CIAO DATE: 07/2009
April 2009
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The arrival of the Obama administration has brought significant hope to a transatlantic partnership that has been both ailing and adrift for the better part of the last two decades. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the two sides of the Atlantic have struggled to identify a new common project and create the tools and institutions needed to address common challenges. To their credit, they have transformed their militaries, integrated new members into Western institutions such as the European Union and NATO, deepened economic ties, developed new partnerships, and acquired new capabilities. But they have also had a number of ugly and public disputes over the nature and severity of the threats they face as well as the means necessary to combat such threats. Although Europe and the United States have sparred over a wide range of issues in recent years, none has created as much friction and resentment as the Iraq war. Iraq highlighted an array of transatlantic differences. First, the two sides of the Atlantic possessed conflicting intelligence assessments, making it impossible to reach consensus on whether or not Iraq actually had acquired weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Second, those who believed that Iraq did posses weapons of mass destruction could not agree on the potential dangers of a WMD-armed Iraq and whether or not preemptive strikes were justified. The fact that no single European view emerged only added complexity to the heated transatlantic debates.
Resource link: U.S.-European Nonproliferation Perspectives [PDF] - 1.3M