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As recently as a few years ago, many analysts of NATO and transatlantic relations implied that the disagreements between the United States and several of its key long-term European allies were but the most recent example of a process of disagreements that had been occurring since the very creation of the NATO alliance itself. Although perhaps more serious than earlier conflicts, it was assumed that, much as in the past, they would also be overcome. Yet, as others have demonstrated in a plethora of recent studies of the nature and future of the transatlantic relationship, the current cleavages within the transatlantic community appear to be much more serious and to cut to the very core of the relationship itself. The alternative view concerning the essential nature of the divisions was captured most graphically, perhaps, in Robert Kagan's characterization of Americans as more assertive and warlike, while Europeans were more committed to resolving conflict through negotiations and compromise. These growing differences in values -- Martian vs Venetian -- are at the heart of the transatlantic divisions, according to Kagan (2003, 3).
In the present symposium, the authors agree that the current divisions within the transatlantic community are far more fundamental than divisions in the past and relate to the very nature of the relationship itself. They attempt both to place current transatlantic relations in historical and contemporary comparative perspective and to examine the factors that have led to the recent impasse in relations and to project into the future and assess their likely development in the near and medium term. In so far as the authors agree about the future, it is likely to be one in which agreement and collaboration will be mixed with divisions and conflicts.
The first five essays deal largely with the factors that have led to the current challenges to the cohesiveness of the intra-Western relationships and begin with Jan Ifversen's attempt, in 'Who are the Westerners?', to identify the subject of our current inquiry -- namely the Western, or transatlantic, alliance. He notes that Europe today is not united on a broad range of foreign and security policy issues and can, in effect, be divided into five different 'Europes,' each with its own policy preferences. Through an overview of the...