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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 at the international level, expectations on Europe have increased. The rise of new global power centres has added a new dimension to transatlantic debates, and both partners 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 such a dominant, nor united player.

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 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, as well as strained relations with the EU.

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    22February 2008
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    US policy on Iraq: past, present and future

    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
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    The year of Europe?

    ‘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
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    After ‘Super Tuesday’. McCain is clear leader, Democrats in a dogfight: Iraq likely to determine General Elections

    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
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    US elections: national security will come back to the 2008 campaign

    ‘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
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    US elections: national security will be back in the spotlight in the 2008 Campaign

    ‘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
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    Seeing blue: American visions of the European Union

    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
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    The potential unintended consequences of missile defence in Europe

    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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    01June 2007
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    Transformational diplomacy

    The attacks of September 11 2001 spectacularly demonstrated that America’s main security challenges did not stem from traditional power rivalries but rather from ‘grey areas’, failed or badly governed states which are breeding grounds for extremism. But overthrowing tyrants is not enough to create a stable democracy and can even complicate matters, as events between 2003 and 2005 in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt have shown.

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    01April 2007
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    Asia's rise means we must re-think EU-US relations

    How should European and American policymakers respond to the inevitable rise of China and India on the world scene? Werner Weidenfeld assesses the ways in which international relations will undergo change in the years ahead and looks to a new Atlantic partnership while Marcin Zaborowski forms his commentary around the desire of Europe and America for a stable China.

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    01July 2005
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    Attention, danger!

    On avait accusé les électeurs du « non » d’obscurantisme. Les dirigeants font pire, aggravant par le haut la crise que les électeurs d’en bas ont ouverte au sein de l’Union. Du côté des opinions, le message dominant est que rien ne va plus.

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    01July 2005
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    Looking into Iraq

    Two years after George W. Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq, the country is still far from stable. A fierce insurgency is still hampering the reconstruction of the country’s infrastructure and the development of the political process. On the other hand, success, however limited, cannot be denied: on 30 January 2005 Iraqis cast their ballots to elect a Transitional Assembly in most provinces of the country and a new government was inaugurated by the end of March 2005.

  • 19February 2005
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    Bush in Europe II

    On the eve of what will hopefully be a new start to trans-Atlantic relations, it may be worth recalling some of the European Union's achievements in helping to shape a better and more secure international order. Not just words and nice declarations, but facts and a real ability to deliver.

  • 06February 2005
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    El atractivo de Venus

    Para explicar la creciente diferencia entre Estados Unidos y Europa, Robert Kagan, en su libro Poder y debilidad, sugiere que los norteamericanos pueden equipararse a Marte, el dios de la guerra, mientras que los europeos recuerdan a Venus. Kagan no se detiene ahí, pues afirma también que en el mundo peligroso de hoy es mejor ser Marte que Venus, y aplicar la violencia sin vacilación contra dictadores y Estados canallas.

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    01December 2004
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    From America's protégé to constructive European. Polish security policy in the twenty-first century

    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
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    Bush II : un grand défi pour l'Europe

    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
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    Europe et Etats-Unis -- Visions du monde, visions de l'autre

    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
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    A quoi sert le « Grand Moyen-Orient » ?

    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
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    Vrai et faux débats transatlantiques

    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
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    Will North Korea follow Iraq

    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'.

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