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The Americas

The transatlantic relationship has been the cornerstone of the EU’s foreign and security policy. However, in a context where some in the US are looking inwards and questioning the values and institutions their country has built internationally, expectations on Europe have increased. The rise of new global power centres has added a new dimension to transatlantic debates, and both sides of the Atlantic must redefine the relationship to preserve security and prosperity, as well as maintain influence in an emerging international system where the 'West’– may no longer be dominant.

The EU has also cultivated and institutionalised relations with Canada and many countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Recent changes in the international context have made the EU a more attractive partner to LAC countries, which are facing economic slowdowns, rising criminality and problems related to the rule of law. However, the increasing contestation of democratic values (which used to bind LAC countries together) has put regional institutions under pressure and strained relations with the EU.

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    28March 2008
    Why Kosovo?
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    The newest ESDP mission to Kosovo is a display of unity by the European Union, focused on the goal of ensuring stability grounded on the rule of law, including strict respect for minority rights, in the newly-independent state. The EU must achieve its objective while remaining a magnet for Kosovars and at the same time for the Serbs.

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    20March 2008
    Transatlantic relations under an Obama administration
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    Europe, like virtually every corner of the world, has been closely watching the US election campaign, looking for clues as to what might change in its relationship with the United States when a new president emerges from among the triumvirate of Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain.

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    22February 2008
    US policy on Iraq: past, present and future
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    George W. Bush will be remembered first and foremost for starting the war in Iraq and the destabilisation of the country that ensued. This means that, unless there is a dramatic improvement in Iraq before 2009, which appears highly unlikely at the present time, Bush will not be remembered as a successful President. Bush took his country into this war although he did not have to – as argued by Zbigniew Brzezinski, this was a ‘war of choice’.

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    18February 2008
    The year of Europe?
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    ‘1973,’ declared Henry Kissinger in late April of that year, ‘is the year of Europe’—a time, he insisted, for the allies to join in ‘a fresh act of creation … equal to that undertaken by the postwar generation of leaders of Europe and America.’ Now, in 2008, we are on the eve of a new era that awaits the decisions that will define Europe and its relations with the United States after the departure of George W. Bush, Europe’s least-liked postwar US president, and take us beyond the war in Iraq, one of the most divisive issues in Euro-Atlantic relations ever.

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    07February 2008
    After ‘Super Tuesday’. McCain is clear leader, Democrats in a dogfight: Iraq likely to determine General Elections
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    The Primary Elections in 24 states across the US on 5 February 2008 – otherwise know as ‘Super Tuesday’ – have produced a clear winner on the Republican side, John McCain. However, the same is not true for the Democrats, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama remaining tied in their race for the nomination.

  • 27January 2008
    US elections: national security will come back to the 2008 campaign
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    ‘It’s rough out there’ warns the front cover of a recent issue of The Economist, and it is not talking about nuclear threats, Iraq or the growth of China’s military power, but rather about the economy. Economic news from the US has been consistently bad for some time: the dollar has been rapidly losing value against all international currencies, the budget and trade deficits have ballooned, while oil prices have been at record high levels.

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    01January 2008
    US elections: national security will be back in the spotlight in the 2008 Campaign
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    ‘It’s rough out there’ warns the front cover of a recent issue of The Economist, and it is not talking about nuclear threats, Iraq or the growth of China’s military power, but rather about the economy. Economic news from the US has been consistently bad for some time: the dollar has been rapidly losing value against all international currencies, the budget and trade deficits have ballooned, while oil prices have been at record high levels.

  • 29October 2007
    Peace in the Middle East: is there a way forward?

    This event sought to foster a a transatlantic dialogue on the key questions for a negotiated solution: Palestinian politics; the regional context (including Iran); and the respective roles of the EU and the US in promoting the peace process.

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    01September 2007
    Seeing blue: American visions of the European Union
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    For six decades the United States has supported European integration, yet many Americans have an ambivalent attitude towards the European Union. Some Americans see the EU as the culmination of historic efforts to ensure peace, stability and democracy on the continent, while others consider the Union an elaborate scheme to create a rival to US hegemony. Still others dismiss the EU as irrelevant.

  • 01July 2007
    The potential unintended consequences of missile defence in Europe
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    Missile defence in Europe is currently a hotly debated topic in international security. It has animated discussions and raised issues at multiple levels, including ramifications for international relations (e.g. between the US and Russia), intra-EU relations (e.g. concerning national positions), and institutional relations (e.g. the role of NATO).

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    01December 2004
    From America's protégé to constructive European. Polish security policy in the twenty-first century
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    Following the events of 11 September 2001, Poland emerged as one of the United States’s key allies, arguably its protégé, in Central and Eastern Europe. The close affinity of interests on security matters between the United States and Poland became particularly apparent in Iraq, where Warsaw proved to be a strong and highly vocal supporter of Washington.

  • 08November 2004
    Bush II : un grand défi pour l'Europe
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    Récemment, plusieurs sondages internationaux montraient qu’une très large majorité de citoyens du monde « votait » Kerry. Après la victoire confortable de George Bush, cette très grande majorité doit être déçue. Dans tous les cas, obligée de vivre avec une Amérique qui a décidé, très démocratiquement, que les valeurs ultra-conservatrices et la politique militaire de George Bush étaient désormais les véritables incarnations de la démocratie américaine.

  • 01March 2004
    Europe et Etats-Unis -- Visions du monde, visions de l'autre
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    Trois paradoxes définissent l'attitude de l'Union face au monde extérieur. Le premier est typique de la modernité post-guerre froide : à de rares exceptions près, il est beaucoup plus facile aux Européens de s'entendre sur l'analyse des crises extérieures que sur l'analyse de la politique américaine. Autrement dit, le monde rassemble, l'Amérique divise.

  • 10February 2004
    A quoi sert le « Grand Moyen-Orient » ?
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    Du Maroc à l'Afghanistan, tout inventaire de la situation - un an après le début de la guerre en Irak - risque d'être comme de coutume complexe, ambigu, pire pour les uns, meilleur pour les autres, à l'exception de deux évidences : la détérioration continue du conflit israélo-palestinien d'une part ; l'extrême difficulté du « state building » en Irak, de l'autre

  • 19May 2003
    Vrai et faux débats transatlantiques
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    Les Européens seraient-ils comme l'Amérique ? Désormais, « c'est la mission qui fait la coalition et non l'inverse » : tel était le nouveau dogme stratégique américain, érigé en doctrine transatlantique par Donald Rumsfeld au lendemain des attentats du 11 septembre.

  • 01April 2003
    Will North Korea follow Iraq
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    In its National Security Strategy (NSS) published in September 2002, the Bush administration maintains that the United States reserves the right to act pre-emptively to `stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends'.

  • 27February 2003
    Transatlantic crisis
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    Iraq, Iraq, Iraq - a code word for the crisis across the Atlantic and discord within Europe. Yet, though the divide across the Atlantic is bound to grow, the differences within Europe will probably dissipate because, in fact, the overwhelming majority of Europeans are against the war such as it is being forced upon them.

  • 17February 2003
    La politique européenne de la terre brûlée Sauver l'Union
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    La gravité de la crise européenne et transatlantique ne tient pas tant aux injures et ressentiments réciproques, qui se propagent pourtant comme une traînée de poudre, qu'à la conjonction de deux mouvements ravageurs : une Amérique sans mémoire, une Europe sans vision.

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    01January 2003
    Shift or Rift: assessing US-EU relationships after Iraq
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    The idea behind this transatlantic book predates the intense transatlantic exchanges that took place prior to the war in Iraq in early 2003. The run-up to the passage of UN Resolution 1441 in November 2002 provided clear indications that Euro-American relations were about to enter previously uncharted territory.

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    01December 2002
    Iraq: the transatlantic debate
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    Most Americans see the regime of Saddam Hussein as a major threat to regional and international security that must be thwarted, even if that means threatening or even using military force. If Saddam were to acquire nuclear weapons, they fear, he would seek to use them to dominate the Middle East, possibly invading his neighbours as he has in the past and perhaps deterring the United States from stopping him.

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