rifts. Such rifts have partly to do with different viewson the future of Europe. Multicultural and postnational?Or sovereigntist and Christian-conservative?They also have to do with a post-Cold War process ofeastern ‘democratization’ that has left countries suchas Poland and Hungary with a frustrated sense ofbeing treated with condescension, overlooked, orasked to be simple ‘copies’ by their Western Europeanpartners.

Disrupting the Russia ConsensusPushing US troops and attentionfocus eastwards willlikely exacerbate that split, thus upsetting alliancecohesion. Perhaps most crucially, though, it willchallenge the NATO consensus on Russia. Twooverlapping and yet competing dynamics are keyhere, to which attention must be paid: