America’s European allies are, it seems, sharing some of the concerns that American Democrats and a good number of the American people have about the sitting president, namely, that he’s no longer functional. Oh, he can stand upright and make mouth noises, but Joe Biden is the commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military (which remains so despite Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s best attempts to neuter it) and he is the man who has his finger on the big nuclear bang-button. So it’s easy to understand why folks in NATO may be a little concerned.

These foreign officials largely favor Biden’s reelection and fear that Donald Trump’s return to office would damage the NATO alliance and cripple the war effort in Ukraine. But they have reacted to Biden’s recent debate performance with dismay and fear that Biden may be too frail to defeat Trump and lead a global superpower.

One wonders if a big part of the reason that NATO prefers befuddled old Joe Biden is that President Trump needled them to live up to their NATO-required defense budgeting. It’s hard to see any other reason for preferring the dementia-riddled Joe Biden over Trump when the primary purpose of NATO is deterrence; deterrence only works, after all, if there is strength behind it, and there is no strength left in Biden or his administration.