FEARS that the European defence force could undermine Nato are growing in America with senior Republicans advising President Bush to act swiftly to shore up the transatlantic alliance.Although Mr Bush has been in office for just five days and Gen Colin Powell, the new Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser, have yet to appoint senior staff, the US response to European integration is already emerging as a key issue.

In an article in the Washington Post, Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under President Nixon, said: "The European Union is in the process of creating a military force institutionally distinct from Nato." The force, he said, "could produce the worst of all worlds: disruption of Nato procedures and impairment of allied co-operation without enhanced allied military capability or meaningful European autonomy".

There has been a weakening of the "emotional bond" between Americans and Europe, he argued, with many EU countries seeking their own "special relationship" with Moscow and viewing Nato as a relic of the Cold War. The Clinton administration had left a "legacy of unanswered questions" about European integration but "the advent of Republican administration will inevitably change America's focus of consultation with Europe's leaders".

According to Mr Kissinger, Mr Clinton had put "the prestige of the American presidency behind one side" in many European countries. Under Mr Bush, US policy would be "less geared to personalities and more designed to bring about a meaningful transatlantic dialogue" based on permanent national interests. The backgrounds of Gen Powell and Miss Rice made it "very likely that the task of revitalising the alliance will be given high priority" in the Bush administration.

European countries needed to reassess their opposition to America's National Missile Defence (NMD) programme and "ask themselves whether any American president can seriously be asked to leave his people permanently vulnerable" to countries such as North Korea and Iraq. In yesterday's New York Times, William Safire, a leading conservative commentator, was scathing in his criticism of European defence force plans, which represented a "Euro-isolationism" that was "led by French chauvinists and Brussels bureaucrats". He said that only "the bold" William Hague was "resisting this slow dissolution" of Nato and had given a "Churchillian speech" defending the US-European strategic relationship.