| Summary: | The article reasons that the U.S. must adapt its foreign policy to the political integration of the European Union resulting from its pending constitution. The proposed European federation is unprecedented: no democracy has ever merged with anathor to from such an enity. The constitution, which purports to integrate the 25 nations of the Eropean Union, would create a new international actor with its own foreign minister and its own foreign policy. This development would have profound and troubling implications for the transatlantic alliance and for future U.S. influence in Europe. By structure and inclination, the new Europe would focus on aggrandizing EU power at the expense of NATO, the foundation of the transatlantic security relationship for more than half a century. In other words, it would seek to balance rather than complement U.S. power-an outcome for which the United States is wholly unprepared. Washington's hand off' policy on Europen integration was traditionally based on two assumptions: taht, in the face of the Soviet threat, an integrated Europe would bea boon to NATO and Western democracy (it was) and that, as free nations, prospective EU member states are entitled to organize themselves anyway they choose (they are). But the text and context of the proposed con stitution should prompt U.S. policymakers to reconsider. The constitution's national security provisions signify that, for the first time, the NATO alliance faces a threat from within Europe ifself. The political integration of the EU presents the greatest challenge to continuing U.S. influence in Europe since World war II,
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