| Publication |
2008.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The transatlantic security project - with its central focus on the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) - was by many accounts a phenomenon that occurred because of the bipolarity of the international system during the Cold War. The main contention of this article is that the foundation of the transatlantic security project was built on a paradox. The transatlantic security project may have been the right response to the security challenges of the Cold War, but the project, as conceived originally, was not able to meet the new challenges brought by the fall of the Soviet Union. With the Cold War gone, the nature of the power relations between the main pillars of the transatlantic relationship, the US and the EU, started to change. Therefore, what best defines the idiosyncratic existence of the transatlantic space de notre jours? In order to answer this question, this article is structured as follows. First, I analyse the paradox of the transatlantic security project. I then explore the relationship between the newly created EU institutions and NATO. Third, I claim that the Clinton administration tried to solve the transatlantic paradox by taming European power, that is, by making efforts to tie the EU's security institutions into NATO. By contrast, the Bush II presidency has tried to divide European power. I conclude by arguing that references to the transatlantic relationship, as to a monolithic bloc - a way in which it was conceived and referred to during the Cold War - no longer reflect the new transatlantic reality. A new transatlantic security space has been emerging; a more fragmented space - a space invested with a new dynamic, in which actors' security and geo-political concerns have started to diverge.
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