Is NATO an Obstacle for Washington's Cooperation With Russia and China?

American leadership relies too heavily on military power and NATO to advance its interests in the world, thus robbing itself of the opportunity to participate in the "bold new architecture," which Russia and China are building in Eurasia, former senior CIA official Graham E. Fuller wrote for the Consortiumnews magazine.

"The Pentagon has put the State Department out of business. NATO today particularly symbolizes that myopic and defensive orientation," he observed.

In other words, the US mainly acts through an organization that, according to the analyst, "possesses little cultural, economic, or even significant political or soft power." For Fuller, NATO "lacks an enlightened global vision. It is obsolescent."

While Washington is primarily focused on creating defensive military architecture, Moscow and Beijing offer "a whole array of new economic plans, visions and projects" to support infrastructural and institutional development in Eurasia, including new roads, railways lines, maritime routes and all the auxiliary ties and arrangements that these projects involve.

Although these emerging structures "are not fundamentally defensive or military in nature," the United States is trying to ignore if not oppose the opportunities that this "bold new architecture" is offering to anyone eager to participate.

"Are we not hobbling ourselves by primarily promoting defensive alliances against Russia and China while a positive new world is under construction all across Eurasia – one that even Europe is finding hard to resist?" Fuller asked.