Not parent-poster, but as an American, I have no problem saying "NATO is a tool of American influence"... and a tool for EU influence, and a tool for UK influen

Not parent-poster, but as an American, I have no problem saying "NATO is a tool of American influence"... and a tool for EU influence, and a tool for UK influence, and an overall force-for-good. The statement isn't some shameful secret, to be reluctantly dragged into the light by a wily interrogator, but an obvious and normal feature of an alliance which is neither one-sided nor zero-sum. P.S.: Even among the Americans who disagree, it's usually because they consider it ineffectual, rather than nefarious. Heck, they'd probably like it more if you told them it was a swaggering tool of US hegemony.