Abstract
All alliances are like roses: they wither and decay, said General de Gaulle, the former French President. The NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization looks like a counter-example to this statement. During the Munich Conference, the US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, claimed, "As an alliance we have never been stronger. We have never been more united. We have never been more resolved to move forward together." The prevailing opinion, however, was quite the opposite. On both sides of the Atlantic, no one would say that this statement strongly reflects the current reality. On the contrary, NATO is actually a huge object of controversies and is at a crossroads, trying to define its future, if there is any. Is the NATO still relevant in a world of evolving coalitions and global economies? Is there a place for a military partnership originally formed to counter balance the Soviet Union (USSR) that no longer exists? Will the eternally-fraught transatlantic relationship be the downfall of the most powerful military alliance in the world? In order to understand this debate better, I will first present the framework of the current controversy surrounding NATO, and then describe the point of view of NATO as well. I will consequently discuss the fact that, without a positive reformation, NATO will no longer be relevant in a post Cold War world.
