The political and ideological alignments of the Atlantic Alliance, never far from the concerns of this column, are once again to the fore. There was a time—a simple, distant time—when it was enough for the framers and drafters of the North Atlantic Treaty to declare the common determination of the signatories “to safeguard the freedom, common heritage, and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.”
This rather rare ideological commitment was understood, or thought to be understood, by everybody. It had the additional merit of vagueness: the formula, stretched a bit, allowed the admission into the Alliance of the repressive Salazar dictatorship in Portugal, but excluded the (by then) far more liberal Franco dictatorship in Spain.
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