At his first press conference following the election, the president reiterated statements made on the campaign trail that NATO – the Western alliance defending Europe and North America for decades – was “obsolete.” The year was 1966, and the president was Charles de Gaulle of France.  De Gaulle followed these statements with concrete action, expelling U.S. and NATO forces from French territory and removing French forces from NATO’s integrated military command structure.  It was perhaps the greatest crisis in the now nearly seventy year history of the Alliance. But this critical juncture in NATO also opened the door to wide ranging reforms in the organization and strategy of the Alliance.  Many of these adaptations proved so successful that they endured …