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In 2018, Sten Rynning wrote “A Europeanized NATO? The Alliance Contemplates the Trump Era and Beyond” where he argued that NATO goals and U.S. geopolitical policies and priorities diverged under the Trump administration. In the wake of NATO’s recent 75th anniversary summit, we invited Sten back to reflect on the relationship between the United States and NATO.Read more below.Image: The White House/FlickrIn your 2018 article “A Europeanized NATO? The Alliance Contemplates the Trump Era and Beyond,” you argued that NATO’s goals run parallel to U.S. geopolitical priorities under the Trump administration. How have these dynamics shifted in the past four years under the Biden administration?Under President Donald Trump, NATO did well enough militarily but stalled politically. Team Biden has sought to reverse this political trend.U.S. and NATO priorities have come into better alignment. President Joseph Biden has stood up for democracies; NATO similarly plays up its values. Team Biden has sought to contain China’s technological rise and reach; NATO has beefed up its China language and invested in allied defense industry. Team Biden has Indo-Pacific priorities; NATO has enhanced ties to four U.S. allies in the region (Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand) — whose leaders have attended the three most recent NATO summits. Team Biden wants to deter China from resourcing Russia’s war in Ukraine; NATO now speaks of acting against China as “a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine.”Still, Team Biden has also been out of sync with allies. Early on, it bungled the exit from Afghanistan and then, to France’s great chagrin, the making of an AUKUS alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom. On Russia, Team Biden has consistently been behind some allies — mostly a northern axis running from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to Poland, the Baltics, and the Nordic countries — in terms of