Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 12/5/2007
The European Union, the United States and ‘Liberal Imperialism’
January 2006
Center for Transatlantic Relations
Abstract
The Iraq crisis has been a stress test for the transatlantic partners.1 It is the latest in a series that at once has been revealing and redefining their relationship since the Cold War’s end. The first Gulf War, Bosnia, and Kosovo: each measured the ability of Americans and Europeans to continue working effectively together. Each highlighted distinctive habits of national mind and action obscured by the exigencies of the Cold War. Each raised pointed questions about the pattern of interaction between the United States and its major allies. Each provided insights into the capabilities, limitations, and internal strains of multilateral organizations: NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations. Each altered attitudes and images in ways that affected how the next crisis was handled.
The strains generated by Iraq II are most grievous, and the ramifications consequentially are more far-reaching, for two reasons. The deviation from the normal modes of address was so extreme, and the divisions so acute, that NATO’s viability as the premier institution for Euro-American cooperation was called into question. Moreover, the crisis raised strategic issues of supreme importance so that differences could not be finessed. Either common ground will be found or the Alliance will founder. Ties among EU member governments, too, were stretched to the breaking point, jeopardizing prospects for the more meaningful Common Foreign and Security Policy envisaged by the now defunct Constitution. Current attempts at effecting reconciliation, between the United States and Europe, and among Europeans, quicken our interest in assessing Euro-American futures. The challenge is to define viable terms of a renewed partnership while seeking consensus on a security agenda dominated by a novel set of issues. A salutary first step is to take a searching look at assumptions that shape the present discourse.
