In deciding to give an interview to The Economist where he declared NATO “brain dead,” President Emmanuel Macron certainly knew he would spark indignation among his fellow European leaders. He chose to do it nevertheless, not out of proverbial French arrogance, but because he deems it both necessary and urgent. A year away from the next U.S. elections (and with Brexit forever dragging on), an unprecedented window of opportunity is about to slam shut for France. ...

For the past twenty years, the United States has been pushing the Alliance to become “global”, on the grounds that it must adapt to new risks and threats if it wants “to stay relevant” (meaning: to be useful for American interests and to ensure, in exchange, that the USA stays engaged on the old continent). After all, it is only fair. Except that for the European allies this would mechanically lead to giving up their own policies. The challenge for them would therefore be to prevent, as much as possible, the expansion of NATO’s competencies to other (non-military) domains and to other (non-euro-Atlantic) geographical areas. For one of the main rationales behind NATO “going global” is to make sure that Europeans – who, in NATO, find themselves in a subordinate position vis-à-vis the USA – formulate their various policies no longer on their own, but within the U.S.-led Atlantic Alliance. ...