ABSTRACT
The ‘power versus weakness’ image has become a very common and popular way of depicting the divergences between the USA and the Europeans in the post-Cold War world. Beyond the simplistic dichotomy between Mars and Venus, the literature on transatlantic relations has often discussed the reality and the myth of the so-called transatlantic gap. This chapter shows that the ‘distinctive’ European approach to security issues has not prevented the European Union (EU) of developing a geopolitical vision that transcends the somewhat candid depiction of EU’s strategic thought and security policies given by the literature. It discusses the notion of the EU frontier, the EU geopolitical vision and the resulting practice of projecting security outside the EU’s boundary. During the Cold War, Europeans and Americans agreed on the relevance of the Transatlantic Alliance to defend continental Europe and the Euro-Atlantic Sea Lines of Communication against the Soviet Union.
