DONALD SENSING offers a firsthand account explaining the real purpose of American troops in Europe:

There were no reporters present, so people spoke pretty freely. During the course of the discussion, Herr Leutnant General said that the only reason Europe had enjoyed its longest period ever of uninterrupted peace was that there were two US Army corps in western Germany, and significant US forces elsewhere in Europe. He didn’t quite say that without American boots on the ground there, Europe would have gone to war with itself again, but we clearly understood that’s what he meant. The British and Italian representatives nodded.

What will happen if NATO dies? Nothing good, I’m afraid.

Meanwhile, reader Jaikumar Ramaswamy emails:

I am an avid instapundit reader and usually agree with you, but it seems to me that you draw the wrong conclusion from the BBC article that you link to–a mistake that I think many other commentators are also making.

I think that what we are witnessing is the UN-ification of NATO that has resulted from the admission of France in the 90’s. At the time I feared that this was a huge mistake, and those fears are only now being realized (although arguably French intransigieance during the Balkan campaign was a harbinger of what we are now seeing).

As you probably already know, De Gaulle unilaterally withdrew France from the Nato command structure in 1965 (I think this is the right year). During that time France always saw itself as an independent actor and often worked to frustrate US policy. I think what we are now seeing is how lucky we were that France was not part of NATO for most of the cold war, and how much our foreign policy would have suffered if it had been.

The article points out how none of the other supporters of French policy who are long-standing Nato members are being as intransigeant as the French. (In addition it seems that the Dutch government sees how damaging French behavior is to the alliance.) The problem is only made worse by France’s self professed national interest–to contain American “hyperpower”–that has developed in response to the end of the cold war. Of course, in pursuing its interests France (not America) is willing to do great damage to the Western alliance.

I think that our policy makers do in fact realize this and that this was the strategic reason for Richard Perle’s suggestion last week for developing a parallel command structure within NATO that exclude’s the French. (I assume the talk was meant to tests the waters from someone not officially in the administration). It would essentially return us to the pre-1990’s status quo. If this is not done, then, NATO might die.

And another reader quotes Churchill: “The hardest cross to bear is the cross of Lorraine.” Heh. Hadn’t heard that one.

UPDATE: Several readers email to note that I haven’t heard the Churchill quote because it’s bogus. That is, it’s a real quote — but not from Churchill.