The first NATO summit of President Joe Biden’s administration — convened even as the resurgent Taliban encircled Afghan cities, no longer defended by U.S. and coalition forces — was a self-congratulatory affair. Donald Trump was out, and that was enough for the allied representatives to cheer.

“There was a real appetite for the nice words … after the Trump years,” a Central European official recalled of the June 14 summit, acknowledging that, in order to satisfy that appetite, political leaders chose “to avoid the difficult discussions and especially to avoid talking about Afghanistan in a more critical view.”