When the U.S. was faced with a new global threat 60 years ago, the expansionism of Soviet communism, its leaders responded with an awesome burst of creativity. Among the institutions they launched were the World Bank, the Marshall Plan and, most important, the mutual-defense pact and military alliance NATO.
Now faced with a new global threat, that of terrorism from Islamist extremists, we could sure use some of that type of creative and bold thinking. What would George Marshall and Dean Acheson be doing now? At the top of their list, I suspect, would be forging a new version of NATO. They might...