After Iraq: Permanent Transatlantic Tensions

Abstract

America’s longtime European allies have become increasingly disturbed by aspects of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Criticisms of US actions are most pronounced in France and Germany, the core of what US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld derisively refers to as ‘old Europe’. Disagreements about Washington’s drive to war against Iraq have been the most acute sources of transatlantic tensions, but they are hardly the only ones. Indeed, early in President Bush’s term, acrimonious disputes arose between the United States and the leading European Union countries over such issues as the Kyoto Protocol on the environment, the international criminal court, and ballistic missile defence. The gap between US and European policy preferences became even more pronounced following the issuance of the Bush administration’s new national security strategy document in September 2002, with its emphasis on ‘pre-emptive action’.