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NATO & Europe blog
Lodge in 1919 and Vandenberg in 1948 gave two Republican answers on treatiesTwo Republican Senate chairmen faced Democratic presidents and got opposite results. A side-by-side table shows why one treaty died and one lived.Vandenberg's Conversion and the Republicans Who Built the Postwar OrderA Michigan isolationist became the Republican who steered NATO through the Senate, and the party's part in the postwar world is bigger than most Americans know.How Reagan built strength first and then sat down with GorbachevThe 1987 INF Treaty followed a military buildup and a hard line, not a substitute for one, and hawks and dealmakers both need that sequence.Burden Sharing Is Not a Trump Idea, It Is an Eisenhower IdeaPresidents of both parties have asked Europe to carry more of its own defense since Eisenhower, and the ask is a sign of a serious alliance, not a threat to it.The One Time NATO's Article 5 Was Invoked, and Who Answered the CallNATO's mutual-defense clause was invoked once, for America, on September 12, 2001, and the allies who answered earned a hearing from every skeptic.