Four years ago, French President Emmanuel Macron, newly arrived in office, proposed a European Defense Force – a counterweight to a NATO alliance he and increasingly other EU leaders feared was being effectively held hostage by the United States and especially Donald Trump.

The result at the time was a rupture between Trump and Macron, followed by the French leader’s rapprochement with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Still, Macron’s idea went no further. Until now.