Expansion of NATO : a European Responsibility, by Nicole Gnesotto If the object of expanding NATO is genuine pan-European re conciliation with yesterday's old enemies, the process is obviously desirable, necessary and even indispensable, despite all the risks inherent in such an opening-up. If on the other hand, the aim is to perpetuate existing advantages, in other words, simply to codify the American domination that is unchallenged at the end of the Cold War, then reservations become more legitimate. Europeans have a key responsibility in deciding the final direction taken by this process. The debates on the expansion of NATO are in fact merely the expression of a fundamental choice : will Europe's political order be best guaranteed, on the eve of the third millennium, by being based solely on the political framework of the Atlantic Alliance, or by taking the form of a new geopolitical triangle based on relatively egalitarian cooperation between three autonomous and cooperative decision-making poles : the Alliance, Russia and the European Union ?