According to US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, the NATO alliance is giving serious consideration to formally joining the war against ISIS. Carter praised NATO head Jens Stoltenberg for getting behind the effort.

The move would in many ways be symbolic, as all 28 NATO member nations have already joined the ISIS war individually as part of the US coalition, meaning this would just be the alliance as such formalizing its own involvement.

Making the war a 'NATO thing' might go a long way toward bolstering US efforts to get the rest of its coalition to commit growing numbers of ground troops into Iraq and Syria for the conflict. The US has so far faced considerable resistance on this call.