It is time for the United States to rethink its policy toward the European Union and European integration more broadly. The new challenges of the twenty-first century and America's changing priorities and strategic needs are making America more rather than less dependent on the European Union and its success. The United States' ability to reach its own top foreign policy objectives - defending the US homeland, winning the war on terror and promoting the spread of freedom and democracy around the world - increasingly require a strong, politically cohesive and outward-looking Europe that can act as a partner around the world. Today America needs a functioning EU as much as an effective NATO.