Nobody damns NATO with faint praise. Both boosters and detractors call it the most successful military alliance in history. But does it have a future? It is hard for Americans and Europeans to imagine the past 50 years without the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation there to defend them. Yet it is harder than it used to be to imagine NATO, as it is, advancing far into the 21st century. Before September nth, the question dangling over the transatlantic alliance was what it was for. The cold war, after all, had been over for ten years. Since the attacks on the United States, and with Europe, too, more worried than it used to be about unfettered terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the value of "collective defence" is no longer in so much doubt. But does America, with its unrivalled military power, need NATO any more? And, assuming someone wants and needs it, how can the alliance be adapted to defend its members against the very different threats they now face? If good answers are not found before the NATO summit in Prague in November, the future of NATO looks bleak indeed.
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