Mr. Pete: These are strange days for the men and women of NATO, their eyes trained east toward Russia while also aware they’ve essentially been orphaned by Uncle Sam, their longtime benefactor. They are like the Yankees come to play a game they know but suddenly confronted with a lack of bats, balls, bases, and, worst of all, umpires. Where then to turn for everything from scarce jet fuel to combat advice, since even the European Union emits confusing signals? NATO’s surreal situation reminds me of a neighbor of ours, Mr. Pete, who in 1960 had a giant hole dug in his backyard into which a submarine was lowered, or so we boys thought — I was seven. But it was in fact a fallout shelter with cots, canned food, and a water cooler. We were allowed to play in the sub and even got sugar cookie treats from Mrs. Pete. In exchange we had to listen to him tell us about the “Russkies” and that in the end there would be no alliances and we’d have to fend for ourselves. All his bluster took on urgency two years later when Moscow delivered nuclear-tipped missiles to Cuba. Cold War life going forward borrowed pages from the thick 1986 Tom Clancy novel, Red Storm Rising, in which Islamic extremists seize a vital Russian pipeline, thus forcing the Soviet Union to invade oil-rich Persian Gulf countries and triggering a massive conventional war in Europe. Though a very smart military writer with a superb mind for fiction, not even the likes of Clancy, were he still alive, could imagine Uncle Sam turning away from Europe. But he has, leaving NATO unsettled and, at times, directionless.