Germans say the moment of truth for most children comes at the end of Grade 4 when primary education ends in Grundschule. By that reckoning, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) at 73 is in “second childishness and mere oblivion / Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” — to borrow from Jaques’ famous soliloquy in Shakespeare’s As you Like It.

NATO runs into multipolar world order