Search results
Transatlantic relations have been a core issue in European – especially West European – security since the end of the Second World War. The first section of this chapter examines the nature of the transatlantic relationship and its Cold War evolution. Attention then moves, in the second section, to considering its development during the years since 1989. It will then be argued, in the third and final
perspectives on the use of force within the changing context of transatlantic relations. The changing contours of transatlantic relations The change in German security thinking at the beginning of the twentyfirst century took place within an already evolving context of transatlantic relations. Developments on both sides of the Atlantic in the field of foreign and security policy were setting out quite different European and American agendas and perspectives on the use of force in international politics in the 1990s. Two processes stand out here as illustrative of the nature of
. Furthermore, German policy-makers are always much more keenly aware of the implications that a deepening process of foreign policy integration may have on transatlantic relations. The German government favours a more cohesive European actor capacity to shoulder a greater burden of security, thereby becoming a more equal partner to the US. Nonetheless, this must not jeopardise the continued presence of American involvement in
initiative was less than ideal given that the US Christmas bombing campaign of North Vietnam had been roundly condemned by Europe’s leaders. This soured Nixon’s opinion towards such critics and, indeed, made him re-assess the nature of the entire NATO alliance.28 As Nixon articulated in conversation, NATO ‘had been an alliance of interest and friendship’; now it was ‘just an alliance of interest’.29 Clearly the president’s personal feelings towards European leaders were less than ideal for re-affirming the solidarity of transatlantic relations, but the exception to this
, urbi et orbi , that he was, after all, a morally responsible statesman. They have included the United States’ wish to reassert its position in transatlantic relations in the wake of the Amsterdam Treaty and the arrival of the EMU; the desire of EU member states to prevent the influx of 1 million Kosovar refugees; the interests of the military industry and the interests of technology. In the world of