The NATO of the future will have to take account of the demanding situations that it has lived through in recent years and that, despite its ongoing desire for change, have to some extent clouded its outlook. These challenges have been operational, organisational and political. There is nothing really new in this, but the current juxtaposition of these challenges threatens to weaken the Atlantic organisation that emerged from the Cold War, perhaps even calling into question its very foundations. It is also time for France to regularise its military position within the Alliance.