ABSTRACT
The great irony of the last decade is that as Soviet military power has grown the alliance created to thwart it has weakened. United States critics of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are fond of reminding the present generation that NATO's founding fathers in the United States were very dubious about the alliance. A high point for Europe followed in 1975, when all the European leaders plus the United States president and Canadian prime minister gathered in Helsinki to ratify the new European settlement, thus finally ending World War II with a synthetic peace treaty. The new tensions between the United States and Europe were not produced by Ronald Reagan or his administration. It is clear that the era of European security dominated by the superpowers is waning. The United States must recognize the sentiment in favor of a European nuclear entity, which is beginning to come into vogue as an alternative to dependence on the United States.
