From the Editors of the Wall Street Journal:  Defense Secretary Robert Gates is leaving office with a bang, and yesterday his target was a NATO alliance that he said is risking "collective military irrelevance" by spending so little on defense that it can’t defeat a two-bit dictator like Moammar Gadhafi after 11 weeks of military action. His ordnance landed directly on target. . . .

In other words, the frequent warnings that declining European military budgets would undermine NATO have finally come true. . . .

This is "unacceptable," Mr. Gates said, and he warned Europe that this disparity will sooner or later erode the willingness of Congress and "the American body politic" to keep financing NATO. Such U.S. warnings have been heard and ignored before. But in an era of increasing fiscal constraints and debt, the danger of a nuclear Iran and a rising China, Europeans shouldn’t assume that America will underwrite their defenses indefinitely. (photo: Reuters)

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