Visions of the Atlantic Alliance

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Notwithstanding a significant change of tone in U.S.-European relations since the reelection of President George W. Bush, the transatlantic partnership remains a complex imbalance of states and institutions -- an alliance that is troubled, unhinged, and may even be fading. This is not the long-announced end of the alliance, but it is surely the long-neglected end of an era. Yet for all the differences that exist between the United States and the states of Europe, and for all the differences that remain within Europe about the fate of its Union, Europe matters to America, and America to Europe, because overlapping interests, compatible values, and converging interests make of each the other's partner of choice -- indeed, partner of necessity. This volume reviews many of the highest priority issues faced by the United States and Europe, as well as the main institutions to which they belong: economic issues, including the persistent U.S. twin deficits and the evolution of a virtual Euro-Atlantic economy relative to the global economy; the Middle East, including Iran's nuclear development, postwar conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the need for democratic reform in the region; the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union as institutions; the threat of nuclear terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; unfinished security business in Europe, including the status of Ukraine, as well as Russia's evolution; and the so-called U.S.-European values gap as an obstacle to the renewal of the transatlantic partnership.