Atlantic Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg carefully avoids naming him, as if he was the devil himself. But the Norwegian does not hide what he is responding to. He has no choice. Too incendiary were the words of the former, perhaps future, US president, who thwarted the promise of solidarity that is the very pillar of NATO: in the event of aggression, his America would refuse to come to the aid of a sullen Europe that refuses to invest in its own defense. Stoltenberg's response on behalf of the allies has two parts. In the first, he agrees with Trump on the facts, albeit with a slight interpretive twist in his remarks: "The criticism we hear is not about NATO, but about its members not spending enough on the Alliance. And this is a well-founded point that has already been discussed with several American administrations." The answer is the news of the day, which Stoltenberg hastened to announce, although it wasn't scheduled to be announced at a summit whose central theme remains Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine: in 2024, 18 of the 31 NATO countries will spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense, the fateful threshold they had pledged to reach since 2014 at the Cardiff summit. it's a record: in nine years, the European states and Canada together have increased their military budgets by as much as 600 billion. Among the new virtuous ones, Italy is still absent, but for the first time Germany, Europe's leading economy, has joined. And their number may even increase, thanks to ongoing budget adjustments in some countries. The second part is a little history lesson on the reasons for the success of an alliance that has provided deterrence and peace for 75 years. A strong NATO makes the United States stronger, which "has never won a war on its own, from Korea to Afghanistan," Stoltenberg recalled. Perhaps the role of the Allies has been exaggerated. The U.S. still accounts for more than two-thirds of NATO's total spending, and at the end of the day it is still 80,000 U.S. troops and the U.S. nuclear umbrella that guarantee Europeans' security. But there is no question that U.S. strategic hegemony has had Atlantic solidarity as a crucial component of its durability and success. The real problem is that unlike six years ago, when he was in the White House and waving the same threats, Trump's statements fall in a radically different context, where war is no longer a schoolyard hypothetical. Putin has unleashed it against Ukraine, and many countries, from the Nordic countries to Poland to Germany itself, believe that within a few years he could do so against a NATO country as well. The hypothesis that the Kremlin will unleash its war dogs in a Shakespearean crescendo has now entered the conversation of diplomats and experts. The zeitgeist is mobilized. So much so that even Germany is breaking the nuclear taboo and openly discussing European nuclear deterrence, starting with the French "force de frappe." To suggest, as Trump does, that NATO cannot count on America in the face of a possible Russian attack, that America is no longer willing to risk a nuclear holocaust to defend Tallinn, makes the prospect less tawdry. That is why his double message should be read as the beginning of a hugging strategy that, with increased military spending by European allies, would take away any argument from Trump in the event of his return to the White House.  Paradoxically, but fatally, it is now the war on our borders that will unite and weld Europe from West to East into a new political and democratic entity, a new home for being together in the name of a common higher interest. The very idea of America's withdrawal from NATO, from the European front, will necessarily force us to rethink our foreign policy and our common defense; today France has the atomic bomb and a permanent seat at the UN. In the near future, it will have to be Europe that has this role.