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On the evening of 22 September 2001, the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation invoked that treaty's mutual defence guarantee for the first time in the alliance's 52 years. When that treaty's Article 5 was drafted--pledging that an attack on one ally would be treated as an attack on all--not a single signatory could have imagined that its first invocation would involve Europeans coming to the aid of the United States rather than the other way around. Yet that is precisely what happened, and NATO will never be the same again. The notion that mutual defence could be a two-way street, and that NATO might use its military power to deal with international terrorism--in Central Asia no less--are just some of the ways that the attacks have begun to transform the world's largest and longest-standing defence alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even after the US decision to lead NATO into Bosnia, it is legitimate to be concerned about the future of the Atlantic Alliance. Not only has the military threat that made this alliance necessary in the first place disappeared, but other geopolitical, economic and demographic factors are also loosening the bonds between Europe and the United States. An institutionalised Atlantic Alliance remains useful to both sides, and new challenges will probably be enough to hold it together. But while doing what they can to preserve a partnership still in their interest, European and US leaders should understand that the Alliance is being recast. US leadership cannot be taken for granted, and, when that leadership comes, its terms will more than ever be dictated by the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]