Late last year you reported that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s summit in Lisbon went “boringly” well (“Europe and America,” November 27, 2010). Things have changed, though. Together with Robert Gates, the outgoing American defense secretary, you question NATO’s future (“On Target,” June 18, 2011). Of course, the unrest on the southern shores of the Mediterranean has intervened in the meanwhile. “Libya is a warning,” as you put it squarely. Only a few months of engagement in the bloody civil war has been enough to put a serious strain between America and Europe. Exhausted, many NATO countries are already pulling out. Europeans are now seen by Americans as free-riders. They are not pulling their own weight in the defense of the sub-continent while America is turning elsewhere with its security concerns, most notably to the Pacific. Thus you argue that last year’s Franco-British defense pact is the way to go for the European Union. “Pool it or lose it,” you conclude your article. But it is enough to remember recent wars in Bosnia and Kosovo to see what is in store. Pool it the Union cannot, so it will lose it sooner or later. The only hope is still in America, the only country with a real punch in NATO. Perhaps Robert Gates’ parting shot will awaken a few remaining dreamers in the Union, and they will pay America for their own defense a bit less sparingly.