ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the transatlantic interface between the EU and the United States. In a book presented as dealing with the European security order, the presence of the United States may need some elaboration. The perspective entertained here is that the United States is indeed a European power. This can be justified on theoretical, instrumental as well as ideational grounds. In theoretical terms, if acknowledging that the United States entertains a position approximating that of a superpower, it can be argued that American policy choices are of political significance in all regional orders. This argument, in line with the Buzan and Wæver framework elaborated in the early parts of this book, relates to perspectives on the rationale for and impact of extra-regional involvement in regional processes (see for instance Ayoob 1999, Goh 2008, Miller 2001). Instrumentally, the high degree of US-European cooperation – economically, politically, and otherwise, both in the bilateral context and in multilateral forums – displays a relationship of intense interdependence and at times joint global leadership. The EU-US link is arguably the most important one in a comprehensive perspective, but naturally NATO holds a unique bond in terms of military security and collective defence. Also in ideational terms can the United States be argued to be a European power, as the shared history of many Europeans and Americans provide for a significant degree of identification. All three factors, along with a number of others elaborated below, help explain the official EU position that the United States is the closest ally of the EU. The points above also help explain the special standing of the EU (and, to be sure, of individual member-states) in the eyes of American policymakers. It comes as no surprise, then, that the EU-American relationship is a close and positive one; the subsequent analysis seeks rather to further develop the finer points of such a proposition. At the same time, there are numerous issues on the global agenda where it is, or in some cases was, more appropriate to talk about a transatlantic divide than a bridge. In everything from economic sanctions to the role of the United Nations, the EU and the United States has at times ended up on different sides of the fence. To be sure, the global as well as European importance of the United States
actually helps explain the divergence within the EU circle of countries, not least in the security sphere (reactions to the American involvement in Iraq is an obvious case in point). What does this complex background imply in terms of the character of the interface between the European Union and the United States? This chapter seeks to answer this question by analysing perceptions of the two sides, first, by reviewing common and conflicting behaviour in a number of pressing international issues, and second, by assessing perceptions of each other as expressed in officials statements and interviews (that is, for the consumption of the other party, which may play into subsequent development of perceptions). Initially, however, a brief note on the formal framework for interaction.
