It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC. Welcome back. I'm David First, WNYC's weekend edition host,

filling in for Brian today. Yesterday was the last day of the NATO summit in Washington,

celebrating the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Alliance. NATO was created in 1949 by the

United States, Canada, several Western European nations to provide collective security against

the former Soviet Union, now Russia, of course.

But the anniversary took place at a moment of a lot of uncertainty in the West.

This year will have the most elections ever conducted globally,

and already many countries have seen a rise in populist, far-right leadership.

In the European parliamentary elections, as one example, Europeans voted

in more right-wing politicians in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, among

others. Here in the U.S., the candidates in the presidential election in November have very

different views on what the future of U.S. involvement in NATO should look

like. And after President Joe Biden's performance in his debate against Donald Trump a little

over two weeks ago, which has led some in his party to call for him to drop out of the presidential

race, there was a lot of attention given to a press conference that the president gave last night at the end of the summit.

Joining us now to recap the three-day summit, including a breakdown of the press conference last night

and what the 2024 U.S. election might mean for the future of the alliance is Fred Kaplan,

Slate's War Stories columnists and the author of many books, including

the bomb, presidents, generals, and the secret history of nuclear war.

Fred, welcome back to WNYC.

Sure, always good to be here.

And we will open the phones to you right away.

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