Is the EU or Nato Better for Obama? (GERMANY)

The best and brightest of the US foreign policy community reflexively designate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as the institution for trans-Atlantic cooperation. These scholars, diplomats, and politicians -- from both parties -- are America's Atlanticists. Unlike the neoconservatives, they think in multilateral terms, value the Europeans as long-standing allies, and believe in international law. Barack Obama is certainly no exception.

Yet the Atlanticists err by clinging so stubbornly to NATO for so many diverse purposes. As much as it has struggled to reinvent itself since the days of the East-West conflict, NATO remains a US-dominated military alliance with a Cold War mindset. Not only is NATO ill-equipped to confront the plurality of new challenges in the post-Cold War (and now post-American) world order, it has become counterproductive to the task it was originally created to do -- namely to guarantee security in Europe.

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