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A campaign by the United States to develop a protective shield against ballistic nuclear missiles is alarming Washington's European allies, which fear that it could weaken US-European political and military links and trigger an arms race with Russia and China.
Faced with growing support in the Congress and the Clinton Administration for a national missile defence, European governments have stepped up their warnings that it could destroy the concept of shared risk that for decades has been the foundation of NATO's security doctrine.
The sharpening debate follows almost universal condemnation of the US Senate's rejection of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.
It has fortified a perception that the US is exploiting its global military and economic clout to lock in strategic superiority that would make it immune to future challenges.
The symbolism behind US intentions to change the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty so that it can build a missile shield has not been lost on foreign leaders, who have seized on the issue to warn Washington about the dangers of retreating into a fortress mentality.
''There is no doubt that this would lead to split security standards within the NATO alliance,'' the German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, said in Washington last week.
''I see lots of problems developing in this respect, which we must discuss calmly and reasonably with our American friends.''
Mr Fischer said Germany's commitment to being a non-nuclear nation ''was always based on our trust that the US would protect our interests, that the US, as the leading nuclear power, would guarantee some sort of order''.
Even the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, probably President Bill Clinton's closest ally among world leaders, is said to have serious reservations.
Britain's support would be critical for Washington because of the need for the US to upgrade its tracking stations on British soil so they could shoot down missiles before they struck North America.
Mr Walter Slocombe, the US Under-Secretary of Defence, said on Friday that Mr Clinton would decide ''next summer at the earliest'' whether to order the deployment of a limited national missile defence.
By then, Mr Clinton hopes to have persuaded Moscow to modify the ABM treaty, but the Russians have rejected this request and insist any unilateral abrogation by the US will provoke a new arms race.
Mr Slocombe said while the Clinton Administration would prefer to preserve the ABM treaty, it would not let Russian objections stand in the way of a missile defence system if the US determined it was in its security interest to build one.
The US has sought to reassure its allies that the system will not be deployed unless the technology has been proved, the costs are reasonable, the threat is significant, and that it improves security.
But Washington's European allies remain fearful that the US may not be thinking through the consequences for the rest of the world.