Morganl Roach News Today

Secretary Hillary Clinton must be proactive on this European trip, requesting European military support in Afghanistan as well as confronting Russian opposition to key U.S. policies such as NATOenlargement and missile defense.

In the post-9/11 world, NATO faces an evolving set of challengesand threats, including terrorism, ballistic missile attack,cyberterrorism, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction aswell as traditional military challenges. NATO members should agreeto new burden-sharing rules, including commitments to increasedefense spending and to reduce national operational caveats, andreadmit France into its integrated military command structures withconditions.

President Obama's discussions with Minister Lavrov serve asimportant preparatory talks for his July 2009 meeting withPresident Medvedev in Moscow. The United States must be clear thatit intends to reset relations with Russia, and do so only on termsthat work with--and not against--American policy.

In an effort to create "one telephone line" to Europe, the EU's proposed Lisbon Treaty, successor to the European Constitution, would remove foreign policy from the intergovernmental sphere andmake it a supranational EU competence. An EU foreign policy will becharacterized by inaction, Franco-German dominance, and an attemptto limit American power.

Individuals who traveled in Pakistan and received terrorist training there or in Afghanistan are a central part of the challenge of Islamist terrorism in Britain. Because al-Qaeda'sstrategy relies partly on using European nationals to carry outattacks against the United States, the rise of Islamist terrorismin Britain and Europe poses a serious danger to the U.S. and itsallies in Europe and around the world.