There are at least 104,149 US military personnel who will not be leaving Europe. They rest in military graves, testimony to the cultural affinities and strategic vulnerabilities that produced the NATO trans-Atlantic alliance, now 71 years old. Intelligent, informed, public-spirited people can support the policy of removing by September about one-third of the 34,500 US troops stationed in Germany. Forces ...

In parts of Germany, Bavarians were once known as “needleheads.” One day, God, angered at the solipsism in the country’s beautiful southernmost state, is supposed to have picked a local up by the head, thus elongating it like a needle, and rotated it. “See,” God said, “there’s more to the world than just Bavaria.” The tale might offer a useful ...

Boris Johnson was elected as Britain’s prime minister because he’s a ruthless optimist, yet he has presided over one of the gloomiest periods in the country’s postwar history. If he wants to cheer people up again, he needs a credible plan for reopening the UK’s schools. Release from lockdown is painfully slow here, and the economic recovery is stuttering because ...