Yes, President Trump and President Emmanuel Macron of France exchanged some sharp words. And yes, Trump might have suffered some mild Justin Trudeau-led teasing behind his back. But despite hyperbolic media coverage which suggests the world's most successful multilateral alliance is dying, the NATO summit in London, which concluded on Wednesday, was a huge success.

First off, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan backed away from a previous threat to block improved NATO support for the Baltic states and Poland. Until Wednesday, Erdogan had been holding out on this unless the alliance recognized the Kurdish YPG group in Syria — an ad hoc ally against the Islamic State in the recent war — as a terrorist organization. Instead, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda observed that the Baltic states and Poland had met with Erdogan and received his support. This is a positive development which suggests that Turkey might reconsider its increasing deference to Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader, after all, will be unhappy with Erdogan for backing NATO's Baltic security strategy.

Moreover, agreement on that security strategy is a big deal in and of itself. The primary threat to NATO's security envelope is a potential Russian blitzkrieg combined arms offensive into the Baltics or through Belarus into Poland. With the 29-member alliance now unified in upgrading its support to those nations — all of which responsibly meet the NATO defense spending target of 2% of GDP — Russia faces a new deterrent. This is not to say a Russian attack is likely, simply that its possibility demands a commensurate counterforce.

Another success is the continued agreement from allies to increase defense spending. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg served as Trump's allies here, pushing other members to meet that 2% target sooner. And in a noteworthy development, the Trump administration took a more conciliatory tone here. The Washington Post reports that Trump "did not threaten other countries in the same way he had done in previous NATO meetings, according to five NATO diplomats and policymakers ..."

This is good news. While Trump is absolutely right to publicly pressure allies to spend more on defense, and has won significant spending increases as a result of this pressure, only Russia benefits where the United States is seen to question NATO's Article Five mutual defense clause. By avoiding that, Trump can leave this summit fairly claiming that he has advanced the need for greater burden sharing, but he has done so in the context of strengthening NATO's unity, not of making threats against allies.

So ignore the headlines. Judging by what was actually agreed to, this was a very successful NATO summit.