see America moderate its commitment to this alliance, each of your capitals needs to show support for our common defense.”

It’s not as though the NATO nations didn’t see it coming. President Trump has been harping on the fact that, of the 28 alliance members, only five (U.S.,UK., Greece, Poland and Estonia) spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. Nor is Mattis the first American defense secretary to remonstrate the recalcitrantly parsimonious allies. Robert Gates delivered a similar stern warning six years ago. “I am the latest in a string of U.S. defense secretaries who have urged allies privately and publicly, often with exasperation, to meet agreed-upon NATO benchmarks for defense spending,” lectured Gates at a defense ministerial in 2011. “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”