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This article discusses plans by the European Union to create a credible unified military force. At a December 1999 summit in Helsinki, Finland, the leaders of the European Union (EU) announced their intention to create a rapid reaction force able to act autonomously, send up to 60,000 troops abroad within two months, and sustain them for at least a year. Apart from the hoopla surrounding it, this latest initiative seems more serious than its predecessors. If done right, the development of a serious EU defense force could be a good thing for all concerned reducing American burdens in Europe, making Europe a better and more capable partner, and providing a way for Europeans to tackle security problems where and when the United States cannot or will not get involved. If done badly, however, the EU project risks irrelevance as an empty institutional distraction--or even worse, a step back toward the situation in the Balkans in the early 1990s, when separate European and American strategies and institutions led to impotence and recrimination.

This article responds to Jeffrey L. Cimbalo's essay "Saving NATO From Europe," and examines the impact of the European Union on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In "Saving NATO From Europe," (November/December 2004), Jeffrey L. Cimbalo warns that a dagger is pointed at the heart of the Atlantic alliance, and the murder weapon is the European Union's draft constitution. Our point of departure is the conviction that the United States needs a strong, self-confident European partner that can bring its political, economic, and military weight to bear in addressing threats to common interests in Europe and beyond. Europe will effectively help the United States meet these challenges only if it becomes a more confident and cohesive actor--a goal reachable only through European integration. Notwithstanding the damage done to U.S.-European relations over the past four years, a large majority of European governments still value cooperation with the United States for the very same reason Washington should seek Brussels' support: because they can best advance their goals together. As a first step, the administration could directly engage and seek to empower the new European Commission president, Portugal's José Manuel Barroso, and the new EU foreign minister, Spain's Javier Solana, both of whom are Atlanticists and true friends of the United States.