ABSTRACT
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was a working decisionmaking body representing a nucleus of Western European states combined under the leadership of the United States. Many European members of the Alliance simply do not accept that the Political Union process has reached sufficient maturity. A major problem, of course, is that the Euromania clashes openly with Washington's sensitivities at a time when more and more Americans are prepared to advocate and accept a major retreat from foreign, including European, entanglements. The forum in which Europeans continued to express their own views in matters of defense and security was, of course, the European Community. The uniqueness of NATO, after all, has historically resided in the fact that it was the only effective instrument capable of countering the military weight of the Soviet Union. Indeed, NATO had at the time to face a double challenge, one that looked like threatening its very existence.
