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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 04/04
Renewing the Atlantic Partnership
Henry A. Kissinger, Lawrence H. Summers and Charles A.Kupchan
March 2004
Executive Summary
The accomplishments of the Atlantic alliance are remarkable. History records few, if any, alliances that have yielded so many benefits for their members or for the broader international community. After centuries of recurrent conflict, war among the European great powers has become inconceivable. The Cold War has been won; the threat of nuclear war has receded. Freedom has prevailed against totalitarian ideologies.Trade, investment, and travel are more open today than ever before. Progress in raising living standards— in rich and poor countries alike—is unprecedented.
Despite these accomplishments, the transatlantic relationship is under greater strain today than at any point in at least a generation. Many Europeans assume malign intent on the part of the United States. Many Americans resent European behavior and dismiss European perceptions of today's threats. The conviction that the United States is a hyperpower to be contained has become fashionable in Europe. Reliance on coalitions of the willing to act when the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will not has become the policy of the United States.
The war in Iraq brought these strains to the point of crisis. France and Germany organized resistance to the United States in the UN Security Council—alongside Russia, historically NATO's chief adversary. The Bush administration, in turn, sought to separate these states from other members of the alliance and the European Union (EU). For a time, rhetoric replaced diplomacy as the primary instrument for taking positions, making criticisms, and shaping coalitions.
