French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that nothing stands in the way of France rejoining the NATO alliance as a full member. Charles De Gaulle withdrew France from the military command of NATO in 1966, although it remained part of the political alliance and maintained a substantial amount of informal cooperation. Sarkozy is therefore shifting a national strategy that has been in place for more than 40 years. He has been moving in this direction for months, but Tuesday's statement represents the degree of the evolution in French policy. It would have been hard to imagine this statement made by a French president even a year ago. What Sarkozy is proposing is to reintegrate France into NATO's command structure. He has set three conditions. First, that France would not commit to participating in military operations except on a case-by-case basis. This is already the norm. Second, that France would not leave any forces permanently under NATO command in peacetime. This is already an option for NATO members. Third, France would retain complete control over its nuclear arsenal. On paper this would be a challenge since NATO has a nuclear policy committee, but in practice, other NATO nuclear powers — the United States and the United Kingdom — are part of that committee but retain practical control of their nuclear forces. Nothing that Sarkozy has set as a condition requires a substantial change in how NATO works. Setting the conditions reiterates French independence without challenging NATO's structure. Therefore, Sarkozy is saying that he will reverse de Gaulle's position. The issue is this. When de Gaulle pulled out of NATO in 1966 at the height of the Cold War, he was challenging the foundations of the western security system. Sarkozy's reversal is not of equal importance because NATO is no longer facing the Soviets and because it has no equivalent military role. In other words, does it make any difference what France does with regard to NATO? The most immediate question is Afghanistan, where NATO members are participating in the war under NATO command. All NATO members choose whether and how many troops to send there. Afghanistan is the most significant military action being taken by NATO. France already has troops in Kosovo and Afghanistan under NATO command. NATO is not on hair-trigger alert for a Soviet invasion, and therefore a presence on the military or nuclear committees doesn't make all that much difference. Although Sarkozy's statement indicates that he is moving away from France's position favoring a united European force independent of NATO, he has not abandoned the idea altogether. In fact, he has also called for a 60,000-strong EU force. But whether he gets it or not, it will be in the context of a deeper relationship with NATO and not as an alternative. Ultimately, Sarkozy is proposing to enhance both France's national force (he discussed significant improvements) and its alignment with NATO, which means alignment not only with Europe but also with the United States. The committees on which France sits are not nearly as important as focusing on France as a military power in the context of NATO, rather than on Europe as a separate and independent military power. This change has been under way for months, and Tuesday's statements were planned well before Ireland's referendum rejection of the European Treaty of Lisbon. But in that context, the direction France is taking is significant because it represents another indicator that the idea of Europe as a federated republic is dying, and with it the idea of Europe as an independent power counter-balancing the United States. France is moving to align with the United States, not resist it. As we look beyond the U.S.-jihadist war, what is striking is that — at least as far as France is concerned — the United States has not declined in fundamental power. Jacques Chirac's plan to create a force to balance the United States is gone. In its place is French alignment with the United States via NATO. Sarkozy clearly takes the United States more seriously as a long-term global power than he does the idea of Europe. In that sense, the choices he is making reveal France's net assessment of global power.