Barely two years after French President Emmanuel Macron declared it "brain-dead," NATO has been resurrected by Russia's threats over Ukraine, leaving the rusty but trusty United States-led defense alliance the only game in town for European security. 

How that serves Moscow's decades-old strategic goal of pushing the U.S. out of Europe to better dominate the Continent, only Russian President Vladimir Putin knows. But to those of us not privy to his endgame, it seems counterintuitive, to say the least. 

Whatever Putin eventually chooses to do about Ukraine, if his aim was to weaken the Western alliance he has unquestionably scored a number of own goals.