The dispute on the accession of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO or more exactly the opposition of France and Germany to such a project is just a symptom of the disease NATO has caught. The Bucharest summit may be just the beginning of the end of the alliance that has seen to the security of the West from 1949 up to now. Unfortunately, the success or failure of the summit due in April doesn't consist in the number of participants. France is dreaming about a European Union as an international super power to be coordinated from Paris and to have a great influance over the world's military, political and economic matters. Paris wants to rule the world. In order to attain his goal Nicolas Sarkozy wants to persuade the US into putting up with the comeback of France to the leading structures in the alliance, which France itself decided to leave in 1966. Washington would also have to agree with the idea of an independent European military structure. It is about the ESDP (European Security and Defense Policy) and the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy). Both projects are aimed at a European military-political alliance to replace NATO. Brussels bureaucrats are already working on the making of institutions identical to NATO institutions. The target is to centralize European military acquisitions and promote the European military industrial complex. The Europeans' actions are diminishing NATO's defense capacity by the cut on the compatibility between the European and US defense systems, the high tech ones in particular. It is about separate commandments and separate military doctrines. One example is the failed Galiley project on which billions from the European funds have been spent and which wants to become a reply to the GPS American system of global positioning by satellite. The Americans have complained that Galiley could harm the US security because of the the way it functions. Moreover, the Chinese participation to the European project is the safe way to an illegal transfer of technology. Washington is now so desperate that officials can't even deny a possibility such as to sack the Galiley satellites from the orbit, of necessary. The ESDP leads to the undermining of the NATO and the breaking of several international agreements, such as the Berlin Plus, the one settling the NATO-EU relations. Furthermore, the ESDP proved powerless. Its first operation, the Arthemis in Africa, was a failure. Missions such as the Althea (Bosnia) and the Concordia (Macedonia), with the EU 'replacing' the NATO, were masquerade. In fact, the same troops stayed on the field, but they just changed the badges. So France, undermining NATO in Europe as much as it can, now wants to penetrate the NATO top structures to become a true Trojan Horse. But Paris has promised to send some more jumpers to Afghanistan instead. That is NATO has got some problems in Afghanistan and Nicolas Sarkozy wants to make a cynnical use of the occasion and set a condition for a normal participation. Angela Merkel is standing by it too. Just like a marketing manager, she rules Germany's foreign affairs depending on the opinion polls measuring the Germans' hostility to war. The European policy is leading NATO to dissolution. A failure in Afghanistan would destroy what is left of the NATO prestige, already harmed because of the veto right granted to Russia as far as the NATO enlargement with Georgia and Ukraine is concerned. Since they are fed-up with the Brussels jesters, the Americans may dump Europe and focus on the Asia-Pacific or the Persian Gulf. In such a case, Romania can't just let itself 'defended' by Nicolas Sarkozy, Javier Solana or Angela Merkel. The only solution is to encourage US interests in Romania and reach bilateral agreements with the US. Romania has got the right to make sure of its national security the way it pleases. Traian Basescu's already famous "Washington-London-Bucharest" axis is more real than ever.

George SCARLAT