Beyond paradise and power. Contending arguments on the future of transatlantic relations and the West (1991-2001)

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BEYOND PARADISE AND POWER.
CONTENDING ARGUMENTS ON THE FUTURE
OF TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS AND THE WEST
(1991-2001)

by

Serena Simoni

____________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS)

May 2008

Copyright 2008 Serena Simoni
ii
Dedication

For Carlo
iii
Acknowledgments
This dissertation could not have been written without the support and
encouragement of Hayward Alker, my initial advisor. When he suddenly left us, I
honestly doubted that I could go on without his enthusiasm and guidance.
Fortunately, I was rescued by Robert English who generously accepted to become
my new Chair and gave me the confidence to finish this project. Steven Ross’
friendship and constant support and Steven Lamy’s valuable advice, made me feel I
was not alone as I feared. To them goes my sincere gratitude and my appreciation for
their patience and their priceless advice.
I am grateful to the College of Liberal Arts and the School of International
Relations at USC for their continuous support. A sincere thanks goes to the Director
of the School, Laurie Brand, and to the valuable staff, Linda Cole and Luda
Spilewsky, always ready to help and to understand.
A special debt of gratitude goes to Catia Confortini, my fellow graduate
student and dear friend, for her bighearted encouragement throughout,
notwithstanding the challenges in her life.
My gratitude goes also to my family in Italy, who in the good times, but
especially in the moments of crisis, believed in me and supported me
unconditionally. They have been the caring partners of my very personal
“transatlantic relations”.
iv
And finally, to Carlo Chiarenza, who shared my life during the long process
of writing, re-writing and revising, I am forever grateful for the gift of his love and
for his cooking.
v
Table of Contents
Dedication …………………………………………………………………… ii
Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………… iii
List of Tables ………………………………………………………………… vi
List of Figures ……………………………………………………………….. vii
Abstract ……………………………………………………………………… viii
Chapter 1: Introduction ……………………………………………………... 1
Chapter 2: Review of the Debate 1990-2001 ………………………………. 42
Chapter 3: The Case of NATO …………………………………………….. 103
Chapter 4: The Case of the ICC …………………………………………… 145
Chapter 5: The Case of Debt Relief ………………………………………. 179
Chapter 6: Conclusions …………………………………………………… 211
Bibliography ………………………………………………………………. 229
Bibliography by Type …………………………………………………….. 249
vi
List of Tables
Table 1. Legend: Neo-realists: Figure 1 – Figure 4 …………………………….. 47
Table 2. Arguments on the past relations among North Atlantic core states …… 88
Table 3. Arguments on the future relations among North Atlantic core states …. 89
Table 4. Public Intellectuals’ Visions/Identifications of the West ……………… 102
vii
List of Figures
Figure 1. Neo-Realists. Cold War: Factors that kept the U.S. and
Europe together …………………………………………………………….. 49
Figure 2. Neo-Realists. Post-Cold War: Factors that are pulling the
U.S. and Europe apart ……………………………………………………… 50

Figure 3. Neo-Realists. Causal Map of Cold War Arguments …………….. 58
Figure 4. Neo-Realists. Causal Map of Post-Cold War Arguments ……….. 60
Figure 5. Neo-Liberals. Cold War: Reasons for Cooperation based on
security interests …………………………………………………………….. 64

Figure 6. Neo-Liberals. Cold War: Reasons for Cooperation based on
economic interests …………………………………………………………… 66

Figure 7. Neo-Liberals. Cold War: Reasons for Cooperation based on value
identification ………………………………………………………………… 67

Figure 8. Neo-Liberals. Correlation Map of Cold War Arguments ………… 70
Figure 9. Neo-Liberals. Post-Cold War: Reasons for Cooperation based on
security interests …………………………………………………………….. 71

Figure 10. Neo-Liberals. Post-Cold War: Reasons for Cooperation based on
economic interests …………………………………………………………... 75

Figure 11. Neo-Liberals. Post-Cold War: Reasons for Cooperation based on
value identity ………………………………………………………………... 79

Figure 12. Neo-Liberals. Correlation Map of Post-Cold War Arguments …... 82
Figure 13. Outstanding Debt in Developing Countries (1970-2001) ……….. 184
viii
Abstract
This thesis argues that disagreements and/or agreements between
transatlantic partners will continue depending on the issue at stake. Both the United
States and Europe will manage their relations on a ‘pick and choose’ basis. This is a
process that started in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War and has continued
notwithstanding the rise of a new and perceived common threat (i.e. Islamic
terrorism). We need to conceptualize the transatlantic relations and the West as part
of a dynamic process that started with the collapse of the USSR and that is constantly
constructed and re-constructed by European and American values, identities and
social practices which ultimately determine their policies. Understanding Euro-
American contemporary and future partnerships, and the forces that regulate them,
requires being aware of the evolution in the praxis of their relations. This entails
challenging the limitedness of “transatlantic relations” and “West” as identifiers of
the relationship. We need to set limits and redefine these words (i.e. transatlantic
relations and the West), which have become over determined by their usage during
the Cold War. By continuing to use these terms to indicate common political,
security and economic interests, we are missing how Euro-American divergent
policies emerged.

1
Chapter 1: Introduction

I. Whither the West?

On January 23rd, 2003, French and German leaders were outraged. French
Finance Minister Francis Mer affirmed being “profoundly vexed” while German
Foreign Minister Joschka Fisher declared that “we should try to treat each other
sensibly” and added: “our position is not a problem, it is a constructive
contribution”.
1
Such atypical outrage was caused by the remarks made the day before
by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had defined France and Germany as
“problems” vis-à-vis the U.S. intent to invade Iraq and had labeled them as
representatives of the “old” Europe because of their insistence on finding a
diplomatic solution that could avoid war with Iraq.
2
For many, this was evidence of a
serious transatlantic crisis, one in which, given the prevailing post 9/11 era, had as
central characters the “old” Europe and the “go-it alone” United States.
3
But just

1
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2687403.stm
2
On this point, and as a way of providing the full context of the remark, it is relevant to note that this
comment intended to set the “old” Europe (i.e. France and Germany) in explicit contrast to the
cooperativeness, of the “new” Europe (i.e. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic). With his
remark, Rumsfeld simultaneously irritated the leadership of Europe and undermined the European
Union political project.
3
The disagreement over Iraq prompted consensus on the hypothesis that, with the end of the cold war,
the basis for transatlantic relations was eroding. Perhaps the most famous argument that the U.S. and
Europe were growing apart as been made by Robert Kagan in his 2002 article, “Paradise and Power,”
Policy Review (June and July 2002), an argument that was later expanded into a book, Of Paradise
and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). See
also Francis Fukuyama, “The West May Be Cracking,” International Herald Tribune, August 9,
2002, p.4 in which he talks about deep differences between the U.S. and Europe; Charles
Krauthammer, “Reimagining NATO,” Washington Post, May 24, 2002, argues that NATO is dead;
Josef Joffe, “The Alliance is Dead. Long Live the New Alliance,” New York Times, September 29,
2002. Joffe asserts that the anti-Soviet alliance is dead and has been replaced by one “that allows the
United States to pick and choose.” Following the Iraq crisis, others envisaged such crisis as the cause
of transatlantic political differences. Tony Judt for example argued that “we are witnessing the
dissolution of an international system.” See Tony Judt, “The Way We Live Now,” New York Review

2
how crucial was this crisis? And what relevance would it have for the future of the
transatlantic allies?
During the Cold War years the transatlantic relationship as a military alliance
managed to survive most challenges. As historian and International Relations
scholar, Michael Cox reminds us, such a relationship “had its ups and downs, of
course. Indeed, its whole history was marked by what seemed at the time to be
terminal crises, from Suez to the Gaullist challenge, Vietnam to the clashes caused
by Regan’s new Cold War of the early 1980s.”
4
Nonetheless, its structure, as he puts
it, “endured, like some sturdy medieval castle within whose thick walls the
Americans and the Europeans could enjoy each other’s company even if they
sometimes had their little family spats.”
5

The transatlantic military alliance was built, according to Lord Ismay,
NATO’s first Secretary General (1952-1957), on three basic needs: keeping the
Russian out, the Germans down, and the Americans in.
6
The transformation of
Europe from the champion of power-politics to a highly institutionalized region

of Books, March 27, 2003, vol. 50, Iss. 5; pg. 6. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote that
“if the existing trend in transatlantic relations continues, the international system will be
fundamentally altered,” quoted in Philip Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro. Allies at war: America, Europe,
and the crisis over Iraq. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004, p. 4. See also Charles Kupchan who
stated that the U.S. and Europe headed toward “geopolitical rivalry.” He makes this argument in The
End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-First Century (New
York, NY: Knopf, 2002) and in “The Alliance Lies in the Rubble,” Financial Times, April 10, 2003.
4
Michael Cox, “Martians and Venutians in the New World Order,” International Affairs, vol.79, n.3
(2003), p.524.
5
Michael Cox, “Martians and Venutians,” p. 524. Michael Cox is using interchangeably transatlantic
relations, Americans and Europeans and NATO.
6
There is not a uniform quotation of Lord Isamy’s famous phrase. In Michael Cox’s article is “to
keep the Russians out, Germans down, and the Americans in” see Cox, “Martians and Venutians,”
p.523-532. In Joseph Nye’s article is “to keep the Russians out, the American in, and the Germans
down,” See Joseph Nye, “The US and Europe: Continental Drift?” International Affairs, vol. 76, n.1
(2000), p.53.

3
characterized by a supranational entity (i.e. the European Union), with Germany and
France at its core, did not diminish the strategic value of maintaining a transatlantic
relationship. The containment of communism was still vital and required a strong
partnership with the United States; thus the Americans had to ‘stay in’.
Transatlantic relations, however, were not only about security; they were also
about economic cooperation. Between 1948 and 1952 the European Recovery
Program (as the American Marshall Plan was officially known) pumped into the
European economy approximately $13.2 billion.
7
Economic cooperation, however,
did not stop with the Marshall Plan; since the United States also supported European
economic integration.
8
Furthermore, during the Cold War, the United States and
Europe established international institutions to regulate economic relations and both
were indeed major players as well as promoters of some key economic institutional
structures, which advanced economic cooperation internationally, such as the

7
The $ 13.2 billion grants and credits were supplied as follows: $3.2 billion to Great Britain and its
dependencies, $2.7 billion to France, $1.5 billion to Italy, and $1.4 billion to what in 1949 was to
become West Germany). The economic consequences for Europe greatly surpassed the expectations.
By 1952, European industrial production had risen to 35% above the prewar level. The United States
obtained commercial benefits from its financial generosity. For example, Europeans had to purchase
at least two thirds of their imports from the United States, which meant domestic economic growth
(i.e. higher profits and more jobs). See William R. Keylor, The Twentieth-Century World and Beyond.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2006), p. 244. See also Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan:
America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952, (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press: 1987).
8
It is worth noticing that the U.S. had invested economic and political interests in the success of the
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The hope was that, given the Cold War, the
Community would follow a liberal commercial policy, which would have advantaged the U.S.
commercially and politically. See Robert Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War,
(New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1985).

4
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Trade Organization
(WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the G7.
9

Security and economic cooperation proved to be mutually reinforcing in the
Cold War Euro-American relations. But as the Soviet Union unexpectedly collapsed,
the crucial question shifted, and suddenly became: what impact would the end of the
Cold War have on transatlantic relations? And will the U.S. and Europe keep
cooperating, given the absence of a perceived common threat?
This question spurred a wide debate in public and academic circles during the
1990s. From the numerous answers that emerged from those discussions one issue
became clear: International Relations specialists were sharply divided on the likely
future direction of transatlantic relations. Two contending argumentative positions
on the prospects of a transatlantic partnership, also reflecting two major theoretic
approaches to security and cooperation in International Relations (IR), emerged from
the debate: in fealty to their belief that balance-of-power politics is the main

9
In the aftermath of WWII, the capitalist world economy was restructured under American
leadership.
The GATT was created in 1947 to facilitate free trade and help arbitrate disputes (as in the European
agricultural subsidy case). In 1995, the GATT became the WTO. See Bernard Hoekman and Michel
Kostecki, The Political Economy of the World Trading System: From GATT to WTO. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press: 1999). The IMF originated in the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 with the
purpose of regulating the international monetary exchange system. See Barry Eichengreen,
Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1996) and David Andrews, Randall Henning, and Luis Pauly, eds., Governing the
World’s Money, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002). Bretton Woods set a regime of stable
monetary exchange, based on the U.S. dollar and backed by gold, the so-called “gold standard.” But
because of U.S. overspending in Vietnam, the outflow of dollars to buy oil and the European and
Japanese economic recovery from WWII, the U.S. dollar became overvalued. In 1971, President
Nixon decided to abandon the gold standard. Since then, states, including European ones, had to
bargain politically over the targets for currency exchange rates in the meetings known as G7 summits.
In 1997, Russia joined the G7 summits, making it G8, but normally does not participate in meetings
on economic affairs. Therefore, the group is still often referred to as the G7.

5
determinant of international relations, neo-realists expected a worsening of Euro-
American relations, while neo-liberals, following their core belief in the power of
institutions, maintained an optimistic outlook.
10

Neo-realists argued that the lack of the Soviet threat would crumble Euro-
American military and economic cooperation. As a consequence of the
disappearance of the common threat, many contended, the US and Europe would not
feel the need to prolong their cooperation in the military and economic realms. As
long as the transatlantic allies had to confront the Soviet Union, neo-realists claimed,

10
For a balance-of-power explanation of international relations see the canonical neo-realist work of
Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, (Redding, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979); see also
Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987) and John
Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York, NY: Norton, 2001). It is worth
noticing the distinction between neo-realists and “classical” realists. While the former stress that the
international system is made of great powers, each seeking to survive, the latter, such as Hans
Morgenthau, emphasize that states, like human beings have an innate longing to control others, which
lead them to conflicts. See Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and
Peace (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1993.
For neo-liberals who emphasize the role of international institutions through which concerted action
can be achieved, see Robert Kehoane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World
Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984) and Robert Kehoane and Lisa
Martin, “The Promise of Institutionalist Theory,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer,
1995), pp. 39-51. On regimes as set of principles, norms, rules and decision making procedures that
regulate states’ behavior, see Robert Kehoane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence, 3
rd
ed.
(New York, NY: Longman, 2001). This book was published in its first edition in 1977. On regimes
see also Hedley Bull who argues that institutions help states’ adherence to rules. Hedley Bull, The
Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York, NY: Columbia University Press,
1977). It is also important to mention that there is a debate in the study of international relations in the
U.S. between neo-realism and liberal institutionalism. Such debate is presented in David A. Baldwin,
ed., Neo-realism and Neoliberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). It is important to
note that constructivists, with a focus on the role of norms, identity and culture in world politics,
challenge the dominance of neo-realism and neo-liberalism in the field of international relations by
offering alternative understandings of key topics such as the prospects for change in world politics,
the relationship between identity and interest, the meaning of balance of power and of anarchy. See
Nicholas Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989), Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of
National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press,
1996) and Yosef Lapid and Friedrich V. Kratochwil, eds., The Return of Culture and Identity in IR
Theory (Boulder, Co.: Lynne Rienner, 1996). Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make of It:
The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International Organization,Vol. 46, No.2 (Spring 2002),
pp. 391-425.

6
they felt compelled to engage in military and economic cooperation. Conversely,
with that threat removed, they argued, the basis for both types of cooperation was
undermined.
11

Opposite to the neo-realist position, neo-liberals have emphasized instead
that the prospect of a continued transatlantic cooperation between the US and Europe
would remain, even in the absence of a common threat.
12
They have argued that
shared economic interests and political identities (i.e. democracy and free-market
economies)
13
as well as membership in public institutions such as NATO, WTO,

11
For the neo-realist camp on the likely future of the transatlantic relations see: John Mearsheimer,
“Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1
(Summer, 1990), pp. 5-56. Owen Harries, “The Collapse of ‘The West,’” Foreign Affairs,
September/October 1993, pp. 41-53. Charles Kupchan, “Reviving the West,” Foreign Affairs,
May/June, 1996, pp. 92-104. Stephen Walt, “The Ties that Fray,” The National Interest, (Winter,
1998-1999), pp. 3-11. Robert Kagan, Power and Weakness, Policy Review; Jun/Jul 2002. Robert
Kagan, Of Paradise and Power (New York: N.Y.: Knopf, 2003) and Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.
12
For the neo-liberals approach to the post cold war transatlantic relations’ see: James Elles,
“Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship,” European Business Journal, vol.5, issue no. 3, pp. 34-
41. John Duffield, “NATO’s Functions after the Cold War,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 109,
issue no. 5, pp.763-787. Robert Blackwill, The Future of Transatlantic Relations, (Council For
Foreign Relations Press, 1999). Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West,” World
Policy Journal, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter, 1993), pp. 17-25. Nye, “The US and Europe.”. Robert
McCalla, “NATO's Persistence after the Cold War,” International Organization, Summer 1996, pp.
445-475. Anthony Blinken, “The False Crisis Over the Atlantic,” Foreign Affairs, (May/June, 2001),
pp.35-48. Ivo Daalder, “Europe: Rebalancing the U.S.-European Relationship,” The Brookings
Institution, (Summer 1999), p.22-25.
13
It is important to remember that, for constructivists, identity has a different meaning. The identity of
a state entails, as Ted Hopf puts it, “its preferences and consequent actions.” Each state defines others
according to the identity it ascribes to them. This process however is dynamic because the state also
constructs its own identity thorough continuous daily practice. Indeed, the way the state perceives the
others and itself, determines its preferences which ultimately result in actions. In essence, if a state
identifies itself as a “great power” it will have a different set of preferences than the one which
identifies itself as a middle power. Ted Hopf, “The Promise of Constructivism in International
Relations Theory,” International Security, vol. 23, no. 1 (Summer, 1998), pp. 175-6. There are many
constructivist works that have shown how identities set policy preferences. Many of these works can
be found in Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security. Some examples from Katzenstein are
Martha Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention,” pp. 153-185, Robert
Herman, “Identity, Norms and National Security: The Soviet Foreign Policy Revolution and the End
of the Cold War,” pp. 271-316, and Thomas Berger, “Norms, Identity, and National Security in
Germany and Japan,” pp. 317-356.

7
IMF and G7 continued to constitute a stable basis for transatlantic cooperation. The
absence of a common threat and the presence of such shared elements, neo-liberals
argued, decreased the likelihood of separation between the transatlantic allies.
14

What seems to be missing or inadequately addressed in the existing literature
on the future of the transatlantic partnership, is an analysis of the interactions or
praxis
15
of the United States and Europe within international institutions, during a
period in which there has been no clear common enemy that could catalyze their
political, military and economic relations. Providing evidence for their behavior,
16

such an analysis would show the validity and usefulness of both the neo-realist and
neo-liberal predictions for the future of the transatlantic relations. Further, it would

14
See Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship”. Duffield, “NATO’s Functions after the
Cold War”. Blackwill, The Future of Transatlantic Relations. Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of
the West”. Nye, “The US and Europe”. McCalla, “NATO's Persistence after the Cold War”. Blinken,
“The False Crisis Over the Atlantic”. Daalder, “Europe: Rebalancing the U.S.-European
Relationship”.
15
This term of Greek origin means action. In Marxist terminology, it refers both to the relationships
between production and labor which constitute the social structure and to the transforming action that
the revolution is supposed to exercise on those relationships. Marx and Engels argued that we need to
explain the formation of ideas through the “material praxis.” See Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The
German Ideology (1845). In customary international law, the norms that regulate the behavior of all
states are praxis-based. The term praxis refers to the behavior of the states. States, by believing that
their behavior is norm-based, repeat such behavior (praxis) and in so doing they establish new norms
that are not written but that are nonetheless believed to be legitimate and therefore to be obeyed by all.
See Karol Wolfke, Custom in Present International Law, 2
nd
rev, ed. (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, 1994) and Benedetto Conforti, Diritto Internazionale, (Napoli: Editoriale Scientifica,
1997) In International Relations, Martha Finnemore seems to be the closest to this understanding of
the meaning of praxis when she analyzes change in the normative context which shapes states’
behavior. See Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention,” pp. 153-185. In a
common parlance, praxis means practice as opposed to theory. My conceptualization of praxis follows
in the steps of constructivist theorists, such as Hopf, for whom “meaningful behavior, or action, is
possible only within an intersubjective social context.” As he further explains, “Actors develop their
relations with, and understandings of, others through the media of norms and practices.” See Hopf,
“The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory,” pp. 173. In the present study, the
term praxis, most simply defined, means reciprocal interaction of actors in the social context of world
politics and it is conceived as a causative force determining politics.
16
For an analysis of the distinction between action and behavior see Charles Taylor, “Interpretation
and the Sciences of Man,” in Paul Rabinow and William M. Sullivan, eds., Interpretative Social
Science: A Second Look (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 33-81.

8
tell us which prediction has been more accurate and insightful and would expose the
underlying general theoretical assumptions of each approach with respect to a trans-
Atlantic partnership between the two powers. Additionally, such an analysis would
offer an understanding of what issues the United States and Europe would consider
worthy of cooperation, and therefore allow for more accurate predictions on the
future of the transatlantic relations and the West. In the late 1990s, for example, the
US abandoned important cooperative efforts supported by Europe, undermining
multilateralism, and leaving Europeans on their own on the Kyoto global warming
treaty (Kyoto Protocol, 1997), the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use,
Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their
Destruction (Ottawa Treaty, 1997), and the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court Treaty (Rome Statute, 1998). In light of these political divisions on
multilateral efforts, the inevitable questions that need to be asked are: What do these
behaviors tell us about the future of the transatlantic allies? Were they symptomatic
of the opening of a gap which signaled larger political and cultural divisions
17
within

17
By “cultural divisions” here I am suggesting that values could be a divisive instead of a unifying
factor. The values that I am referring to are not democracy or free market economies as neo-liberals
stress, but rather societal values as identified by Ronald Inglehart, Miguel Basañez and Alejandro
Moreno, eds., Human Values and Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Source (University of Michigan, 1993).
Constructivists see values, identity and culture as key elements for analyzing world politics. In this
regard, see R.B.J. Walker, “East Wind, West Wind: Civilizations, Hegemonies, and World Orders,” in
Walker, ed., Culture, Ideology and World Order (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), p.3.
However, many focus on discovering how these factors are socially constructed to shape national
interest. In this respect, see Taylor, “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man. Others analyze the
relationship between knowledge and power; see James Der Derian, On Diplomacy. A Genealogy of
Western Estrangement (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 4. Others study the relationship
between actor and structure and their mutual constitution, see R.B.J. Walker, “World Politics, and
Western Reason: Universalism, Pluralism, Hegemony,” in Walker, Culture, Ideology and World
Order, pp. 409-410. On the importance of culture in international politics see also Yosef Lapid,
“Culture’s Ship: Returns and Departures in International Relations Theory,” in Yosef Lapid and

9
the partnership? Were they evidence of an ongoing reshaping of their relations? And
if so, what does this reveal to us about the West? Should it be redefined in the Post-
Cold war era? And how can we characterize the West when it is no longer definable
by an exclusively negative juxtaposition with the Soviet Union? And finally, is
Islamic terrorism the new defining threat which can bring the West closer again, and
set it off against a new enemy? These are some of the questions which are guiding
this investigation.
Answering these questions requires the consideration of two factors: an
assessment of the ongoing debates on the future of the transatlantic relations, and an
understanding of the fluidity of those transatlantic relations. The structure of this
study is inspired by Thomas Biersteker’s 1987 work on the effects of multinational
corporate investment in underdeveloped countries, Distortion or Development?
Contending Perspectives on the Multinational Corporation.
In his introduction, Biersteker argued that although “the impacts and
implications” of multinational corporate investment has produced much “research
and discussion, most has been conducted within the ideological and normative
confines of a single research perspective, with little concern for systematically
addressing the central propositions of alternative perspectives.”
18
As he explains, his
book describes

Friedrich Kratochwil, eds., The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne
Rienner, 1996), pp. 3-20.
18
Thomas Biersteker, Distortion or Development? Contending Perspectives on the Multinational
Corporation, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978), p. 1

10
an effort to evaluate systematically two alternative, contending theoretical
perspectives on the consequences of multinational investment in
underdeveloped countries. Such an evaluation makes it possible to identify
the underlying values and assumptions of different perspectives, to evaluate
their arguments in terms of alternative arguments (or counterarguments), and
to direct discussions toward the most important questions about multinational
investment.
19

This study has similar general purposes. More specifically, it seeks to
elucidate the underlying values and assumptions of different perspectives and to
assess the arguments of one perspective (i.e. neo-realist arguments) in terms of the
arguments of the other perspective (i.e. neo-liberal arguments). However, the focus
here is the future of transatlantic relations and the West in the post-Cold War.
To aid the reader in understanding the arguments of the two perspectives, I
will utilize graphs as a means of visual illustration. The visual illustration is
necessary because, if presented only in a verbal form, the arguments would conceal
hidden frameworks and obscure mutual disengagement in responding to the
contending perspectives.
Parallel to Biersteker’s methodology, I will then compare the arguments of
the opposing sides in the transatlantic debate noting where they agree, disagree or
speak past each other. This analysis will allow me to identify points of contention
that exist. Finally, I will assess the validity of the contending arguments on three
detailed contemporary or recent case studies
20
which have present relevance (NATO,

19
Biersteker, Distortion or Development?, p.1
20
In the present work the term ‘case study’ is identified with qualitative methods.
The term in fact holds several meanings. ‘Case study’ might mean that its method is qualitative,
small-N. See: Harry Eckstein, “Case Studies and Theories in Political Science,” in Fred Greenstein
and Nelson Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science, vol. 7. Political Science: Scope and Theory.

11
the ICC and the debt relief for third world countries). The case studies will provide
the empirical evidence for the claims made in the debate and offer insights on how
we should understand the future of the transatlantic relations.
21
In order to determine
the future of the transatlantic relations, one needs to know more about the specific
situation, or the social context. We need to investigate the social practices of the U.S.
and Europe as constitutive practices.
22
This approach will enable us to predict the
future of their partnership because states behave and act within a social context and

(Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975), pp. 94-137. Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case
Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004), Arend,
Lijphard, “The Comparable cases Strategy in Comparative Research,” Comparative Political Studies,
Vol. 8, July 1975, pp. 158-77. Anthony Orum, Joe Feagin and Gideon Sjoberg, “Introduction: The
Nature of the Case Study,” in Orum, Feagin and Sjoberg, eds., A Case for the Case Study, (Chapman
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 1-21. Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for
Students of Political Science, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). Robert Yin, Case Study
Research: Design and Methods. (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1994).
It might mean that the research is holistic (i.e. a comprehensive examination of a phenomenon). See:
Charles Ragin, The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies,
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). Randy Stoecker, “Evaluating and Rethinking the
Case Study.” The Sociological Review, vol. 39, February 1991, pp. 88-112. Piet Verschuren, “Case
Study as a Research Strategy: Some Ambiguities and Opportunities.” Social Research Methodology,
(Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 2001).
It might also mean that it employs a particular type of evidence (i.e. historical, field research, non
experimental, textual, process tracing etc.) George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory
Development and Yin, Case Study Research. For a full discussion on the problem of case study’s
definition see: John Gerring, Case Study Research. Principles and Practices, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), pp. 17-36.
For discussion of case studies’ importance in contemporary and historical accounts, see Gary King,
Robert Keohane and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Enquiry, (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University
Press, 1994), pp.43-45.
21
“Case studies are essential for description, and are, therefore, fundamental to social science. It is
pointless to seek to explain what we have not described with a reasonable degree of precision.” King,
Keohane and Verba, Designing Social Enquiry, p.44. Most of the literature analyzed makes
predictions on the future of the transatlantic relations, but anticipated reactions in world politics are
“less useful than a careful description that focuses on events that we have reason to believe are
important and interconnected.” King, Keohane and Verba, Designing Social Enquiry, p.44.
22
By “constitutive practices” I mean the practices or praxis that constitute the actor and that determine
the actor’s politics as understood by constructivists. See Hopf, “The Promise of Constructivism in
International Relations Theory,” pp. 176. See also Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security.

12
therefore an approach that considers these interactive exchanges or “intersubjective”
actions within a social context, will give us insights into their future relations.
23

The first case study assesses the first contentious argument in the debate:
neo-realists have argued that we should have expected a decrease in NATO’s
strength as a result of the end of the Cold War. On the contrary, neo-liberals have
contended that there would still be consensus on the importance of NATO. This case
reveals that while the Euro-American partners disagreed on how to transform
NATO, the US and the European allies did not question the importance of the
alliance and redefined the meaning of transatlantic relations and the West on
humanitarian grounds.
24
The implications of these results are immense because by
perceiving themselves as a moral authority, the US and the European allies once
again united on a commonly perceived set of higher principles (i.e. protection of
human rights), just as they did during the Cold War.

23
The term “intersubjective” is used by Hopf, in “The Promise of Constructivism in International
Relations Theory,” pp. 173.
24
In order explain what I mean by “humanitarian grounds” it is first necessary to clarify a related
term, “humanitarian intervention.” Humanitarian intervention can be thought as encompassing non-
military forms of interventions (i.e. the activities of NGOs such as the Red Cross or Doctors Without
Borders). But the Security Council has widened this meaning with the adoption of Resolution 794 in
December 1992 that authorized the use of force on the grounds that “the magnitude of the human
tragedy caused by the conflict in Somalia” constituted a threat to “international peace and security.”
The document can be viewed on line at:
http://www.pogar.org/publications/unresolutions/somalia/sres-794-1992.pdf
In so doing, some argue, the Security Council has created the new collective norm of “humanitarian
intervention.” In this sense, see Christopher Greenwood, “Is There a Right of Humanitarian
Intervention?”, The World Today, (February, 1993), vol. 49, no. 2, p.38. The term “humanitarian
intervention” thus has been used to justify the use of force to end gross violations of human rights. Its
use in the case of Kosovo was particularly controversial because in the absence of Security Council
authorization, a group of states justified the use of force against another state on “humanitarian
grounds.” Therefore, when I use the term “humanitarian grounds” I mean the justifying of the use of
military force to end human suffering.

13
The other two cases in this study respond to another contentious claim in the
ongoing debates which can be summarized by the following question: Is there
evidence of the dissolution of the commitment to the Atlantic community or do
institutions, norms and values keep the Atlantic community together?
The second case study, which investigates the question of the establishment
of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to try persons accused of genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes, suggests that in the 1990s the U.S. and Europe
developed different understandings of the meaning of concepts such as justice, unity
and sovereignty. Contrary to the previous case, this case study thus suggests that
such different redefinitions are influencing their practices and ultimately are pulling
them apart from prior cooperative relationships. For example, while for the U.S. any
limitation of its sovereignty is dangerous because of its troops’ involvement in
military operations around the world, for Europeans sovereignty can be limited if the
end result is the protection of human rights.
25
These different understandings of
sovereignty influence American and European praxis on the word stage, and separate
them.
The third case, that of debt relief
26
for the third world countries, reveals
instead that both the U.S. and Europe are committed to the remission of the debt but

25
On the question of sovereignty and the ICC see for example, Former Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger, US Senate Hearing, Committee on Foreign Relations, June 14, 2000. European Council
Common Position of June 2001 on the International Criminal Court (2001/443/CFSP). Official
Journal of the European Communities 12.6.2001. L. 155/19. Available on line at: http://europa.eu.int
26
The debt I refer to is the ‘external debt’ of the third world countries. The external debt is the total
private and public foreign debt owed by a country to a foreign investor. Over the last 50 years the
external debt emerged as the key problem toward economic development in many third world

14
the process of arriving at a common end nonetheless reflects an essential difference
in values. The U.S. has a much more traditional value system
27
than any European
society. This case study emphasizes that there is value distance
28
across the Atlantic.
Thus, while this case, at least in part, disproves the liberal argument of common
values operating as a unifying factor, at the same time it confirms U.S.-European
cooperation with regards to the issue of debt relief.
The explanations that dominate the literature on transatlantic relations and the
West highlight important aspects of Euro-American relations (security-economic
interests and political identities). None of the extant literature, however, adequately
addresses another critical point: the contradictions in their praxis during the 1990s,
the interim period between the collapse of a perceived common enemy and the rise

countries. ‘Debt relief’ is the term that encapsulates the idea that the external debt should be dealt
with either by providing financial assistance in coping with it or by writing it off.
27
For traditional value system I mean a set of values which, according to Inglehart, Basañez and
Moreno “emphasize the following: God is very important in respondent’s life. It is more important for
a child to learn obedience and religious faith than independence and determination. Abortion is never
justifiable. Respondent has strong sense of national pride. Respondent favors more respect for
authority.” Secular-rational values instead emphasize the opposite. See Ronald Inglehart, Miguel
Basañez and Alejandro Moreno, eds., Human Values and Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Source
(University of Michigan, 1993), p. 49.
28
In order to explain the meaning of “value distance” I must refer again to Inglehart, Basañez and
Moreno, Human Values and Beliefs. This study offers a “cultural map of the world about 2000”,
which illustrates the location of eighty societies surveyed on two main dimensions of cross-cultural
variation. The vertical axis reflects the polarization between traditional authority and secular rational
authority linked with the process of industrialization. The horizontal axis reflects the polarization
between survival values and self-expression values linked with the rise of postindustrial society. The
traditional authority vs. secular authority dimension “reflect emphasis on obedience to traditional
authority (usually religious authority), and adherence to family and communal obligations, and norms
of sharing.” Inglehart, Basañez and Moreno, eds., Human Values and Beliefs, p. 15. According to
their cultural map, the United States has a much more traditional value system than any other country
in Europe except for Ireland. On the traditional/secular dimension, the United States ranks far below
European countries, with levels of religiosity and national pride comparable with those found in some
developing societies. See also Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural
Change, and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), Cultural map of the world
about 2000, p. 63. The cross-cultural variation in the vertical axis between the United States and
Europe is what I call “value distance.”

15
of a new one. These contradictions are pervasive in at least three critical areas:
security, justice and economic development. In these critical areas, Euro-American
relations have often been at odds.
The post Cold War West and transatlantic relations cannot be understood or
conceptualized within an amorphous framework that elaborates on assumptions
borrowed from the Cold War dynamics because that specific parameter is now
obsolete. Indeed, the collapse of the USSR has changed the reality of the
transatlantic partnership. Nonetheless, while it has not brought the entire church
down it has unequivocally stirred a reformulation of transatlantic relations that is less
dependent on the presence of a common enemy and more determined by the issues at
stake.
This thesis argues that disagreements and/or agreements will continue
depending on the issue at stake. Both the United States and Europe will manage their
relations on a ‘pick and choose’ basis. This is a process that started in the aftermath
of the end of the Cold War and has continued notwithstanding the rise of a new and
perceived common threat (i.e. Islamic terrorism). We need to conceptualize the
transatlantic relations and the West as part of a dynamic process that started with the
collapse of the USSR and that is constantly constructed and re-constructed by
European and American values, identities and social practices which ultimately
determine their policies.
29
Understanding Euro-American contemporary and future

29
On identity, values and social practices see Hopf, “The Promise of Constructivism,” p. 176 and
Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security. Some examples from Katzenstein are Martha
Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention,” pp. 153-185, Rober Herman,

16
partnerships, and the forces that regulate them, requires being aware of the evolution
in the praxis of their relations. This entails challenging the limitedness of
“transatlantic relations” and “West” as identifiers of the relationship. We need to set
limits and redefine these words (i.e. transatlantic relations and the West), which have
become over determined by their usage during the Cold War. By continuing to use
these terms to indicate common political, security and economic interests, we are
missing how Euro-American divergent policies emerged.
Yet defining the West in the post cold war world is not an easy task. The
West is a security alliance which defines security relations within the North Atlantic
realm through a perception of itself as the ultimate moral authority. Nonetheless, the
West is also a body of conflicting praxis shaped by divergent understandings of
justice, unity and sovereignty and, ultimately, by a distance of values. This
dissertation reveals the inconsistencies between theorizations about the future of the
transatlantic relationship and the praxis of the transatlantic partners in the
international arena and suggests that predictions can only be made on a case by case
basis taking into account how states’ praxis is constantly shaped by values, identities
and social practices.
30

“Identity, Norms and National Security: The Soviet Foreign Policy Revolution and the End of the
Cold War,” pp. 271-316, and Thomas Berger, “Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany
and Japan,” pp. 317-356.

30
In essence we need to contextualize actions because, in order for us to understand them, they have
to be related to and situated within the social context in which they develop. In this sense see also
Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security, p 21.

17
II. Analyzing the West
With the end of the Cold War in 1991, a wide debate was generated that had
International Relations specialists greatly divided on the future direction of
transatlantic relations. In Europe, neo-realists were expecting that the demise of
transatlantic relations would soon follow. This prediction, however, was highly
contested by liberals who emphasized that the West would keep cooperating because
they shared security and economic interests, as well as common norms, values and
political identities.
The collapse of the Soviet Union had, according to major neo-realist
scholars,
31
removed the glue that kept the West together militarily and economically.
Because the West had been conceptualized against the communist threat and the
necessity of containing it, the disappearance of such a common threat, they argued,
removed the need for cooperation among Western nations. It is worth underlining
that each of the neo-realist works analyzed in this project predicts a split: some
academics focus on the security alliance dissolution; others underline demise in
economic cooperation. However, none within the neo-realist position seem to take
into consideration that the West could keep cooperating simply because of shared
common interests and identities.
Thus the neo-realist argument has been very consistent. All these scholars
agree that the end of the Cold War would have crumbled Euro-American military

31
Here I am referring to the neo-realists who participate in the debate about the future of the
transatlantic relations, not to neo-realists in general. See Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future.” Harries,
“The Collapse of ‘The West.’” Charles Kupchan, “Reviving the West.” Walt, “The Ties that Fray.”
Kagan, “Power and Weakness,” and Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.

18
and economic cooperation. John Mearsheimer, in his often cited article “Back to the
Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” argues that NATO at the most will
become an empty shell.
32
And if the Cold War comes to a complete end, the United
States will abandon Europe provoking the end of a stable bipolar order.
33

Mearsheimer claims that the stability of bipolarity will be replaced by the instability
of a multi-polar structure.
34
Whether bipolarity leads to more stability than multi-
polarity is not a topic to be discussed here; however, what is relevant for this study is
the prevailing hint in his work regarding the worsening of military relations within
the transatlantic alliance as a result of the end of the Cold War. This specific
understanding, that post Cold War Europe and the U.S. will part ways is a prediction
commonly shared within neo-realist scholarship. Owen Harries, for example, in his
article “The Collapse of the West”, reinforces this point by arguing that the West
could not endure the collapse of the Soviet Union because the concept of the West
was constructed out of “desperation and fear” not “natural affinities.”
35
Thus, for
Harries the end of the Cold War was also likely to produce a split within the military
alliance.
In addition to the anticipated split on the military alliance, other neo-realists
included a split in economic cooperation as well in their predictions on the future of
transatlantic relations. According to these theorists, the end of the Cold War would
produce, as a consequence of the military split, a corresponding economic split.

32
Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future,” p. 5.
33
Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future,” p. 52.
34
Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future,” p. 18.
35
Harries, “The Collapse of ‘The West’”, p.42.

19
Stephen Walt, in “The Ties That Fray”, makes precisely such an argument:
36
While
recognizing, along with other neo-realists, that the U.S. and Europe were brought
together by the fear of the Soviet threat, Walt underlines that economic ties, during
the Cold War, reinforced military cooperation.
37
In other words, the common threat
induced economic cooperation, which produced economic gains that ultimately
enhanced the combined powers of the partners. Conversely, Walt argues, the end of
the Cold War through the elimination of the overriding common security interest will
also loosen economic ties.
38
Walt already sees the signs of this trend in the U.S. shift
in economic activity from Europe to Asia. He warns that such a shift “will inevitably
lead U.S. policymakers to devote more energy and attention to the latter”
39
In
addition, the expansion of the European Union, he suggests, will create further
tensions. The Euro, Walt explains, has the potential to challenge the dollar as the
principle international reserve currency. In his view, the loosening of economic ties
will contribute to the estrangement of the transatlantic allies. Finally, he argues that
the end of the Cold War is inducing fragmentation and disorientation because there is

36
Walt, “The Ties that Fray,” p.4
37
The argument Walt makes is that the U.S. needed Europe to be economically strong so it could
contribute to the U.S. economic prosperity and that strengthened the transatlantic alliance. See Walt,
“The Ties that Fray,” p. 6.
38
For neo-realists, trade should serve power. Because power is relative, trade is desirable only when
the distribution of benefits favors one’s own state over rivals. See Joseph Grieco, Cooperation among
Nations: Europe, American and Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1990). Joanne Gowa, Allies Adversaries, and International Trade. (Princeton, N.J: Princeton
University Press, 1993).
39
Walt, “The Ties that Fray,”p.6.

20
no longer a sense of commitment to the Atlantic community.
40
Americans are no
longer willing to sacrifice for Europe, he contends, because of a generational change.
“The people that built NATO were East Coast internationalists with strong personal
and professional ties to Europe… They believed that Europe’s fate was worth
fighting and perhaps dying-for, and they were willing to risk considerable blood and
treasure to protect these allies.”
41
But, he concludes, this is no longer the case. The
end of the Cold War is thus producing, according to Walt, a transatlantic split.
The major problem with the neo-realist argument is that NATO did not
disappear in the 1990s. It did not become an empty shell and did not become
moribund. Contrary to the neo-realist expectations, it remained the most important
security institution in Europe. The transatlantic partners disagreed on how to
transform NATO, but not on its importance, even in a world devoid of the threat
once posed by the Soviet Union. Furthermore, in a post 9/11 world and consequently
in the presence of a new perceived common threat (i.e. Islamic terrorism) the

40
In “The Ties that Fray,” after rejecting the argument that cultural and ethnic ties brought Europe
and America together, Walt argues that to the extent that such ties reinforced American interests in
Europe their success is diminishing in the post Cold War because, he says, figure like Dean Acheson,
Dwight Eisenhower, Paul Nitze and John Foster Dulles are no longer making foreign policy decisions
and they have been succeeded by a new generation with “different memories.” He contends that
watching ‘Saving Private Ryan’ is no substitute for having lived through the real thing.” The lack of a
direct experience with WWII is, in Walt’s opinion, reason to be pessimistic about the future of the
transatlantic alliance. He concludes by saying that even if the new generations might recognize the
importance of transatlantic cooperation “it will never kindle the reflexive emotional response that it
did for their parents and grandparents.” This is a non-realist part of his argument. What is significant
about such an argument is that while he makes a neo-realist argument in the article, with the classical
assumptions about power balancing and threat, in the last part, when discussing “generational change,
he does not look at the international system or at the state, but rather at the socio-cultural level”. Walt,
“The Ties that Fray,” p.8.
41
Walt, “The Ties that Fray,” p.8.

21
partners disagreed yet again on how to tackle the issue, not on the assumption that
Islamic terrorism is the key threat to their security.
42

Converse to the neo-realist position, in the 1990s neo-liberals argued that the
U.S. and Europe will keep cooperating because, even absent a common threat, the
transatlantic partners share security and economic interests, norms, values, political
identities and membership in public institutions. These factors, many neo-liberals
claim, were and will be the basis of transatlantic cooperation. Such shared elements
will decrease the chances of separation while stimulating cooperation. Their
assessment of the future of transatlantic relations is based on a three-fold
understanding of shared constitutive elements of Euro-American partnership: 1)
Common security, 2) Economic interests, and 3) Common values and political
identity.
In the post Cold War, neo-liberals claim, transatlantic relations will still be
characterized by military cooperation. In 1993, James Elles wrote that “Europe is
America’s natural partner by virtue of its actual military capability.”
43
John Duffield,
in an article published in 1994, stressed that there was still a solid consensus between

42
See “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America” September 2002 and “A
Secure Europe in a Better World” European Security Strategy – Brussels, 12 December 2003. Both
documents indicate Islamic terrorism as the new common threat. For “The National Security Strategy
of the United States of America” see http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html; for “A Secure Europe
in a Better World” European Security Strategy http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf (last
accessed 2/5/2008)
43
Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship”, p. 36. Elles claims that “the US has learned
that its resources are finite and that the defense of its own legitimate interest, as in the Gulf war, has to
be conducted in partnership with others.” In this sense Europe is America’s ‘natural’ partner because
of its economic and military capacity. The logic behind his argument is that they are partners because
the U.S. and Europe are committed to democratic institutions and market economy. Elles, “Towards a
New Transatlantic Relationship, p.36.

22
the U.S. and Europe on the need to preserve NATO. The Alliance, he emphasized,
“continues to enjoy generally strong support from its member states.”
44
Robert
Blackwill in 1999 wrote that “the two sides of the Atlantic continue to share
enduring vital interests and face a common set of challenges both in Europe and
beyond.”
45
These challenges, he underlines, are many and diverse (i.e. slowing down
the spread of WMDs or avoiding the emergence of a hostile hegemony in Europe)
and cannot be adequately addressed by either the U.S. or Europe alone. Thus, he
concludes, Euro-American partnership will endure even in a world without the
Soviet threat. Joseph Nye also predicted that NATO will keep playing an important
role because Europe has not been capable of solving the Balkan problem on its
own.
46
In short, liberals contended that transatlantic relations would not be
jeopardized by the collapse of the Soviet Union and that new threats would constitute
the glue of the Euro-Atlantic alliance, ensuring the endurance of military
cooperation. NATO and its survival would thus not be threatened because the U.S.
and Europe acknowledge its importance as a security organization.
The neo-liberal argument, however, also points at common economic
interests that will guarantee cooperation in the West. James Elles identifies Europe
and the U.S. as natural economic partners by virtue of their economic weight.
47

Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry observe that “[t]he business of the West is

44
Duffield, “NATO’s Functions after the Cold War”, p. 766.
45
Blackwill, The Future of Transatlantic Relations, p.10.
46
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p.54
47
Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship,” p. 36.

23
business.”
48
They claim that American and European societies are “permeated by
market relations, mentalities and institutions” and, they add, “[a]s the importance of
the markets grow in these societies, their characters converge.”
49
Joseph Nye warns
us not to listen too much to the “doom-sayers”. He in fact underlines that “[w]hile
American trade with Asia has surpassed the one with Europe, American trade with
Europe is still more balanced.”
50
He also points out that “American foreign
investment in Europe still exceeds that in Asia.”
51
Similarly, Anthony Blinken in
2001 emphasized that “American investment in Europe has increased seven-fold
over the past six years.”
52
This is, in his view, a sign of a strong relationship not
weakened by the end of the East-West rivalry.
Finally, neo-liberals emphasize that shared norms, values, political identities
and membership in public institutions will continue to foster cooperation between the
U.S. and Europe. Deudney and Ikenberry underline that the West is “bound by a web
of complex institutional links and associations” which created what they call “the
spirit” of the West.
53
Such “spirit,” they claim, is made of common norms, public
mores, and political identities. Because the U.S. and Europe share this common
“spirit” within an international institutional framework, they are likely to keep
cooperating. International institutions such as NATO embody Western common

48
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West”, p.18
49
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West,” p.18
50
Nye, “The US and Europe”, pp. 54-55
51
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p.55
52
Anthony J. Blinken, “The False Crisis Over the Atlantic,” Foreign Affairs, May/Jun 2001. Vol. 80,
No.3. p. 36
53
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West,” p.19.

24
values and political identities and since they are also a regular part of U.S. and
European domestic and international politics, those institutions cannot be considered
merely instrumental, but rather the cornerstones of Western cooperation. James Elles
agrees with the rest of the contributors in the neo-liberal camp and claims that there
is no reason to be pessimistic about the future of the transatlantic relations, because
the U.S. and Europe share the common values of democracy and a market
economy.
54
Furthermore, he stresses that they have also created “mechanisms,
procedures and institutional and personal relationships for coordinating positions and
resolving differences.”
55
Of the same opinion is Kupchan who claims that “shared
norms are working together to produce the cohesiveness of the transatlantic
community.”
56
Joseph Nye identifies the transatlantic communality of values in
democracy and human rights, and claims that the U.S. shares such values more
thoroughly with Europe than with most other states.
57
Finally, Anthony Blinken
argues that there is no value gap between Americans and Europeans and that “the
U.S. and Europe are converging culturally.”
58
As evidence, he maintains that while
the American support for the death penalty is decreasing in the States, in Europe it is
increasing. Hence, he concludes, transatlantic values are converging, rather than
diverging.
59
Neo-liberal approaches which point out that the U.S. and Europe would
remain cooperative even in the absence of a clear common threat, draw attention to

54
Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship,” p. 41
55
Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship,” p. 35
56
Charles Kupchan, “Rethinking Europe”, The National Interest, Summer 1999; 56, p. 78.
57
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p. 55
58
Blinken, “The False Crisis Over the Atlantic,” p. 3.
59
Blinken, “The False Crisis Over the Atlantic,” p. 3.

25
some dynamics that seem to nurture transatlantic cooperation in general. When neo-
liberals argue that military cooperation will endure because there is consensus on the
need to maintain NATO as the leading security organization in Europe, their
predictions appear more viable than the neo-realists’ ones. Nonetheless, neo-liberals
failed to explain Euro-American disagreements in NATO.
What is notably omitted from this literature is a clear engagement between
the two contending argumentative positions on the prospect of a transatlantic
partnership. Often neo-realists do not respond to neo-liberals arguments and often
neo-liberals did not counter neo-realist claims. In essence, both approaches
frequently speak past each other. For example, the neo-realist argument that as a
consequence of the disappearance of the Soviet Union the U.S. is likely to abandon
Europe because of an increase of security choices is not addressed by the neo-
liberals. The analysis of the debate, however, also reveals contending arguments.
Neo-realists for instance, argue that because of the vanishing of the common threat
the increase of security options will reduce NATO strength, while neo-liberals claim
that there is consensus in Europe and in the U.S. on the importance of NATO. The
question that needs to be answered thus becomes: what was happening within NATO
in the 1990s? In other words, is there any evidence which could justify either
position? Another mismatched argument in the debate is about the disintegration of
the transatlantic community as a consequence of a decreased sense of loyalty within
the members of the community itself. Liberals do not address this realist argument
and instead focus on shared security and economic interests, norms, values, political

26
identities and membership in international institutions that integrated the transatlantic
partners. They argue that these commonalities have constituted and will keep
constituting the cohesiveness of the transatlantic community. The question which
some of the contentious arguments raise is: Is there empirical evidence of the
dissolution of the commitment to the Atlantic community during the 1990s, or
instead institutions, norms and values kept the Atlantic community together during
that period?
The problem with both neo-realist and neo-liberal arguments on the future of
transatlantic relations lies in the fact that neither of them analyzes Euro-American
interactions within international institutions, during a period in which there was no
clear common enemy which would force them into a political, military and economic
cooperation. This is a major flaw because transatlantic relations were built and
consolidated within institutions, and the most relevant of them has been NATO.
Created in 1949 to protect Western Europe from a possible attack by the Soviet
Union, it soon became an institution of transatlantic shared interests (protection
against the Soviet threat) and shared values (promotion of democracy and peaceful
relations among member states). NATO’s treaty in fact made it clear that any attack
on any member of the alliance would be considered an attack on all,
60
but it also
made clear that all members were committed to democracy, the free market and

60
Article 5 of the NATO’s Treaty states “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more
of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently
they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or
collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the
Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties”.
See http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm (last accessed 3/10/08).

27
peaceful resolution of disputes.
61
During the Cold War, security interests and shared
values within NATO constituted the basis for military cooperation and spurred
economic cooperation. The logic behind transatlantic economic cooperation was that
a prosperous Europe would be a stronger political and military partner. In those
years, the U.S. and Europe became important trading partners. In 1975, for example,
they also began discussing their economic, political, and security interests in the
context of the G6, which later became G7 and then G8.
62
Transatlantic relations
therefore should not be understood without an analysis of their interactions inside
international institutions. An analysis of their praxis within international institutions
in a period not characterized by a clear common enemy (i.e. the 1990s) will thus
provide evidence for the behavior of the U.S. and Europe while offering insights on

61
In NATO’s Treaty, the preamble reads: the parties “are determined to safeguard the freedom,
common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual
liberty and the rule of law.” Article 1 states that the parties undertake “peaceful means” to solve “any
international dispute.” Article 2 stresses the importance of free market economies. It affirms that “The
Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations
by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon
which these institutions are founded.” http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm (last accessed
3/10/08).
62
“Since 1975, the heads of state or government of the major industrial democracies have been
meeting annually to deal with the major economic and political issues facing their domestic societies
and the international community as a whole. The six countries at the first summit, held at
Rambouillet, France, in November 1975, were France, the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan and
Italy (sometimes referred to as the G6). They were then joined by Canada at the San Juan Summit of
1976 in Puerto Rico, and by the European Community at the London Summit of 1977. From then on,
membership in the Group of Seven, or G7, was fixed, although 15 developing countries' leaders met
with the G7 leaders on the eve of the 1989 Paris Summit, and the USSR and then Russia participated
in a post-summit dialogue with the G7 since 1991. Starting with the 1994 Naples Summit, the G7 met
with Russia at each summit (referred to as the P8 or Political Eight). The Denver Summit of the Eight
was a milestone, marking full Russian participation in all but financial and certain economic
discussions; and the 1998 Birmingham Summit saw full Russian participation, giving birth to the
Group of Eight, or G8 (although the G7 continued to function along side the formal summits). At the
Kananaskis Summit in Canada in 2002, it was announced that Russia would host the G8 Summit in
2006, thus completing its process of becoming a full member.” G8 Information Center.
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/what_is_g8.html (last accessed 03/10/08).

28
the validity of the neo-realist and neo-liberal predictions about the future of the
West.
Furthermore, a review of their mutual political praxis tells us when they
agreed and when they disagreed. This can shed some light on the question of the
transatlantic split or cooperation within the partnership in the aftermath of the end of
the Cold War. Such an analysis provides evidence as to whether there was an
ongoing reshaping of the relations between the US and Europe. It helps us to identify
the post Cold War West, and finally tells us if in fact Islamic terrorism is the new
defining threat that can bring the West closer. At the same time, it can shed light on
the neo-liberal claim that common values and norms will keep the transatlantic
partners together.
Outlined above, the question about the future of the transatlantic relations has
spurred a wide debate both in public and academic circles. The consequences of the
end of the Cold War for the U.S.-European partnership have been of great concern to
many political scientists and international relations experts. Many of the articles
published on the subject however are non-theoretical or do not directly engage with
international relations theories. The majority of the literature on the subject discusses
the future of the transatlantic relations in non-academic journals, in policy-review
editorials or in policy reports. It is because of these characteristics that I refer to my
literature as “public debate” or as commentary by “public intellectuals.” Both
contending positions tend to also offer unempirical grand explanations for the future
of the West. In essence, these positions are rooted in speculation rather than recent

29
history. The evidence I have gathered from the 1990s, shows that the transatlantic
partners do not always agree and they do not always disagree. By offering an
assessment of this debate, my work contributes to a clarification of each position and
its underlying assumptions with respect to the transatlantic partnership between the
two powers. In addition, it offers a road map of the arguments to each position, so
that the contending camps can understand each other’s claims better. By looking at
the claims I have distilled from the debate, each camp will be able to respond to the
other in a more effective way by answering directly to the arguments raised by the
other’s perspective.
In order to distill and better present the claims of both sides in the debate, I
have chosen to employ graphs, both for their visual impact and for the need to
consolidate what could otherwise be rather complicated issues. These graphs helped
me to make sense of the debate during the course of this research study. Once I
realized that the contributors to the debate were divided in two camps, those who had
a pessimistic point of view (i.e. neo-realists) and those who had an optimistic
position (i.e. neo-liberals) I decided to study why and how they reached such
diverging positions.
Again, in order to do that, I have taken as a model Thomas Biersteker’s work
on the effects on multinational corporate investment in underdeveloped countries.
Biersteker, in fact, has done something similar to what I attempt to do in this project.
In his scholarship, he analyzed a debate in which two contending perspectives
emerged: that of critics of multinational investment and that of the neo-conventional

30
school. For each contending position Biersteker created a box in which he included
all the claims cited, and graphically showed the “first order consequences” and
“second-order consequences” of such claims.
63
Then, he compared the two
contending perspectives by distinguishing “between matched contending
propositions, mismatched arguments, and non-addressed arguments.”
64
“This is
important - he claims – “for potential testing purposes because the neo-conventional
response rejects arguments raised in the critical literature at different points.”
65

Finally, he examines the validity of contending propositions using a case study
which uses information about foreign and local enterprises in Nigeria’s
manufacturing sector.
Inspired by Biersteker’s approach, I too have created graphs as a way of
visually illustrating the contentions within my debate. But in my analysis of the
debate, I soon realized that I did not have first or second order consequences of the
main claims. For each camp, I had instead multiple claims all of which led to the
same consequence. In the case of the neo-realists, they all concluded that a split in
transatlantic relations was inevitable, and the neo-liberal position agreed that the
U.S. and Europe will keep cooperating. Therefore, my graphs have the purpose of
showing how these scholars in each camp reached the same conclusion even though
they make different arguments to get there. Because of this different rationale my
graphs are inspired by graphical argument analysis. Homer-Dixon and Karapin, in

63
Biersteker, Distortion or Development?, p. 6 and p.10
64
Biersteker, Distortion or Development?, p. 49.
65
Biersteker, Distortion or Development?, p. 49.

31
their article “Graphical Argument Analysis: A New Approach to Understanding
Arguments, Applied to a Debate about the Window of Vulnerability,” argue that “in
order to evaluate and criticize arguments we need graphical argument analysis.”
66

They propose to analyze arguments into a set of propositions “structurally linked by
support, attack, and warranting relations.” They argue that this is a valid method
since it helps to identify implicit principles of argumentation (warrants), unsupported
arguments, and structural relations between arguments.
67
Following their techniques,
I have therefore analyzed the neo-realist and neo-liberal arguments in sets of
propositions. My graphs help identify the claims within each camp, as well as their
assumptions and corresponding predictions. This allows me to delineate matched
arguments (where they agree), non addressed arguments (when they speak past each
other), and mismatched arguments (when they disagree). Following Biersteker’s
methodology, I will compare arguments in the debate, noting where the contributors
agree, disagree or speak past each other, and after having identified the contending
arguments through my graphs, I will also assess their validity through case studies.
However, while Biersteker synthesizes the arguments of the two contending
perspectives in his debate, I will illustrate how each contributor within his camp
reached similar conclusions.
68

66
Thomas Homer-Dixon and Roger Karapin, “Graphical Argument Analysis: A New Approach to
Understanding Arguments, Applied to a Debate about the Window of Vulnerability”, International
Studies Quarterly (1989), Vol. 33, No. 4, p. 389.
67
Homer-Dixon and Karapin, “Graphical Argument Analysis,” p. 389.
68
Biersteker, Distortion or Development?, p. 1-48. In the first two chapters of his book, Biersteker
synthesizes major criticisms of multinationals by clustering arguments on the issues that most
frequently came up in his literature.

32
The present work takes a qualitative case study approach to assess the debate
about the future of transatlantic relations. A key advantage of this approach is that it
allows considerably more detailed research as opposed to the often excessively
generalized claims prevailing in the debate. Furthermore, it is the only method that
allows a thorough evaluation of most of the claims that separate the neo-realist and
the neo-liberal scholars. Critics of qualitative approaches often claim that such
analyses are usually subjective and unempirical.
69
But quantitative approaches can be
ineffective in social sciences such as International Relations. For this reason, many
methodology scholars have stressed the usefulness of a “structured, focused
comparison,” which employs a small number of cases (as at present, three cases).
70

Although loosely, my work follows this methodology and my cases are
structured, but not strictly focused, because of the ongoing nature of the events.
71
If I
had employed a narrow set of questions, I would have missed the richness of the
particulars for the general.
72
Further, a more classical use of the method of

69
In 1968, James Rosenau noted that case studies were often unscientific and therefore inappropriate
for scientific research. James N Rosenau, “Moral Fervor, Systematic Analysis, and Scientific
Consciousness in Foreign Policy Research cited in George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory
Development, p. 68.
70
As George and Bennett explain, “The method is ‘structured’ in that the researcher writes general
questions that reflect the research objective and that these questions are asked of each case under
study to guide and standardize data collection, thereby making systematic comparison and cumulation
of the findings of the cases possible.” The method is ‘focused’ in that it deals only with certain aspects
of the historical cases examined.” George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development, p. 67.
71
My use of case studies does not address all the requirements of the structured, focused method but
provide concrete instances of the dynamic process I am studying, which could not be analyzed using
static methods of observation. The most useful account I have found is the book by John W. Kingdon,
Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984).
72
Joseph Maxwell suggests that “there is a widespread assumption that the research questions should
be framed in general terms and then operationalized by means of specific sampling and data collection
decisions.” But this assumption, he continues, “often does not fit research in the social
sciences…where both generalizing and particularizing questions can be appropriate and legitimate.”

33
structured, focused comparison would have not enhanced differences.
73
As an
alternative, a less strictly focused comparison, with a set of more general questions,
allows for an analysis that emphasizes these differences without neglecting the
general research objectives.
74

My work aims at fulfilling the requirements for this comparison. The set of
questions that reflect the current project are the following:
• What do the behaviors of the U.S. and Europe tell us about the future of
their partnership?
• Were these behaviors symptomatic of the opening of a gap which
signaled larger political and cultural divisions?
• Were they evidence of an ongoing reshaping of their relations?
• How can we characterize a West no longer identifiable in juxtaposition
with the Soviet Union?
Because of the nature of these research questions, a qualitative study is
necessary. Such a study can in fact shed light on factors that are difficult or not

See Joseph Maxwell, Qualitative Research Design, (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1996), p.55. However,
George and Bennett argue that both in a single-case study or in a case study comparison, the questions
asked should be of a general nature. “They should not be couched in overly specific terms that are
relevant to only one case but should be applicable to all cases within the class or subclass of events
with which the study is concerned.” George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development, p.
86.
73
This observation was provided by Heclo who recognized that a strict focused comparison would not
be possible when the cases did not match in every respect. Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Politics in
Britain and Sweden. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).
74
For a study that indicates that general questions appear to be useful for an analysis with broad
research objectives see Peter Evens, Harold Jacobson and Robert Putnam, eds., Double-Edged
Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993).

34
possible to precisely quantify.
75
Each case study in this work has the purpose of
answering these questions but also of testing the two contending argumentative
positions employing empirical information from three detailed contemporary case
studies which have current relevance.
Each case study in this work aims at examining the interactions between the
United States and Europe in a variety of issue-areas and settings. Accordingly, the
present study includes case studies of security, justice and economic issues. The case
selection is intended to offer a representative sample of a vast number and range of
interactions. In some readers’ view, the question of possible bias in choosing cases
may arise. However, it is important to note that a diligent effort was made to include
cases that constituted though tests for both the neo-realist and the neo-liberal
arguments.
76

The first case assesses the first controversy in the debate. Neo-realists
expected NATO to quickly wither away as a result of the disappearance of the Soviet
Union.
77
Neo-liberals instead were more optimistic and contended that there would
be agreement on the importance of NATO. This case shows that in the 1990s there
were frictions on how to enlarge NATO. But it also reveals that these disagreements

75
As King, Keohane and Verba argue, if “quantification produces precision, it does not necessarily
encourage accuracy, since inventing quantitative indixes that do not relate closely to the concepts or
events that we purport to measure can lead to serious measurement error and problem of causal
inference.” King, Keohane and Verba, Designing Social Enquiry, p.44.
76
As noted by Maxwell one of the most common types of threats to validity in relation to qualitative
studies is research bias. Maxwell, Qualitative Research Design, p.90.
77
Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future.” Harries, “The Collapse of ‘The West.’” Charles Kupchan,
“Reviving the West.” Walt, “The Ties that Fray.” Kagan, “Power and Weakness,” and Kagan, Of
Paradise and Power.

35
were reconciled because of a redefinition of U.S.-European relations and of the West
on humanitarian grounds. While disagreeing on how to transform NATO, the
transatlantic partners nevertheless wanted the alliance to endure. The Clinton
administration was very adamant in expanding both NATO’s membership and its
scope. The Europeans attempted to achieve more control within NATO by trying to
take over the Alliance’s southern command in Naples (held by the US) which
controls the security situation in the Mediterranean. These are signs that both the
U.S. and Europe did not question the importance of the alliance. This case study also
shows that the transatlantic partners redefined the West on a set of higher common
principles. This second finding contradicts the neo-realist prediction that the
disappearance of the Soviet Union would remove the basis for transatlantic military
cooperation.
The other cases were selected as a way of offering a balanced answer to the
above mentioned contending argument, as well as a way to provide an objective look
at the question of the political split (as predicted by the neo-realists) or an endurance
of the transatlantic relations (as predicted by the neo-liberals). The case of the ICC,
for instance, suggested on the surface the disintegration of the West. Thus, it was
chosen as a case study in order to examine the neo-realist argument. The other case,
the debt relief, instead suggested a persistence of the political relations between the
U.S. and Europe, and suggested that the neo-liberals may have been more accurate in
their predictions. This particular case study was thus chosen as a way to examine the
neo-liberal arguments.

36
The second case study utilized in this research, which focuses on the
establishment of the International Criminal Court, indicates that there is discrepancy
between the U.S. and Europe over the meaning of concepts such as justice, unity and
sovereignty. Different transatlantic understandings of these concepts produced
different policies, which amplified tensions within the partnership. In essence,
disagreements were the result of different conceptualizations of these notions. This
particular case suggests that these different understandings are influencing the
partners’ practices and ultimately are separating them. This case study concludes that
the reason why the U.S. and Europe disagreed on the establishment of the ICC, is not
the result of a lack of commitment to the partnership, as neo-realists have argued, but
rather is the result of a different understanding of those concepts. This case also
challenges the neo-liberal claim that institutions, norms and values would keep the
Atlantic community together.
The third case, analyzes the praxis of the U.S. and Europe within the G7 and
their policies on the cancellation of the debt and indicates that on both sides of the
Atlantic there was a moral commitment to forgive the debt. Yet, while in the U.S.
policy-makers were motivated through Christian value-bounded arguments,
Europeans were stimulated by social justice discourses.
78
In the context of the G7 the

78
I am using the term “social justice” in its Marxist connotation, as “the just distribution of wealth by
the public powers”. See Karl Marx, Robert C. Tucker, Friedrich Engels: The Marx –Engels Reader,
New York, W. W. Norton, 2
nd
Edition, 1978, p. 87. However, the term is widely used in the contest of
the well known theory of the social contract as elaborated by Locke, Rousseau and Kant. In this
context, the meaning of social justice is separated from the religious connotations of “charity” or
“forgiveness”. For an exhaustive discussion on the theme, see John Rawls, A Theory of Justice,
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1971.

37
U.S. and Europe agreed on debt reduction. They in fact committed themselves to
forgiving up to 90% of the debt owed directly to them. But how they achieved that
common goal reflects an essential difference in values. This case concludes that
values, at least in this instance, are not a factor that can be used to make the
argument that the transatlantic partners will keep cooperating. Cooperation in this
case happened because an advocacy movement known as Jubilee 2000 (a
transnational campaign to cancel the un-payable debt of the world’s poorest
countries) recognized those value differences and took advantage of them. The
acknowledgment of these different values is implied in the different strategies that
Jubilee 2000 adopted. In the U.S. Jubilee 2000 went to Washington and made
arguments about Biblical injunctions to help the poor. In this way they exploited the
Christian values of those in Congress who normally do not support foreign aid. In
Europe, the campaign exploited different channels, taking to the streets and
emphasized that debt cancellation equaled social justice. In essence, Europeans
understood the problems more in secular terms than religious ones. This is consistent
with Ronald Inglehart’s cultural map of the world that shows the U.S. more oriented
toward traditional values as opposed to Europe which is more oriented towards
secular-rational values. This particular case thus complicates the neo-liberal
argument according to which common values will keep the transatlantic partners
together.

38
III. The Enduring West
After more than two decades since the end of the Cold War and after the
divisive controversy over the war with Iraq, the debate on the likely future of
transatlantic relations is still thriving and articles and books continue to stress that
transatlantic relations are dissolving; although not everyone agrees.
79
. The accuracy
of the neo-realist and neo-liberal answers to questions about the future of the
transatlantic partnership, as well as my reflections on how the West should be

79
For more current references on U.S. and European relations, see Francis Fukuyama, “The West may
be cracking Europe and America,” International Herald Tribune, 9 August 2002, pp.4-10. John
Leech, Whole and Free: NATO, EU enlargement and transatlantic relations, (Federal Trust for
education & research, 2002). Philip H. Gordon, “Bridging the Atlantic Divide,” Foreign Affairs,
(January/February 2003), Vol. 82, No. 1, p. 70. James B. Steinberg, “An Elective Partnership:
Salvaging Transatlantic Relations,” Survival, (June, 2003), Vol. 45, No. 2; p. 113. Christopher Layne
and Thomas Jefferson, “America as European hegemon,” The National Interest, (Summer 2003) Vol.
13, No. 72, p. 17-30. Ivo H. Daalder, “The End of Atlanticism,” Survival, (June, 2003), Vol. 45, No.
2; p. 147. Hall Gardner, NATO and the European Union : new world, new Europe, new threats,
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2004). Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at war. Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer, “New Trans-Atlantic Unity,” NATO's Nations and Partners for Peace, 2004. pp. 20-24.
William Wallace, “Broken Bridges,” The World Today, (December 2004), Vol. 60, No. 12; pp. 13-16.
Daniel Hamilton and Daniel Sheldon, Conflict and cooperation in transatlantic relations, (Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2004). Tod Lindberg, “We. A community in agreement on fundamentals,”
Policy Review, (December 2004/January 2005), No. 128, p. 3-19. Elizabeth Pond, Friendly fire: the
near-death of the transatlantic alliance, (European Union Studies Association, 2004). Werner
Weidenfeld, From alliance to coalitions : the future of transatlantic relations, (Bertelsmann
Foundation Publishers, 2004). E A Turpen, “Free world: America, Europe, and the surprising future
of the West,” Choice, (June 2005), Vol. 42, No. 10; p. 1895. Ivo Daalder, Crescent of crisis : U.S.-
European strategy for the greater Middle East, (Brookings Institution Press, 2006). Matthew
Evangelista, Partners or rivals? : European-American relations after Iraq, (V&P Publishing, 2005).
Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, The inevitable alliance : Europe and the United States beyond Iraq, (New
York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Massimo D'Alema, “Diplomacy Al Dente,” Wall Street
Journal: Jun 14, 2006. p.14, Pierangelo Isernia, Philip P Everts, “European Public Opinion on
Security Issues,” European Security. Dec 2006. Vol. 15, No. 4, p. 451. Thomas Ilgen, Hard power,
soft power, and the future of transatlantic relations, (Burlington, VT:Ashgate, 2006). Jeremy Poulter,
“NATO as a Security Organization: Implications for the Future Role and Survival of the Alliance,”
RUSI Journal, 2006. Vol. 151, No. 3; p. 58-62. Andrew A Michta, “Transatlantic Troubles,” The
National Interest (November/December 2006), p. 62-67. Ryan C Hendrickson, “The Miscalculation
of NATO’s Death,” Parameters (Spring 2007), Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 98-115. Daniel Dombey,
“Transatlantic climate shift,” Financial Times, 4 June, 2007, p. 2. Richard Haass, “The Atlantic
Becomes a Little Wider,” Financial Times, 19 December, 2007, p. 2. Lance Smith, “Is the
Transatlantic Relationship Still Important?,” Vital Speeches of the Day. June 2007), Vol. 73, No. 6; p.
249-252.

39
conceived in a non Cold War context, are addressed in my conclusions, after the case
studies have been presented as evidence in chapter 3, 4 and 5. However, as a way of
summary, and to help the reader follow my work, I anticipate my findings and
conclusions.
First, neo-realists should acknowledge that it is not only military and
economic interests that drive the transatlantic partnership, but rather values, or
shared ideas, are consequential to the dynamics as well. The shared idea that human
rights are to be defended has saved NATO from a doomed future giving a new
purpose to the Alliance while redefining the West on humanitarian grounds. Both the
United States and Europe have never stopped conceiving themselves as security
partners. The West, from a security point of view, has endured the vanishing of the
external threat that had prompted its inception. In light of the survival of the
“security West” it is reasonable to presume that it will endure a fortiori now that it is
facing yet a new perceived common threat (i.e. Islamic terrorism). Hence, it would
appear that the West, in terms of the realms of the security, is alive and well, and had
only been a bit shaken, but hardly undermined, by the end of the Cold War.
Neo-liberals, for their part, should concede that serious disagreements do
occur in any given partnership and they should also admit that at times such
disagreements are due to different conceptualizations of particular values. Asserting
that the West will keep cooperating because its members share norms, values and
political identities, only provides a limited account of the much larger dynamic in
play that fails to explain why such disagreements occur. The case of the

40
International Criminal Court shows that while there was transatlantic agreement on
the need to protect human rights, there was nonetheless disagreement on what kind
of a court should be put in place to address those concerns. Hence, by overlooking
values that separate the West, we come to an overly optimistic conclusion that the
West will keep cooperating based on common values alone. The case study of the
debt relief proposals also reinforces the point that there is value distance across the
Atlantic. In fact, while both the U.S. and Europe agreed on the need of the remission
of the external debt, they understood it in different terms. For the U.S., Biblical
injunctions to help the poor were a propelling force behind this policy. For
Europeans, the determining discourses have been those of social justice. It is not
possible to defer such differences to larger and binding “common values” alone.
While American policy-makers were prompted by traditional value-laden discourses,
Europeans were mobilized through more secular arguments.
But what do these behaviors tell us about the West and the future of the
transatlantic partnership? What this study suggests is that both the West of today, as
well as the West of the future, must be understood as a process that started in the
aftermath of the end of the Cold War, and continues to this day in the post 9/11
world. In addition, when we carefully account for the differences between the United
States and Europe, we must recognize that no grand predictions are possible for the
future. Every prediction that fails to acknowledge both agreements and
disagreements within the transatlantic partnership is destined to offer a limited and
flawed analysis. The West of the security realm is an alliance based on the common

41
value of the protection of human rights. The West of the justice realm holds up in
principle because it agrees that human rights need to be defended but it fails in
articulating common policies as to how to go about achieving those aims. And in
terms of economic development, once again the West shares the common intent of
forgiving the debt, but lacks common values that could execute a common policy
regarding that debt. This would suggest that neither “the West”, nor “transatlantic
relations” are terms that can be used to define Euro-American relations, unless we
specify what realm of the West and what areas of transatlantic relations we are
discussing. If we do not indicate specific parameters for these terms, we will not only
generate confusion in the reader, but we will also produce inadequate knowledge
which flattens diversity for the sake of “explaining as much as possible with as little
as possible.”
80

80
King, Keohane and Verba, Designing Social Enquiry, p.44, p. 29.

42
Chapter 2: Review of the Debate 1990-2001

Introduction
Questions about the future of the transatlantic relations and the future of the
West have generated much controversy and debates in the public sphere, spawning
discussions about the past-present-future relations of the core North Atlantic
countries during the “interim” period between the end of the Cold War and 9/11.
1

The political consequences of the end of the Cold War have been of great concern to
many public intellectuals (including theorists), especially those interested in security
and international relations, international organization, and foreign policy. An attempt
to get deeper into the public discussions of the U.S. and European countries has also
shown a close relationship between transatlantic relations and “the idea of the West”

1
By transatlantic relations, I mean U.S.-European relations. Some would argue that transatlantic
relations are larger than the mere American and European relations, but the literature analyzed
overwhelmingly uses this phrase to discuss the United States and Western European countries, and so
will I. Furthermore, when I refer to Europe I mean mainly three countries: the United Kingdom,
France and Germany. The question of the transatlantic relations has been widely addressed since the
end of the cold war. See for example, Helga Haftendorn and Christian Tuschhoff, eds, America and
Europe in an Era of Change, (Boulder, CO.: Westview Press, 1993); Jarrod Wiener, ed., The
Transatlantic Relationship, (New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); Werner Weidenfeld, America
and Europe: Is the Break Inevitable? (Gütersloh, Germany: Bertlsmann, 1996); Beatrice Heuser,
Transatlantic Relations: Sharing Ideals and Costs, (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs,
1996); David C. Gompert and F. Stephen Larrabee, eds., America and Europe: a partnership for a
new era, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Paul Cornish, Partnership in crisis: the US,
Europe and the fall and rise of NATO, (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1997).
Christopher Coker, Twilight of the West, (Boulder, CO.: Westview Press, 1998); Jörg Monar, ed., The
New Transatlantic Agenda and the Future of the EU-US Relations, (London-The Hague-Boston:
Kluwer Law International, 1998); Richard N. Haas, ed., Transatlantic Tensions: The United States,
Europe, and problem countries, (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999). More
recently, see: Kagan, Of Paradise and Power; Werner Weidenfel [et.al.], From Alliance to Coalitions:
the Future of Transatlantic Relations, (Gütersloh, Germany: Bertlsmann, 2004); Dieter Mahncke,
Wyn Rees and Wayne C. Thompson, Redefining Transatlantic Security Relations: the Challenge of
Change (Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 2004), Jürgen Habermas, L’Occidente
Diviso (Bari, Italy: Laterza, 2005); Peter H. Merkel, The Distracted Eagle: the Rift between America
and old Europe, (New York, N.Y.: F. Cass, 2005); Tod Lindberg, ed., Beyond Paradise and Power:
Europe, America, and the Future of a Troubled Partnership, (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2005).

43
in the face of the Cold War, the end of the Cold War and the reemergence of threats
to the world order generated by global terrorism. Even though these problems have
led to copious public discussions, there has been little interest in trying to clarify,
synthesize and test out vis-à-vis related international developments the central
argumentative positions taken in the debate on the future of the relationship between
the United States and Europe. Because so much of the general International
Relations theory in question (neo-realism and neo-liberalism) is not focused on the
future of the transatlantic relations, I systematically evaluate the two main
contending argumentative perspectives within those IR theories, which I found in my
review of the field literature. Furthermore, I shall identify and categorize the public
intellectuals’ definitions of the West.
In this chapter, I discuss the central arguments of the neo-realists and the neo-
liberal authors on the future of the transatlantic relations, from the period between
1990 and 2001. I then suggest less systematic comments on the post 9/11 debate
about transatlantic relations. I offer a general methodological discussion of the
challenges of evaluating contending arguments, in the process of which I define
matched, mismatched and non-addressed arguments. Finally, I delineate the
definitions of the West, which are implied in the public intellectuals’ discussions on
the future of the West.

44
II. 1990-2000 Neo-realist account
Some observes have argued, as I mentioned earlier, that the end of the Cold
War has removed the ideological “glue” that made for unity in transatlantic
relations.
2
Most of those who reached such conclusions share a common set of basic
assumptions such as that states are the main actors in international relations and their
actions are motivated by their own survival.
3
In addition, they also concur that states
can be harmful or even destroy one another. Furthermore, they agree that the
principle governing relations between states is anarchy (i.e. the absence of a central
authority that can regulate their interactions and therefore protect them if another
state threatens or attacks them).
4
Finally, they share the belief that states live in an
uncertain realm in which they do not know the intentions and capabilities of other
states. Therefore, they claim that states are constantly insecure and war is always
possible. Thus for these scholars it follows that security is one of the main concerns
of the state.
5
Within this neo-realist literature, one set of arguments is relevant to
understanding the future of transatlantic relations vis-à-vis the end of the Cold War:
the balance of power theory.
6
These thinkers forecast a bleak scenario for the

2
Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future”, p. 52; Harries, “The Collapse of ‘The West’”, p.42; Kupchan,
“Reviving the West”, p. 3; Walt, “The Ties that Fray” p.4.
3
See John Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security,
Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 5-58 and Waltz, Theory of International Politics
4
See Waltz, Theory of International Politics and Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
5
Stephen Walt, “The Precarious Partnership: America and Europe in a New Era.” In Atlantic
Security: Contending Visions, edited by Charles Kupchan. (New York: Council on Foreign Relations,
1998), p.8.
6
This theory claims that states will seek to balance the power of threatening states. The most rigorous
account of balance of power theory can be found in Waltz, Theory of International Politics. Walt
refined such argument by focusing on the role of threats, rather than power alone, in stimulating
balancing behavior. See Walt, The Origins of Alliances.

45
transatlantic core partners and they link it directly to the end of East-West rivalry. In
essence, they predict a decline of military cooperation, which will lead to a decrease
in economic cooperation and to an increase in ideological or political disagreements
between the U.S. and Europe. This dynamic will thus produce a split in the
transatlantic relations that is not likely to be reconciled because these scholars
conceive such collaborative relations as a direct consequence of the existence of a
perceived common threat: the Soviet Union.
The balance of power theorists claim that states seek to balance the power of
threatening states.
7
Balancing can take the form of unilateral action or military
cooperation, but it could also lead to other forms of cooperation such as economic
cooperation because the economic advantages that they will gain would ultimately
enhance their combined power.
Accordingly, the demise of the common external threat could undermine both
military and economic cooperation. In this scenario, military cooperation will no
longer be an overriding interest, and economic cooperation could be perceived as
risky since the economic partner could enhance its relative military power thanks to
the economic gains achieved through the partnership.
8
These observers explain the
future of transatlantic relations, in particular their cooperative efforts, as a reaction to
the commonly perceived threat. Accordingly, they argue that the fear of the Soviet
Union induced the United States and Europe to form a powerful military alliance,

7
Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics and Walt, The Origins of Alliances.
8
Joseph Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal
Institutionalism. International Organization, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 485-507.

46
NATO. The economic cooperation between the transatlantic core states, they claim,
was a consequence of the military collaboration. In short, it augmented their
combined power. They seem to agree that the overriding security interest was the
glue that kept the transatlantic core states together politically. In essence, during the
Cold War the higher security interests superceded the divergences, which
nonetheless existed.
9
Thus the presence of the Soviet threat was seen as the leading
cause for political unity. These arguments are summarily graphed in Figure 1.
Although it is clearly a simplification of a complex line of reasoning, it does serve
the purpose of distinguishing between levels of analysis, of identifying causal links
as well as identifying the key causal claims for further analysis.
Some conceptualize the transatlantic relations within a bipolar context and
further conceive the threat that had been constituted by the Soviet Union as the most
important factor.
10
Others depart from the state level to explain the causal relation
between the presence of the Soviet Union and security cooperation. Furthermore,
following the predicates of argumentation graphing, I have inserted a level of
analysis that I call the socio-cultural level, adding elements such as cultural, ethnic
and generational ties to explain the political cooperation between the U.S. and

9
A more detailed account of these arguments is offered in the following pages. Here I have prepared a
graphic synthesis (Figure 2.1) of their understanding of what kept the United States and Europe
together during the Cold War. My synthesis was inductively constructed thorough their arguments
addressing the future of transatlantic relations. Giving quotations in the text would just constitute
redundancy, thus sensible to parsimony I will provide the sources for which the arguments were
extrapolated and the graph will illustrate the arguments.
10
See Mearsheimer (1990) in figure 2.1. John Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future”, p. 52.

47
Europe. The figure represents the pessimists arguments extracted from works
addressing the future of transatlantic relations.

Table 1. Legend: Neo-realists Figure 1-Figure 4
Kagan (2002; 2003): Robert Kagan, Power and Weakness, Policy
Review; Jun/Jul 2002; 113; Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power
(New York: N.Y.: Knopf, 2003).

Kupchan (1996): Charles Kupchan, “Reviving the West,” Foreign
Affairs, May/June 1996; 75.

Mearsheimer (1990): John Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future:
Instability in Europe after the Cold War”, International Security,
vol.15, no.1 (Summer, 1990).

Walt (1998-99): Stephen Walt, “The Ties that Fray”, The National
Interest, Washington, Winter 1998/1999. Iss. 54.

The following figure is the result of my analysis of the articles of the above-
mentioned authors. I have examined the causal arguments that they have forwarded
for the future of the North Atlantic relations. All of them depart from the idea that
the disappearance of the Soviet Union will cause demise in the transatlantic relations.
If their common denominator for the demise of the transatlantic relations is the
absence of the Soviet Union, then it follows that they assumed that during the Cold
War the presence of the Soviet threat was the unifying element. This holds true for
all of those included in the next figure. After having clustered them according to this
common causal relation I further dissected their arguments to reveal the causal
relation between the common threat and the political aspects of the transatlantic

48
relations. Finally, based on the context they use to make their predictions and
because it serves as part of the backing explicitly given to the warrants in their causal
claims, I have located their arguments within the international system, the state and
on a socio-cultural level. Arrows show the analytical relationship of their arguments.
A box in the figure will further explain such relationships.
Because of the great importance given to the perceived common threat of the
Soviet Union as the glue that kept the transatlantic partners together, the end of the
East-West rivalry, in this view, is identified as the main cause of the uncertain
cooperative future of the United States and Europe. The first and most relevant effect
of the collapse of the Soviet Union is, according to these analysts, that the United
States and Europe would not feel the need to prolong their military cooperation since
the common threat against which the alliance was created no longer existed;
accordingly, they argued NATO would thus should cease to exist in the post-Cold
War world. This is what John Mearsheimer envisaged. He claimed that it is “the
Soviet threat that provides the glue that holds NATO together. Take away that
offensive threat and the United States is likely to abandon the Continent, whereupon
the defensive alliance it has headed for forty years may disintegrate. This would
bring to an end the bipolar order that has characterized Europe for the past 45
years.”
11
(See Mearsheimer 4 (1990) and the corresponding analytical line and causal
arrows in Figure 2)

11
John Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future”, p. 52.

49

50

51
Owen Harries agrees with Mearsheimer and puts forward the idea that the
“political ‘West’ is not a natural construct but a highly artificial one. It took the
presence of a life-threatening, overtly hostile ‘East’ to bring it into existence and to
maintain its unity. It is extremely doubtful whether it can now survive the
disappearance of that enemy.”
12
He also argues, “Desperation and fear have been its
parents, not natural affinities. They have been the forces that have driven Europeans
to unite among themselves and to associate with the United States under the banner
of ‘the West’”
13
Other scholars offer remedies to prevent the demise of the
transatlantic relations. Charles Kupchan, for instance, was preoccupied with the
future of the West without the Cold War to induce unity and imagined fragmentation
and disorientation within liberal democracies if they failed to create an institution
that would protect their military and economic interests. He explains that the West is
struggling because it does not have the same sense of collective commitment and
sacrifice it experienced when it wrestled with communism (See Kupchan 1 (1996)
and the corresponding causal arrows in Figure 2). In his recipe for building a new
West, he suggests the construction of an Atlantic Union in which strategic and
economic interests are linked together.
14

Some scholars predicted a reduction of a U.S.-European economic
cooperation because of the fear that the other could gain a relative advantage thus

12
Harries, “The Collapse of ‘The West’”, p.42.
13
Harries, “The Collapse of ‘The West’”, p.47.
14
Charles Kupchan, “Reviving the West,” p. 3.

52
becoming a potential strategic rival.
15
As we know, in this view, such prospects
could increase the likelihood for economic conflicts of interests in the transatlantic.
Stephen Walt agrees with the previously mentioned thinkers that the fear of the
Soviet Union was the main reason for the transatlantic relations, but widens his
argument by including economic and cultural factors into his analysis. He is adamant
about the importance of the Cold War as a cause for unity, “Western Europe and the
United States were brought together by the raw power of the Soviet Union, its
geographic proximity to Europe, its large, offensively oriented military forces and its
open commitment to spreading world revolution.”
16
Nevertheless, he enriches the
initial supposition by adding further elements to his analysis, he claims, “during
NATO’s heyday, economic ties between Europe and America helped reinforce the
overriding strategic rationale. U.S. policymakers recognized that Europe’s economic
recovery would contribute to America’s own economic growth and strengthen the
Western alliance as a whole…This source of unity is now also of declining
importance as well. Asia surpassed Europe as the main target of U.S. trade as long
ago as 1983, and U.S. trade with Asia is now more than one and a half times larger
than trade with Europe”.
17

The main result of this trend, he says, is that “although economic connections
do not determine security commitments, the shift in economic activity from Europe
to Asia will inevitably lead U.S. policymakers to devote more energy and attention to

15
See Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation.”
16
Walt, “The Ties that Fray”, p.4.
17
Walt, “The Ties that Fray”, p.6.

53
the latter. This is especially the case since major security challenges are more likely
to rise in Asia, and that is where the most likely future challenger to U.S. hegemony-
the People’s Republic of China- is located.”(See Walt 1b1 (1998-99) and the
corresponding arrow in Figure 2). Thus, he predicts a decline in American attention
to Europe.
18
An aspect of the argument for a continuing ideological unity in the West
that he criticizes as being overestimated for understanding transatlantic relations is,
in his words, “the existence of a generation of European and American elites whose
personal backgrounds and life experiences left them strongly committed to the idea
of an Atlantic community.”
19
(See Walt 6 (1998-99) and the corresponding arrow in
Figure 2). He warns that the attempt to justify transatlantic relations, based on
ancestral ties between the United States and Europe, is often an overstatement. For
he insists that, “cultural and ethnic ties between Europe and America did not prevent
the United States from staying out of Europe’s conflicts during the nineteenth
century, and did not make America’s leaders eager to enter either world war. And we
should not forget that both wars were fought against Europeans as well as with
them.”
However, he does not completely dismiss the argument for a continuing
alliance based on cultural ties by adding, “to the extent that ethnic or cultural ties
reinforced our interest in Europe, their effectiveness is probably declining. Not only

18
Walt, “The Ties that Fray”, p.6. He also reminds us that former Secretary of State Warren
Christopher took office warning against an overly “Eurocentric” foreign policy. “The Bosnian tragedy
was thus something of a godsend for Europhiles, because it forced the Clinton administration to pay
more attention to Europe than it had initially intended.”
19
Walt, “The Ties that Fray”, p.3.

54
is the percentage of U.S. citizens of European origin declining, but the original
European immigrants arrived several generations ago and assimilation and
intermarriage have by now diluted the sense of affinity with the ‘old country’”.
20

(See Walt 6 (1998-99) and the corresponding arrow in Figure 2). Figure 2 is a
schematic diagram of the pessimists arguments for the post-Cold War splitting of
transatlantic relations. Along with the two major levels of analysis, the international
system and the state, as in the previous representation, I have added what I called the
socio-cultural level that engages with cultural elements. In this instance, the lack of
cultural, ethnic and generational ties between the U.S. and Europe weakens
transatlantic cooperation and contributes to the political split.
At the end of 1999, the discourse on the future of transatlantic relations
seemed to broaden among those who conceived the relationship in terms of a balance
of power, in that some of these theorists to attempted to bridge the gap between the
realist and the liberal approaches.
Kupchan is the more evident trait d' union between the hard-core balance of
power theorists and the liberals. In general, he seems to capture the relevance realists
give to the end of the Cold War with the reality of institutional interconnections that
the U.S. and Europe continue to experience even as the USSR has disappeared. For
example, Kupchan spells out that the “history suggests that a more equal distribution
of power between Europe and the United States will bring with it renewed
geopolitical competition. The emergence of rivalry among poles of power is after all,

20
Walt, “ The Ties that Fray”, p.7-8.

55
one of the few recurring truths of international politics”, he admits
21
. In addition, he
claims, “when the power asymmetry comes to an end, so will European
acquiescence. If, on the other end, a shared commitment to democratic values and a
common vision of an open, multilateral order are the foundation of the transatlantic
community, then the West should easily weather a more equal distribution of power
across the Atlantic.”
22

However, he concludes that “power asymmetry and shared norms and
institutions are working together to produce the cohesiveness of the transatlantic
community.”
23
This is revealing of an attempt to understand transatlantic relations
that seeks to go beyond the balance of power explanation and one that also tries to
account for the cohesiveness from a broader perspective, factoring in norms and
institutions as equally important. Kupchan’s approach in this article is also more
optimistic than the rest of the balance of power theorists’.
24
This is also the reason
why I kept my analysis of Kuphcan’s contribution to the debate for last. He has an in
between approach that speaks to both the pessimists and the optimists. He in fact
argues that, “the Atlantic democracies are far more than allies of convenience. They
have succeeded in carving out a unique political space in which the rules of anarchic
competition no longer apply. These states enjoy unprecedented levels of trust and
reciprocity. It is hard to imagine that their interests would diverge sufficiently to

21
Kupchan, “Rethinking Europe”, p.78.
22
Kupchan, “Rethinking Europe”, p.78.
23
Kupchan, “Rethinking Europe”, p.78. Italics in text.
24
Because he seems to have an approach that is also close to optimists’ positions, his work in this
article will also be discussed in the optimists’ framework in the following pages.

56
trigger strategic rivalry. Indeed, armed conflict among the Atlantic democracies has
become virtually unthinkable. These attributes of the Atlantic community are deeply
rooted in the democratic character of its members and in the thick network of
institutions they have erected to regulate their relations. The benign quality of the
relationship between North America and Europe is thus unlikely to be threatened
even by a quantitative shift in the balance of power.”
The above 1990’s literature thus expects the demise of the transatlantic core
states relations, except for Kupchan who, although balance of power oriented,
reaches out to other factors to envisage the future of the relations and, maybe
because of it, he is not as pessimistic as the other neo-realists. Nonetheless, all the
other authors cited trace back to the presence of a common threat as the central
rationale for transatlantic unity. Thus it follows that by taking the “common threat”
factor out of the equation, the axis that governed the relations disappears and so does
the urge to stay united. Their pessimistic view thus is directly connected to the
collapse of the Soviet Union.
Figure 3 is an attempt to analytically synthesize the neo-realist complex
arguments on transatlantic political unity during the Cold War. This figure, sorts out
security as the main factor that led to transatlantic cooperation and reveals how
economic cooperation is only a byproduct of the main interest: security. Figure 3 is a
causal map of the arguments of transatlantic relations from the neo-realist
perspective. U.S.-European relations are conceived within the anarchic system. The
presence of the Soviet threat produced a bipolar structure. Such a structure offered

57
very limited security options to the U.S. and Europe. The only option was in fact the
North Atlantic Alliance. Economic ties strengthened security cooperation. A strong
NATO thus produced an increase in security cooperation that in turn increased
economic cooperation. The arrows in the graphic go both ways because security
cooperation increases economic cooperation and vice-versa. However, economic
cooperation is not an endogenous factor, but rather depends on security cooperation.
Ultimately, the need for security and economic cooperation between the United
States and Europe produced political unity.

58

59
Figure 4 is a summary causal map of pessimist arguments about the future of
transatlantic relations. With the disappearance of the Soviet threat, the system
becomes multipolar. In such a system, security options increase because there are
multiple centers of power. In essence, both the United States and Europe have
multiple security options. In this scenario the importance of NATO decreases,
NATO is no longer the only option for security purposes. Economic ties decrease
because the essential dynamic from which they sprung (i.e. security) is declined. In
their assessment, economic ties only reinforce security interest. Hence, if security
interests shrink so do economic ties and interests. The decreased relevance of NATO
brings a reduction of security cooperation and reduced economic ties lessen
economic cooperation. In the end a diminished security cooperation and a declined
economic cooperation will lead to a political split between the United States and
Europe. However, the pessimist account for the post-Cold War introduces a new
element as a result of the disappearance of the Soviet threat: the power gap.
25
The
argument is that the fall of the USSR fostered a military capability gap between the
transatlantic allies and this enhanced the ideological gap that has always existed
across the Atlantic. Because the ideological gap shrinks the common strategic
perspectives, it ultimately will lead to an irreparable political divide.

25
Kagan, Power and Weakness.

60

61
III. 1990-2000 Neo-liberal account
The optimist intellectuals, who share the ideological orientation known as
liberalism, believe that the United States and Europe will continue to cooperate even
without the presence of a common threat, for the USSR was not the only factor to
hold them together. Along with security interests, they considered economic interests
and political affinity, which indeed, they argue, persists in the post Cold War era.
They also claim that security interests continue to be part of their shared interests, for
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism are the new security
threats, and they suggests that these newer threats politically unite the United States
and Europe, rather than divide them.
The intellectuals on the neo-liberal side of the debate, same as their neo-
realist counterparts, consider states to be the most important actors in international
relations viewing them as largely unitary and rational.
26
The neo-liberals optimists
also accept the role of power and threats in shaping states behavior, but maintain that
international relations are more than a struggle for survival, and to that extent, they
underline the role of international institutions.
27
Within liberalism, an approach that
is promising in the understanding of transatlantic relations is institutional theory.
The starting point for this approach is that states could achieve considerable
gains if they cooperate, but often they do not because of costs, uncertainty and fear
of cheating among other things. When these problems are present, however, states
can overcome them by joining international institutions, which aim at reducing costs,

26
Keohane, After Hegemony. See also Keohane and Martin, The Promise of Institutionalist Theory.
27
Keohane, After Hegemony. See also Keohane and Martin, The Promise of Institutionalist Theory.

62
uncertainty, fear and other obstacles that may exist.
28
In this view, once created
member states seek to maintain them and to comply with the rules they contain. The
reason for such behavior is that member states want to maintain the benefits for
which such institutions were originally established. Furthermore, even when
situations change and the current institutions no longer seem to be efficient vis-à-vis
the new conditions, states may find problems creating alternative structures (e.g.
high costs) and often opt for adjusting the outdated institutions to meet the new
challenges. Cases in which states decide to completely withdraw from an institution
are rare; nonetheless, they occur when the institution is indisputably dysfunctional.
Thus these authors do not identify the end of the Cold War as the cause for
the possible downfall of transatlantic relations. To the contrary, they reject the idea
that such a demise to transatlantic unity. They acknowledge disagreements; none of
these authors would deny the Cold War disputes (i.e. the question of Germany in the
1950s, NATO strategy in the 1960s, détente and Vietnam in the 1970s, the Euro-
missiles in the 1980s, which revealed major disagreements in the Atlantic area).
Joseph Nye, for instance, argues that the United State and Europe are “bound to
bicker”.
29
Nonetheless, these researchers tend to downplay such disagreements
while, at the same time, highlighting the ties that will continue to keep them together.
Hence, from this perspective the United States and Europe will maintain their
relations in both the security and the economic realms.

28
Keohane, After Hegemony. See also Keohane and Martin, The Promise of Institutionalist Theory.
29
The expression “bound to bicker” is borrowed from Nye, “The US and Europe”, p. 57.

63
These intellectuals do not reject the claim that the transatlantic partnership
was founded within the NATO context. From this perspective, as with the previous
one, security interests are relevant for transatlantic relations, for during the Cold War
security was one of the pillars holding the U.S.-European relations together.
However, the authors that I have identified within the neo-liberal perspective see the
Soviet threat as one of the elements that promoted cooperation in the Atlantic area.
For these thinkers, the Soviet threat was not the key cause for having an alliance, but
rather one factor among others. James Elles for instance acknowledges the USSR as
the glue that kept the United States and Europe together (an argument to which the
neo-realists also subscribe).
30
However, Elles is not the only one among the neo-
liberals to stress the security interest. John Duffield emphasizes this point as well. He
in fact claims that NATO members cooperated in the security realm because of the
common threat.
31
There are other examples of neo-liberals that highlight security.
Robert Blackwill expresses the idea that the reality of the Soviet military power
triggered transatlantic relations and Nye concedes that NATO is a very important
part of the transatlantic relations.
32
In essence, they all agree that security interests
were relevant, but not fundamental for the dynamics of transatlantic relations during
the Cold War. (Figure 5 illustrates Elles, Duffield, Blackwill and Nye’s arguments.)

30
Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship”, p. 35.
31
Duffield, “NATO’s Functions after the Cold War”.
32
Blackwill, The Future of Transatlantic Relations, p.8. See also Nye, “The US and Europe.” p.54.

64

65
For the period of the Cold War, the economic argument is not particularly
relevant but it becomes more so when neo-liberals discuss the post Cold War
conditions. Elles for instance links economic interests with the presence of the
USSR, which is an argument that is probably closer to a pessimist one, and Deudeny
and Ikenberry mention that market relations produced economic interdependence
during the Cold War. However, this argument is not remarkably developed by the
optimists for the period of the Cold War when discussing transatlantic relations.
(Figure 6 illustrates this point. See Elles and Deudney-Ikenberry’s arguments
represented in the figure).
What the neo-liberals seems to develop and agree most clearly upon is that
what brought the United States and Europe together during the Cold War was an
overwhelming consensus in favor of political democracy. The shared value of
democracy also triggered their participation in international organizations. Deudney
and Ikenberry claim that “the West has a distinctive political logic. It is not a series
of states in anarchy, but rather an integrated and functionally differentiated
system.”
33
(See how this link works in Figure 7).

33
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West”, p.18.

66

67

68
The West they claim is “bound together by a web of complex institutional
links and association.”
34
They also claim that in part these institutions were prompted
by the pressures of the Cold War, nonetheless they have produced what they call a
“civic identity” in which “rational reciprocity dominates, and nationalism has been
muted into pluralist ethnicity.”
35
Kuphan agrees and claims that the United States
and Europe “have succeeded in carving out a unique political space in which the
rules of anarchic competition no longer apply.”
36
He states that “these states enjoy
unprecedented levels of trust and reciprocity.”
37
Thus, “armed conflict among the
Atlantic democracies has become virtually impossible.” The reasons he offers for
this view is that the members of the Atlantic community are democracies and belong
to institutions, which they have created to regulate their relations. (See the related
Kupchan link in Figure 7, which also shows the larger argument pathway linking this
claim to a brighter prospect for transatlantic relations). Nye concurs with the idea
that the United States and Europe share values. He states that “the United States
shares the values of democracy and human rights more thoroughly with the majority
of European countries that with most other states.”
38
(Nye’s argument appears in the
bottom part of Figure 7).
The neo-liberal arguments for cooperation during the Cold War are combined
in Figure 8. I have constructed a multi-path causal map, which synthesizes the neo-

34
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West”, p.18.
35
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West”, p.18.
36
Kupchan, “Rethinking Europe”, p. 79.
37
Kupchan, “Rethinking Europe”, p. 79.
38
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p.55.

69
liberal arguments. The figure represents the three main factors that they
conceptualize as influential for transatlantic political cooperation during the Cold
War.
The lack of the complexity of the argument that appears evident from Figures
5 through 7, synthesized in Figure 8, is quite striking. There is no causal effect
between the Soviet threat and transatlantic political cooperation, not that there has to
be one. But one is left wondering about the (absent) dynamics of causal relationships
in their analysis. Security interests are present, along with economic ones and value
identification, but their argument lacks a coherent articulation of all these elements.
As for their analysis of the future of transatlantic relations in the post Cold
War, they seem to agree that these relations will not undergo major changes since the
Cold War. They expect that shared security interests, shared economic interests and
value identification will preserve transatlantic political cooperation.
From a security standpoint, the disintegration of the USSR, some have
claimed, did not wipe out U.S.-European common security interests. They cite that
although establishing a contraposition to the countries of the Warsaw Pact
constituted the most important goal of the alliance, others (i.e. stabilizing Europe)
were nonetheless relevant and the end of East-West rivalry gave more prominence to
those.
39
(See Elles and Duffield’s arguments summarized in Figure 9).

39
Duffield, “NATO’s Functions after the Cold War”.

70

71

72
In a very thoughtful report sponsored by the Council of Foreign Relations,
Robert Blackwill highlights this very point by arguing that even with the end of the
Cold War “the two sides of the Atlantic continue to share enduring vital interests and
face a common set of challenges both in Europe and beyond. These challenges are so
many and diverse that neither the United States nor the allies can adequately address
these regional and global concerns alone, especially in light of growing domestic
constraints on the implementation of foreign policy. Thus, protecting shared interests
and managing common threats to the West in the years ahead will necessitate not
only continued cooperation but a broader and more comprehensive transatlantic
partnership than in the past.”
40
He explains that governments, dominant elites, and
publics perceive such important interests as “largely identical and equally
acute”.
41
The common interests that he identifies are several: slowing the spread of
weapons of mass destruction; avoiding the emergence of a hostile hegemon in
Europe; moving toward a Europe that is whole and free, prosperous and at peace;
maintaining the secure supply of imported energy at reasonable prices; further
opening up the transatlantic and global economic systems and, finally, preventing the
collapse of international financial, trade, and ecological regime.
42
(See the Blackwill
link summarizing this claim in Figure 9).
Blackwill’s analysis however does not focus exclusively on common security
and economic interests; he in fact also acknowledges that the United States and

40
Blackwill, The Future of Transatlantic Relations, p.7.
41
Blackwill, The Future of Transatlantic Relations, p.10.
42
Blackwill, The Future of Transatlantic Relations, p.10.

73
Europe share history, cultural affinity, and moral values and that, he claims, make
the transatlantic partnership unique in the world. Joseph Nye seems to agree with the
basic principle Blackwill puts forward that neither threatens vital interest of the other
and thus we should not expect them to drift apart. He in facts stresses that the lack of
conflicting interest is extremely important because “it means that despite the
inevitable frictions that arise, there are no deep-seated causes of animosity or
permanent division.”
43
Contrary to the neo-realist view (e.g. Walt in The Ties that
Fray), he points out that NATO is still popular, trade is good and the U.S. and
Europe do share the values of democracy and human rights and puts a special
emphasis on the relevance of values in foreign policy. (See the summary link labeled
“Nye” in Figure 9). Nye claims, “values matter in American foreign policy, and the
communality of values between the United States and Europe is an important force
keeping the two sides together.”
44
Some expected that NATO members would try to
use the Alliance’s highly organized structure to address new possible challenges in
the region or even outside Europe.
45
.
Neo-liberals also claim that there are economic reasons for the continuation
of transatlantic cooperation. Elles for example argues that the weight of American-
European trade is such that it makes the two countries “natural” partners.
46
(This
Elles argument appears in Figure 10). Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry too stress
the economic aspect of such relations, but they emphasize social networks, a

43
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p.55.
44
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p.55.
45
McCalla, “NATO's Persistence after the Cold War”.
46
Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship”, p. 36.

74
distinctive political culture and identity, as well as shared public institutions. They
claim that these factors form the complexity of transatlantic relations. They argue
“make no mistake, the body of the civic union is capitalism. The business of the
West is business…As the importance of the market grows in these societies, their
characters converge.”
47
(See Figure 10). Nye also participates in the debate on the
issue of economic cooperation. He claims that the hypothesis of rivalry between the
Euro and the Dollar, as to which will be the dominant reserve currency has been
exaggerated.
48
Furthermore, he points out that “Europeans will have an enlightened
self-interest in maintaining good relations with the American economy, and direct
foreign investment helps to knit economies together…In this regard it is worth
noting that while American trade with Asia has surpassed that with Europe,
American trade with Europe is more balanced. Moreover, American foreign direct
investment in Europe still exceeds that in Asia.”
49
(This text supports the link in
Figure 10). Finally, Blinken offers data on the extent of transatlantic cooperation to
argue for the continuation of cooperation. He states that “American investment in
Europe has increased seven-fold over the past six years; U.S. owned firms in Europe
employ three million Europeans. European companies are the leading investors in 41
out of 50 U.S. states. One in 12 American factory workers is employed in one of the
4,000 European-owned business in the United States.”
50
(See Figure 10).

47
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West”, p.18.
48
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p.54.
49
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p.54-55.
50
Blinken, “The False Crisis Over the Atlantic,” p. 46.

75

76
Value identification within international institutions is another factor that, as
in the analysis of the transatlantic relations for the Cold War, comes into play.
51

Deudney and Ikenberry, as I said in the previous pages, claim that the West is not
build by a series of states that are bound to face a common threat under anarchy, but
rather they are “bound by a web of complex institutional links and associations.”
52

They further claim that the West is a “civic union” which is defined by a structural
integration of their organs of security, economy and society.
53
(See Figure 11)
They conceptualize capitalism as the “body” of the civic union. They claim
that the West has its own “spirit” that is made of common norms, public mores, and
political identities. Finally, they acknowledge that they too speak of the West as
being made up of nation-states but they put forward the idea that states “exist in a
complex political order made up of intergovernmental links and economic decision
making processes as well as formal public organizations.”
54
In other words, they
argue that the collapse of the Soviet Union will not spell doom for transatlantic
relations. They acknowledge that although the Cold War helped prompt the
construction of institutions like NATO, such international institutions have achieved
an acceptability that goes beyond the processes that created them. They claim, “over
the last half century, Western countries have come to view these institutions as a
routine and regular part of domestic and international politics, and they find it

51
Value identification is a term that I use to indicate that according to the reviewed authors the North
Atlantic core states are bound together by common values. In other words, an identification with
common values keeps will ensure continuing political cooperation.
52
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West”, p.18.
53
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West”, p.18.
54
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West”, p.20.

77
difficult to imagine life without them.”
55
These institutions in fact, they argue,
embody common values and are not merely instrumental. Similarly, James Elles
asserts that there are three basic reasons for being optimistic about the future. The
first one is that the U.S. and Europe share both history and values. “There is no other
possible combination of nations in the world which can embrace so many peoples
committed to democratic institutions and the market economy. In addition, these
countries have accumulated a long experience of working together in pursuit of
common objectives. They have also developed mechanisms, procedures and
institutional and personal relationships for coordinating positions and resolving their
differences”.
56
(See Elles in Figure 11) Elles is not blind to U.S. and Europe rivalry
in the global economy, however, he argues that if such rivalry “is channeled into
agreements which rewrite global trading rules in favor of a more open system and
which at the same time diminishes the points of conflict between Europe and the
US…then a strengthened partnership will be rewarded by grater economic growth.”
57

Others continue to emphasize the issues that unite rather than divide. Ivo Daalder
highlights that “both sides of the Atlantic share a commitment to market democracy
and to the underlying values that have given rise to it over centuries. Both hold key
economic and strategic interests in common (even if they often differ on how best to
protect or advance them.) And cooperation between the two is necessary (and in

55
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West,” p. 21.
56
Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship”, p. 35.
57
Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship”, p. 36.

78
many cases sufficient) to address many of the most important global issues.”
58

Kuchpan in 1999 seems to have abandoned the pessimism of his early article and
writes “my own assessment is that power asymmetry and shared norms and
institutions are working together to produce the cohesiveness of the transatlantic
community.”
59
As I said earlier in the Chapter, Kupchan’s approach is difficult to
categorize; what I intend to stress, however, is his emphasis on the idea that the
Atlantic community will not face strategic competition because it is rooted in
democracy and tied in “the thick network of institutions they have erected to regulate
their relations.”
60
(See Kupchan in Figure 11).
Nye reminds us that “the United States shares the values of democracy and
human rights more thoroughly with the majority of European countries than with
most other states.”
61
He also draws attention on the relevance of values for keeping
the U.S. and Europe together. He argues “values matter in American foreign policy,
and the commonality of values between the United States and Europe is an important
force keeping the two sides together.”
62

58
Daalder, “Europe: Rebalancing the U.S.-European Relationship”, p. 25.
59
Kupchan, “Rethinking Europe”, p.78.
60
Kupchan, “Rethinking Europe”, p.79.
61
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p.55.
62
Nye, “The US and Europe”, p.55.

79

80
Finally, Anthony Blinken argues that “the United States and Europe are
converging culturally, economically, and with some effort, strategically.”
63
He
claims that the “values gap” and the “strategic split” are arguments that rests within
the minds of European and American elites and that in fact the U.S. and Europe are
not growing apart. He maintains that there is no value gap on the death penalty and
gun control. He asserts that there is a tendency to converge on the issue of
genetically modified organisms and thus, concludes, “the United States are more
likely to agree on the scope of an international criminal court, the sweep of a land
mines treaty, or the sway of a U.N.”
64
(See Blinken in Figure 11).
The United States and Europe, continue to participate in international
institutions that they have founded (e.g. NATO, WTO, IMF, the G 7, UN) and push
their security and economic agenda through and within those institutions.
Furthermore, they have adjusted them, mainly NATO, to address the security
challenges within the region and outside of it. Thus, according to this argumentative
perspective one should expect that the United States and Europe will continue to
cooperate on security and economic issues.
As noted previously, when addressing the optimists’ arguments for
transatlantic relations in the Cold War, I have constructed a constitutive and causal
map for the post Cold War (Figure 12). The boxes in the figure indicate the factors
that these observers have suggested as salient for transatlantic relations. Moreover,
the authors being examined have claimed that the presence of these factors lead to

63
Blinken, “The False Crisis Over the Atlantic”, p. 36.
64
Blinken, “The False Crisis Over the Atlantic”, p. 46.

81
the conclusion that there will be continued cooperation in the future of U.S.-
European relations. At this point, I want to call attention to the similarity between
Figure 8 and Figure 12. The similarity between the two Figures is conspicuous.
There is no appreciable difference between the graphs for the two periods. Neo-
liberals offer the same reasons for both periods and do not detect any major changes
in transatlantic relations. Shared security interests, although different from the
previous era, shared economic interests and shared values and identity originated a
complex web of international institutions. Institutions allow the U.S. and Europe to
pursue common interests and because they are linked within those organizations in
pursuing those interests they will keep cooperating.
These arguments, especially in the light of NATO enlargement, sounded to
some extent convincing. Neo-realists, who conceived transatlantic relations mainly
in strategic terms and who argued that the end of the Cold War would have brought
the demise of such relations, for a while appeared to have offered certainly a
sophisticated account for the future of the transatlantic relations. In the 1990s,
disagreements on the transformation of NATO as well as political divisions on
multilateral efforts such as the Kyoto Protocol, the Convention on the Anti-Personnel
Mines and the ICC seemed to signal the accuracy of the neo-realist account while
invalidating the neo-liberal one.

82
.

83
IV. Comparing Contending Arguments
The neo-realist and neo-liberal arguments are not fully comparable at all
levels. Although some of their arguments can be paired and contrasted as contending
arguments, there are a number of “mismatched arguments” or instances in which the
two approaches direct past each other. There are also examples in which the critical
arguments of one approach are not addressed by, or counter argued by, the other.
Therefore, it is important to make a distinction between matched contending
arguments, mismatched arguments, and non-addressed arguments.
The neo-realist perspectives presented in the figures are divided in three
levels: international system, state level and socio-cultural level. The synthesis of the
neo-realist arguments suggests that the majority of their arguments about the past
and the future were made at the state and socio-cultural levels (see Table 2 and Table
3). Distinguishing between the levels and breaking down the arguments these authors
make, allow us to determine which arguments are matched and which are
mismatched. This is relevant for testing purposes because the neo-liberals reject
arguments made by neo-realists about the future of the relations at different points.
The points of convergence, divergence and non overlap between the neo-realist and
the neo-liberal viewpoints will be addressed in the following pages.

a. International system level
In my source material, this is the level at which only the neo-realists make
claims about the past and future of transatlantic relations. While the presence or

84
absence of the Soviet threat is an important element vis-à-vis the past and future of
U.S.-European relations, the presence of the Soviet threat in a bipolar context is seen
as a constraining element within security choices. The argument is that in a bipolar
context the US and the Europeans did not have security choices. The only possible
choice for Europeans was to follow under to protective umbrella of the US and the
US did not have any other option but to protect them. The following table (see Table
2) shows that the neo-liberals did not respond to such an argument. The bulk of their
counterargument can be found in the state and socio-cultural levels. As for the future,
the neo-liberals make the argument for the dissolution of transatlantic relations also
at the international system level, which is again not addressed by the neo-liberals
(see Table 3). The neo-realists claim that with the end of the Cold War and hence the
disappearance of the bipolar structure and the rise of a multipolar structure, the US is
likely to abandon Europe and NATO. This argument is not countered by the neo-
liberals who, in the sources I have surveyed, do not make any of their arguments at
the international system level (see Tables 2 and 3 for a summary of the related
discussions).

b. State level
This level is where the majority of arguments, in our collection of sources,
flourish and where we find many contending arguments that are mismatched. In
substance, often the authors direct past each other; but not always. For instance, there
is agreement on the neo-realist argument that the presence of the Soviet threat had

85
produced an overriding security interest in the US and Europe (see Table 2). But
while the pessimists predict the break down of the transatlantic relations as a result
of the disappearance of the USSR, and thus the disappearance of the common
security interest, neo-liberals claim that new threats, such as WMDs and terrorism,
will constitute the new security glue for the endurance of the relations (Table 3).
After having historically evaluated the contending arguments coming out from the
following tables on my three case studies, I will offer my own evaluation of this
proposition about which I will have more to say in chapter 6.
Security is a very important factor and the cause behind the cooperation
between the U.S. and Europe from the neo-realist perspective. As for the post Cold
War, to the neo-realist claim that the increase of security options in the post Cold
War will reduce NATO strength, neo-liberals respond that there is consensus in
Europe and the U.S. on the importance of NATO (see Table 3). This is a contending
argument that I will evaluate for the 1991-2001 period in my case study of NATO as
an example of a mismatched proposition. In fact, the neo-liberals do not directly
address the causal relation between the increase of security options and NATO
strength. They argue that there is consensus on the importance of NATO. What
makes them argue this and what is happening within NATO, which could justify
either position, is what I will test in my case study of NATO.
It should be clear by now that the neo-realists’ argument revolves, and is built
around, security. For them, security also effects economic relations. They argue that
during the Cold War economic ties reinforced security interests and vice-versa. This

86
argument is a contending one. In fact, neo-liberals respond that common economic
interests within institutions and along with market relations were per se’ causes of
closeness. This is part of the same problem for the neo-realists for whom the
economic aspects of the relations also descend from alterations in the security
options.
The neo-realist claims that the military power gap between the US and
Europe produced a marriage of convenience in the presence of the Soviet threat and
the ideological gap, due to the absence of such a threat, is also not addressed by the
neo-liberals (see Table 2 and Table 3).

c. Socio-cultural level
At this level, the analysis of the neo-realists arguments bring to light that the
presence of the Soviet threat and the struggle against communism called up a sense
of Western collective commitment toward the Atlantic community (see Table 2). The
post Cold War is instead characterized by fragmentation and disorientation, in which
there is no longer a sense of commitment to the Atlantic community because of the
lack of a unifying force (see Table 3). This statement also encompasses the claim
that while there was a generation of Europeans and Americans whose personal
background and experiences left them committed to the Atlantic community during
the Cold War, the fading away of such generational commitment in the post Cold
War era is causing a lack of cohesion in the larger western community. This is also a
mismatched contending argument. Again, these arguments bypass each other. The

87
neo-liberals in fact do not address these claims but rather, within this issue, look at
the problem from a different angle. They focus on institutions and shared political as
well as economic values as key elements of the Euro-American relations, for both
the past and the future of the relations.
For the Cold War period, the neo-liberals generally claim that the North
Atlantic core states were kept together by the structural integration of their organs of
security, economy and society within institutions like NATO, WTO, IMF, G7, and
the UN Security Council (see Table 2). They do not deny that such institutions were
in part the result of the Cold War, but stress that the values of democracy and human
rights produced the cohesiveness within the transatlantic community. Their view for
the post Cold War does not substantially differ, but they further claim that the
complex web of institutions the U.S. and Europe belong to, decreases the likelihood
of conflict or split between them (see Table 3). The question that comes out of this
mismatched proposition, which I will empirically evaluate, is the following: Is there
evidence of the dissolution of the commitment to the Atlantic community or do
institutions, norms and values keep the Atlantic community together?

88
Table 2. Arguments on the past relations among North Atlantic core states
Pessimists Optimists
Matched Mismatched
International System Level
Presence of Soviet Threat (PST)
Produced bipolar structure
not addressed ---
In PST context, the rise of a bipolar
structure, limited choices on both
sides of iron curtain
not addressed ---
State level
PST produced overriding security
interests and thus NATO
Agree ---
In PST context, decrease of
security options strengthen
economic ties and vice-versa
---
Common economic interests permeated
by market relations mentalities and
institutions kept them together
In PST context, military power gap
produced marriage of convenience
not addressed ----
Socio-Cultural level
PST induced unity of liberal
democracies and sense of
commitment to Atlantic
Community
---
Overwhelming consensus in favor of
political democracy, market economies
ethnic toleration and personal freedom
kept them together.
---
Membership to public institutions in a
complex political order made up of
intergovernmental links and decision-
making processes (belonging to common
international institutions like NATO,
WTO, IMF, G7, UN) kept them together
POLITICAL UNITY BETWEEN
THE U.S. AND EUROPE

TRANSATLANTIC POLITICAL
COOPERATION

89
Table 3. Arguments on the future relations among North Atlantic core states
Pessimists Optimists
Matched Mismatched
International System Level
Disappearance of Soviet Threat
(DST) produced multipolar structure
not addressed ---
In DST context, because of the rise of
a multipolar structure, the US is
likely to abandon the European
continent and NATO
not addressed ---
State level

DST has eliminated the overriding
common security interest
---
New threats (WMDs, terrorism)
constitute the common security
threat for the Post-Cold War
In DST context, increase of security
options will reduce NATO strength
---
Consensus in Europe and US on
importance of NATO
In DST increase of security options
will loosen economic ties
---
Trade between US and Europe is
good
In DST context, military power gap
will induce ideological gap
not addressed
Socio-Cultural level
In DTS context, no more sense of
commitment to Atlantic community
not addressed

The US and Europe share
norms/values and political identity

The complex web of institutions
they belong to decreases the
likelihood of conflict/split between
the US and Europe
POLITICAL SPLIT BETWEEN
THE U.S. AND EUROPE

TRANSATLANTIC POLITICAL
COOPERATION

90
V. Conclusions from my argument analysis and the choice of relevant current
case studies
The previous discussion shows that the neo-liberals developed contending
arguments to counter the pessimists’ approach at different points in their arguments.
It also illustrates that the arguments of the two approaches are not necessarily
matched, but rather they are overwhelmingly mismatched or bypass each other on a
number of points.
The arguments of the two approaches fall in one of the three categories. 1.
matched arguments, 2. non-addressed arguments, or 3. mismatched arguments.
Matched contending arguments are those that could be described as:
A  ~ B
A  ~ C
These matched contending propositions are generally easy to evaluate. If the
definitions of critical terms fit and evidence is available. In this case, evaluations
should be reasonably simple.
65
Problems may emerge in case there is evidence for
both claims, but these can be solved by gathering more facts.
An example of matched contending arguments is:
The presence of the common threat unified the Atlantic community
versus
The presence of the common threat limited security choices on both sides of
the Atlantic

65
On the question of evaluating propositions see Biersteker, Distortion or Development?, pp. 64-68.

91
These two arguments form a pair of well-matched contending arguments.
Those arguments not addressed are less easy to evaluate because they are not
matched. In essence, these arguments represent issues that only one part of the
contending approaches considers. There is, however, one way of attempting an
evaluation of these arguments and that is to infer a possible proposition that the
opposing side might make.
Mismatched arguments are the most difficult to evaluate because they often
imply explanations that reflect different worldviews. Different belief systems
influence the respective authors’ different conceptualization of an issue. However, I
plan to test mismatched arguments in my case studies.
The research questions that I will address in my case studies emerge from
Tables 3 and 4. The first question emerges directly from the debate and most of all
from the juxtaposition of the mismatched arguments at the state level. From what I
have discussed in the previous pages the ne-realists argue that NATO’s strength will
decrease while the neo-liberals argue that there is a consensus on the importance of
NATO on both sides. Therefore, in my first case study I will analyze what happened
in the 1990s within NATO, an assessment that I believe will enable us understand
which of the two approaches seems to be more useful, and accurate with respect to
the past and the present dynamics of the Euro-American relations and shed light on
the future of the West.
A second question, with the same purpose, also comes out from the figures
and that is: is there evidence of the dissolution of the ongoing commitment to the

92
Atlantic community in the 1990s, or do institutions, norms and values keep the
Atlantic community together during those years? In order to offer a balanced answer
to this question as well as to provide an objective look at the greater thematic about a
political split versus an endurance of the transatlantic relations, I have selected two
additional cases. One suggested on the surface the disintegration, or at least the
redefinition, of the old West, the International Criminal Court, while the other, the
issue of debt relief, indicated, with different rationales coming from the U.S. and
Europe, a re-integrative development.
The empirical evaluation of the contending perspectives on the future of the
transatlantic relations and the helpfulness of the term “the West” is presented in the
following chapters when the cases of the transformation of NATO, the creation of
the International Criminal Court and the debt relief are examined in detail.
Before moving on to the case studies, I want to show how intellectuals, some
of whom I have already included in the previous debate, have contributed to the
recent understanding of “the West.” In fact, the second goal of this work is to attempt
a reconstruction of the West, which will also come out of my case studies. However,
an analysis of “the West” requires a definition of it, and therefore it is my intention
to ground this definition on the debates that have addressed the West I wish to
discuss. In order to avoid claims that I am sidestepping westernized and modernized
states in Asia as well as Latin America I will attempt to illustrate what the West is,
and what encompasses it according to those who talk about its future in the public
domain. This will help in narrowing my focus when discussing the West, and

93
furthermore, their assessment will serve the purpose of justifying my selection of
Western core countries.

VI. Definitions of “the West”
Defining the West is not an easy task if one wants a definition that is
historically or empirically defensible. Indeed, some argue that such a large,
civilizational concept is incoherent without an essence, and ultimately non-definable.
But one can still usefully ask: how is the term used in political or social discourse?
Although from a cultural and historical point of view, the West has been defined first
as Western Europe and later as the Euro-American area, its locus remains elusive
and it does not have a specific location on the map. The West is not a geographical
place; yet it exists. For those who grew up during the Cold War in a country engaged
in that conflict, the West was simply the non-East, had specific characteristics, and
was the cradle of democracy and capitalism. What united this most recent West were
not cultural or historical ties but the shared purpose of fighting a common enemy: the
USSR. The West that some have become accustomed to referring to, and identify
with since the 1950s, was one born out of common security interests and often it
became synonymous with the Atlantic Alliance, the Western community, in other
words with NATO. During the Cold War, the meaning of the West was to some
extent unambiguous and there was little need to enquire about its significance and its
implications. However, with the end of the East-West rivalry, I argue, the West, as
conceptualized during the Cold War, has lost its meaning.

94
The West is no longer, what is not Russian. Is it possible to positively
identifying against something that does not exist? The safe answer seems to be no.
However, if this is the case, then the end of the ideological contraposition between
East and West has opened the question of redefining the West in the post Cold War
era. If security was its main raison d'être what becomes of the West when the
common enemy disappears? The quarrels across the Atlantic ocean after 9/11 seem
to suggest that something fundamental has changed since the end of the Cold War
and that even the new common enemy, Islamic terrorism, recognized across the
Atlantic ocean as the new common threat, struggles to recreate the political unity of
the Cold War. My question is: can we still talk about “the West” in the post Cold
War and today? One of the goals of this work is to put forward a framework, which
could help us understand the future of the West. But this can be done after an
analysis of how the West came to be defined and described during the interim period
in which no common enemy was on the horizon. This will set up my contribution to
the literature that addresses the West by showing what is missing: mainly an analysis
of the interactions within the core Western states, which can tell us how we should
think about the West in the future. An analysis of the contraposition between theory
and praxis within the West is also necessary, because it will help us determine if
there are elements in the praxis that could make us argue that there is still a West,
notwithstanding evident political disagreements. Debates about the future of the
West in those years will offer insights on how intellectuals from Europe and the
U.S., conceptualized the West as an amorphous block in which differences within it

95
did not surface because of the way the West has been conceptually framed. I want to
clarify that ‘amorphous’ does not necessarily mean that these intellectuals do not
identify the states or societies that they believe encompass the West (see Table 4);
what it means is that even when they do so, they tend to overlook the dynamic
interactions within what they call ‘the West.’

VII. Intellectuals’ assessment of the West 1990-2002
In the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, many intellectuals grappled with
the question of the future of the West. The moment was ripe for such a debate. In
fact, the collapse of the “East,” (i.e. the Soviet Union and its alliance structures), to
some extent, destabilized the West as conceived by these intellectuals.
66
Nonetheless,
what emerges from the theoretical debates and speculations is a picture of an
unproblematic West; in other words, a West with no complexities or differences to
emphasize.
In 1990, an alarmed John Mearsheimer suggested that “the West
paradoxically … (had) an interest in the continued existence of a powerful Soviet
Union with substantial military forces in Eastern Europe.”
67
Two main elements can
be deducted from his discussion. First, that NATO is the West and second, within
such context, Americans and Western Europeans are the core Western entities. It is
reasonable to ask: what Western Europeans and what are the interactions between

66
Table 4 will offer, in a synthetic way, the major arguments the authors make in discussing the future
of the West make.
67
Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future”, p. 52.

96
them and the U.S.? The West, in his view, is what I call a block, in which the
interactions between these actors are not taken into account. There are also other
problems such as the fact that, within NATO, there are other actors and those he
identifies are not the only two. Furthermore, Western Europe is made of several
nation-states that even within the then European Community remained separate
political entities.
Some authors have a narrow definition of the West, others have a broader one
(see Table 4), but what they all have in common is a lack of analysis of the
interactions within the West. Kishore Mahububani’s West is the most vague and no
efforts are made to help us identify his West.
68
Within his cosmology, the “West”
becomes an obscure category that may encompass the French and the British as well
as the U.S., but the fact or evidence of such an inclusion is largely left unclear. In his
vision, this murky West will be challenged by mass immigration from the Third
World. He accuses this undistinguished West of lacking any interest in the Third
World and finally argues that the West has left most of the Third World societies
alone and, in so doing, has ended a four centuries old involvement in the Third
World.
This article is particularly puzzling because he never refers to any state or
society of the West. I believe that when Mahububani accuses the West of neglecting
the Third World, he is probably addressing the U.S. for, during the Cold War, the
super-powers for several reasons were more involved in the South than they are

68
Kishore Mahbubani, “The West and the Rest,” The National Interest, Washington, Summer 1992,
Iss.28, p. 3.

97
today. But does he also include Russia in the West? It is very difficult to make any
speculation about his West because he is very vague. When he talks about the West’s
four centuries of involvement in the Third World, he is probably addressing the
European colonial powers which ruled that part of the world and that have continued
to have some influence in that region over the years. Nonetheless, even though his
argument is compelling and immigration is indeed a serious challenge for the
societies and the governments of Europe and North America, his definition of the
West remains unclear and generalized. Conor O’Brien also discusses the future of
the West, but in a way that is less ambiguous.
69
He argues that the new challenges
for the West will come from Central and Easter Europe, and here it is evident that his
historical reference is the then current situation in the Balkans. The other threat he
envisages for the West is Germany. He is convinced, as Mearsheimer does in his
“Back to the Future” article, that Germany will be a destabilizing factor in Europe. It
has to be acknowledged that O’Brien identifies the West as having at its core the
United States, Britain, France and Canada, but even so, he does not analyze the
relations among the West that could help us predict its future. Owen Harries’ “The
Collapse of the West” is particularly interesting because he, as Mearsheimer, depicts
the West as synonymous with NATO. His way of approaching the West as NATO,
however, is quite striking.
The title of the articles speaks of the collapse of the West but it almost
immediately moves on to the question of “the West” going East and he explains why

69
Conor Cruise O’Brien, “The Future of ‘the West’”, The National Interest, Winter 1992/93, Iss. 30,
p.3.

98
NATO or the West should not go East.
70
The core of his argument is that the
West/NATO was born out of desperation and fear, not natural affinities. Those fears,
according to him, have pushed the Europeans to unite among themselves and
associate with the U.S. under the banner of the West/NATO. The conclusion is quite
predictable and can be summed up as no danger, no West. But again, even in a
dangerous post Cold War context, the West appears to be less united than what it
used to be.
Also in 1993, Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry published an article that
made a very different argument from the previous ones. They claim that while there
is a “logic of the West”, such logic is a political one. In their view, the West is a
civic union, which is “bound together by a web of complex institutional links and
associations.”
71
Its distinctive political logic makes the West peaceful and projects it
on a path of economic growth, democratic governance and liberal toleration. As for
their conceptualization of the West, it seems safe to say that they are more inclusive
than the rest and embrace Western Europe, North America and Japan. Still, the West
is lumped together in a conceptualization that constructs it as a discrete block within
international institutions.
There are several responses to Deudney and Ikenberry’s argument, some of
which are relevant to my discourse about the West and its inner interactions. For
example, Bruce Cumings asks what the West is and does not seem to be comfortable
with their lack of acknowledgment that the West is also “no growth” and “no

70
Harries, “The Collapse of the West”, p.41
71
Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic of the West”, p.18.

99
tolerance”. Yet, he fails to offer an answer to the question he raises.
72
Richard Falk
agrees with Deudney and Ikenberry that the essence of Western identity is rooted in
capitalism, but he regards “the current version of this reality as being shaped by the
dynamics of globalization as facilitated by recent technologies, including a planetary
communication network.”
73
He is also puzzled by the inclusion of Japan in the West
and argues that it would seem right to include it “in terms of market dominance and
geopolitical solidarity, but not in relation to ethical outlook and societal style.”
74

Christopher Coker takes a different angle and attempts to ground the West in
philosophy and thought, through an analysis of philosophers like Hegel and writers
like Goethe. Yet he also begins with an idea of the West that is very close to the one
that we have seen being portrayed in the previous pages. In the offset of his book, he
states that the Atlantic Alliance, or the Western community is widely known as “the
West” and that the West he refers to is the West as understood by its members; such
a West is “a political community that includes only Canada, the United States and
Western Europe.”
75

Only after 9/11 do we begin to see attempts to looking within the West. The
first article, which attempts to do this, is Charles Kupchan’s “The End of the West”.
The core of his argument is summarized in the subtitle in which he states, “The next
clash of civilizations will be not between the West and the rest but between the
United States and Europe.” I do not intend to engage with Huntington’s Clash of

72
Cummings, Falk, Walt, and Desch, “Commentary: Is There a Logic of the West?”, p. 113.
73
Cummings, Falk, Walt, and Desch, “Commentary: Is There a Logic of the West?” p. 115.
74
Cummings, Falk, Walt, and Desch, “Commentary: Is There a Logic of the West?” p. 116.
75
Coker, Twilight of the West, p. 2.

100
Civilization argument,
76
and, to be fair, neither does he. Nonetheless, I have included
this article in this survey because not only he, as many others, envisages the West as
composed of the U.S. and Europe, but he attempts to give an explanation that differs
largely from the ones we have seen so far. He claims that the U.S. and Europe have
“parted company on matters of statecraft.” The reason for that, he argues, is that
while “Americans still live by the rules of realpolitik, viewing military threat,
coercion, and war as essential tools of diplomacy” Europeans “by and large have
spent the past fifty years trying to tame international politics, setting aside guns in
favor of the rule of law.”
77
If we accept a narrow definition of the West, then we
could also include Robert Kagan in this review. However, since his work has been
analyzed in the first part of this chapter, to avoid repetitions it will not be included
here.
Table 4 is a table of the arguments about the West. It identifies the major
public intellectuals that participated in the debate about the future of the West. It also
summarizes the core of their arguments and it shows the authors identification of the
West with institutions as well as states or societies. Finally, it offers my
categorization of their vision of the West through three categories which I called
‘narrow’, ‘broad’, and ‘unidentified’. ‘Very narrow’ is not a category of its own, but
it wants to stress a narrower vision. Narrow means that the authors tend to not be

76
Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilization?” Foreign Affairs, 72 (Summer 1993). Huntington’s
argument in this article developed in to a book, The Clash of Civilization. Remaking of World Order
(New York: Touchtone, 1996).
77
Charles Kupchan, “The End of the West”, The Atlantic Monthly, November 2002. Vol. 290, no. 4,
p. 43.

101
inclusive and generally identify the West as composed of the U.S., Europe and
Canada. Broad indicates that the definition is more inclusive and attempts to
incorporate Japan within the North American-Western European dyad. Unidentified
comprises those definitions, which tend to be extremely vague as to what the West
is.
It is important to clarify that I have not created these categories and this table
with the intent to empirically test the authors’ various definitions of the West, but
rather, to provide legitimacy to the choice of the U.S. and Europe as key players in
conceptualizations of the West. This study also departs from a very narrow definition
of the West, which encompass the U.S. and Western Europe. It is not because I
believe that Canada does not belong to the West that I have not included Canada in
this study, but rather for a more practical matter of manageability of this work.
My evaluation of the contending perspectives about the future of the
transatlantic relations and the analysis of the future of the West as a complex series
of interactions among the U.S. and Europe will be analyzed in the following three
case studies: NATO’s evolution, the International Criminal Court and debt relief.

102
Table 4. Public Intellectuals’ Visions/Identifications of the West
Public
Intellectuals
Visions of the West Identification of the
West with
international
organizations/ interests
Identification of the
West with States or
Societies
Types of
identifications
Mearsheimer
(1990)
The West is kept together by the
Soviet threat and we have to
hope for a strong USSR if we
want a united West
NATO Americans and Western
Europeans
Very Narrow
Mahbubani
(1992)
The West faces new challenges
from the Third World. This will
keep it together.
------- Maybe British, French
and Americans, not
clear
Unidentified
O’Brien
(1992-93)
The future of the West will
depend on new threats coming
from Central and Eastern
Europe as well as Germany
------ U.S., Britain, France
and Canada., but
Canada is soon left out
and West becomes
U.S.-European relations
Narrow to very
narrow
Harries
(1993)
Because the West is a highly
artificial construct created as a
response to the East it is
unlikely that it will survive the
end of the Cold War.
NATO Americans and
Europeans
Very Narrow
Deudney and
Ikenberry
(1993)
Because the West is bounded
together by a web of complex
institutions the end of the Cold
War will not spell its doom
Private economic and
social networks
distinctive political
culture and identity
interstates public
institutions
Western Europe, North
America, Japan
Broad
Cumings
(1994)
What is the West? The West is
also no growth and no tolerance
----------
-----------
Unidentified
Falk
(1994)
The West is shaped by the
dynamic of globalization
---------- Western Europe, North
America.
Japan is a non- Western
country in ethical and
societal outlook.
Narrow
Coker
(1998)
The Atlantic Alliance or the
Western community is known
as ‘the West’. The West as it is
understood by its members, is a
political community.
NATO Canada, U.S., Western
Europe
Narrow
Kupchan
(2002)
The next clash of civilizations
will be not between the West
and the rest but between the
United States and Europe. A
once united West appears well
on its way to separating into
competing halves.
------- U.S. and Europe Very Narrow

103
Chapter 3: The Case of NATO
I. Introduction
It is the contention of this chapter that the post Cold War West is redefining
itself as a set of states committed to revising the accepted norms of international
behavior (i.e. non-interference in the internal affairs of other states and the use of
force without UN Security Council authorization). The West is legitimizing the use
of military force to end gross violations of human rights on humanitarian grounds. In
so doing, I argue, the social practice of humanitarian intervention is redefining the
West of the post Cold War.
This chapter assesses the debate on the future of the West by exploring the
security aspect of transatlantic relations. It analyzes how the renovation of NATO
was accompanied by tensions and how such frictions were reconciled through a
perceptual redefinition of the transatlantic allies as a moral authority. Having argued
that during the post Cold War period the U.S. and Europe, in terms of security
concerns, resolved their policy disagreements thorough the formation of a renewed
identity that encompassed the common principle of the protection of human rights, I
suggest, that this is an instance which reveals that an understanding of the
transatlantic relations and the West must take into account their evolving practices
and values.

104
II. Security arguments in the debate on the future of the transatlantic relations
The question of the future of NATO has been greatly debated in the 1990s.
The first division that my analysis has revealed, is between the two contending
positions in the debate about transatlantic security and the impact of the end of the
Cold War on the alliance. This is what I called a ‘mismatched contending argument’
in chapter 2. Neo-realists argued that an increase of security options in the post Cold
War might have reduced NATO’s strength. Neo-liberals claimed instead that there
was consensus on the importance of NATO and therefore the unity of the
transatlantic relations and the West was not at risk. With the end of the Cold War,
neo-realists expected NATO to gradually dissolve as a result of the disappearance of
the Soviet threat. The evidence in this chapter, however, points to the opposite
direction. To be fair, there were frictions in the 1990s between the North Atlantic
core countries, but contrary to neo-realist expectations, NATO expanded its
membership and broadened its scope. Furthermore, NATO’s understanding of
security opened up to include the security of the individual along with the traditional
concepts of the security of the state. As a result, NATO increased its participation in
peacekeeping operations and undertook controversial missions labeled as
humanitarian interventions.
1
Discussing whether this renovated NATO developed

1
According to the United Nations peacekeeping is “a way to help countries torn by conflict create
conditions for sustainable peace. UN peacekeepers—soldiers and military officers, police and civilian
personnel from many countries—monitor and observe peace processes that emerge in post-conflict
situations and assist conflicting parties to implement the peace agreement they have signed. Such
assistance comes in many forms, including promoting human security, confidence-building measures,
power-sharing arrangements, electoral support, strengthening the rule of law, and economic and social
development. The Charter of the United Nations gives the UN Security Council the power and
responsibility to take collective action to maintain international peace and security. For this reason,

105
from a conscious Western attempt to keep it alive is within the scope of this work;
furthermore, what is also important to our purpose is to note that NATO’s broadened
conceptualization of security allowed NATO to take action in situations that during
the Cold War were inconceivable (i.e. Kosovo). There are two main reasons why this
is relevant to our discourse: 1. NATO shows a sense of resilience that the neo-realists
did not predict. 2. NATO also reveals a post Cold War West that is reconstituting
itself as a set of states committed to revise accepted norms of international norms. In
other words, NATO shows a West that redefines itself by legitimizing potentially
illegal military actions in the name of the safeguard of human rights.
Contrary to the neo-realists, the neo-liberals claimed that the North Atlantic
core countries agreed on the importance of NATO in the post Cold War era. On the
whole, there was a determination to keep NATO an active and vibrant organization,
but there were also disagreements on the question of enlarging NATO and on what
role the Europeans (within NATO) should have in crisis management. The North
Atlantic core countries clashed on the question of the legitimacy of NATO’s out of
the region missions and in the early 1990s, they also collided on what course of
action was more suitable to stop atrocities in Bosnia.

the international community usually looks to the Security Council to authorize peacekeeping
operations. Most of these operations are established and implemented by the United Nations itself
with troops serving under UN operational command. In other cases, where direct UN involvement is
not considered appropriate or feasible, the Council authorizes regional and other international
organizations such as the European Union (EU), the African Union (AU), the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) or “coalitions
of willing countries” to implement certain peacekeeping or peace enforcement functions.”
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/faq/q1.htm (last accessed 9/19/2006)

106
Only in 1999, did they reconcile on a very controversial issue: NATO’s
bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Thus, to state
that they agreed on the importance of NATO is to overlook internal frictions between
the core North Atlantic countries on a number of issues; some related to the
evolution of NATO per se’ and others related to real international political crises.
The extent to which the North Atlantic core relations in the security area endured in
the 1990s is the subject of this chapter. It is my argument that the frictions that
occurred in those years, and which pointed to a possible breaking up of NATO, were
indeed reconciled in 1999 thanks to a re-born sense of Western identity that
developed from their upholding of humanitarian values.
Before moving to the core of the case of NATO and its persistence after the
Cold War, which will allow us to assess the contending propositions as well as
provide us with an insight on the future of the transatlantic relations and the West,
we must turn to the issue of security since transatlantic relations have been
constructed within the security dimension. In addition, reference to the “West” itself
is often used to indicate an area of security: the North Atlantic. The existing U.S.
literature on security and NATO, heavily neo-realist in orientation, has been narrow
in scope, frequently focusing on military security and bypassing the issue of human
security and its acquired importance in the post Cold War transatlantic relations.
Furthermore, the literature on alliances, also mainly neorealist, has dealt mostly with
alliance origins, membership, war and protection of member states, rather then

107
studying the endurance of an alliance.
2
Scholars have paid less attention to what
states do when the common threat disappears or changes. From the previous chapter
we have seen, that under such circumstances, neo-realists tend to conclude that
absent a common threat, alliances (i.e. NATO) might not last.
3
Transatlantic relations
thus were supposed to progressively end as the catalyzing threat faded.
A brief delineation of the security arguments is also relevant before we get to
the specifics of our case, since security is historically the most relevant area of
transatlantic relations and traditionally has been conceptualized as military. Without
dwelling too much into theoretical accounts of what security is or ought to be, since
such theoretical concerns are not the specific scope of this work, we should
nevertheless stress that, with the end of the Cold War , International Relations’
scholars began to introduce issues of non-military threats in security studies.
To be sure, some re-emphasized the idea that security studies were about the
phenomenon of war. Stephen Walt, in a famous article, argued that security studies
were “the study of the threat, use, and control of military force.”
4
However, in the
late 1980s, scholars from the Copenhagen School, liberals, and feminists, to name
just a few, acknowledged that security no longer had a strict military center.
5
For

2
A good review of alliance literature can be found in Thomas Christiansen and Jack Snyder, 1990.
“Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity. International
Organization, Vol.44, No. 4, pp. 137-68. Walt, Origins of Alliances.
3
For further reference, Gunther Hellmann and Reinhard Wolf, “Neorealism, neoliberal
institutionalism, and the future of NATO.” Security Studies 1993; vol.3, pp. :3-43.
4
Stephen Walt, “The Renaissance of Security Studies,” International Studies Quarterly, 35:2 (1991),
p. 212.
5
See Egbert Jahn, Pierre Lemaitre and Ole Waever, European Security: Problems of Research on
Non-Military Aspects (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Papers of the Centre for Peace and Conflict
Research, 1987); Joseph Nye and Sean Lynn-Jones, “International Security Studies,” International

108
example, Barry Buzan, in People, States and Fear, identified five sectors in the field
of security: military, political, economic, environmental and societal.
6

Constructivists scholars as well took part in the debate and claimed that, from an
epistemological point of view, issues such as culture and identity had to be included
in the equation, in order to understand states’ security interests.
7
Overall, even
though they recognize that societal groups (and ultimately individuals) are the center
of any particular security situation, they nonetheless argue that the concept of
security has the state (and sovereignty) as the core referent object in all of the five
sectors envisaged by Buzan.
8

The academic debates on the object of security are an important point of
departure to analyze the endurance and the transformation of NATO, especially
when evidence shows that an organization, or better, an alliance like NATO

Security, 12:4, pp. 5-27; Jessica Tuchman Matthews, “Redefining Security,” Foreign Affairs, 68:2,
(1989) , pp. 162-177; Neville Brown “Climate, Ecology and International Security,” Survival, 31:6
(1989), pp. 519-532; Joseph Nye, “The Contribution of Strategic Studies: Future Challenges,” Adelphi
Paper no.35 (1989). London: International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS); Neta Crowford,
“Once and Future Security Studies,” Security Studies, 1:2 (1991), pp. 283-316; Helga Haftendorn,
“The Security Puzzle: Theory-Building and Discipline-Building in International Security,”
International Studies Quarterly, 35:1 (1991), pp. 3-17; Ann Tickner, Gender in International
Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security. (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1992); Ole Weaver, Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup, and Pierre Lemaitre Identity, Migration
and the New Security Agenda in Europe (London: Pinter, 1993). Distinct from the previous scholars,
Buzan, although a widener, has argued for maintaining a separate military subfield of strategic studies
within a wider security studies. Barry Buzan, People, State and Fear: An Agenda for Security Studies
in the Post-Cold War Era (Boulder: Lynne Rinnier, 1991, 2
nd
ed.); for an expansion of the security
agenda to economic, environmental, and societal sectors see also Barry Buzan, Ole Weaver, and Jaap
De Wilde, Security. A New Framework of Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rinnier, 1998).
6
This was not a new subject and even during the Cold War scholars outside the IR field argued for a
more inclusive concept of security. Among others, see Richard Ullman, Jessica Mathews, Johan
Galtung. For more discussion see Tickner Gendering World Politics, p.43.
7
Peter J. Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security in Katzenstein, ed., (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1996).
8
Ole Weaver, Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup, and Pierre Lemaitre Identity, Migration and the New
Security Agenda in Europe (London: Pinter, 1993), p. 24.

109
undertakes humanitarian operations, claiming to be focusing its attention on the
people and further rationalizes such operations as human security, with the
endorsement of its core countries. There are several schools of thought on the
meaning of “human security,” which debate both its definition and how human
security relates to the broader meanings of security.
The three major understandings that have surfaced from the debate are the
right-based approach, the “safety of the people” approach and the “sustainable
human development” view of human security.
9
Within the context of this chapter,
however, special attention needs to be devoted to the “safety of the people”
approach, for it perceives war as one of the main reasons for human insecurity and
envisages strategies and instruments to achieve the safety of individuals. In this
context, some attention needs to be paid on civil wars and their effect on the security
of the individual. Civil wars usually are the result of political oppressions and create
humanitarian emergencies, but until recently, the principle of sovereignty impeded
interventions within the state, leaving it to the state to deal with internal political
problems. However, with the rising of new international norms, which established
that it was of paramount importance to avoid the gross violation of human rights, the
principle of sovereignty has been bent to fit the new norms. Yet new international
norms are not casual, but rather originate from the, either conscious or unconscious,
behavior of an actor (generally a state). The salience of this, within the context of

9
An excellent review is in Olster Hampson, Madness in the Multitude. Human Security and World
Disorder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

110
this chapter, rests on the fact that such an effort to modify international norms (i.e.
non intervention in civil wars especially without a UN mandate) was carried out
successfully by the core North Atlantic countries within NATO in Kosovo. This
particular instance is an indication of how NATO has gained strength in the post
Cold War as well as evidence of what I call a reconstruction of the West based on
shared norms in terms of the protection of human rights.
The discourse on the endurance of alliances and the understanding of security
serves as a background to understand why the neo-realists predicted the imminent
end of NATO and the breaking up of the transatlantic relations. It is also useful to
show how sometimes academia can be out of touch with reference to the realities of
a changing world. In fact, NATO in the 1990s should be understood not only in
traditional military terms but in humanitarian terms as well, and conceptualized as an
organization that also took a “safety of the people” approach. In fact, even though it
is debatable whether Kosovo was indeed a humanitarian mission, NATO’s attempt to
move from a military concept of security to a humanitarian one should not be
overlooked because it sheds light on the reconstruction of the West in the post Cold
War era.
We begin this chapter by outlining NATO’s role during the Cold War and its
subsequent self-adjustments in order to face new challenges. Then we review these
renovations in light of the tensions that accompanied them. After examining the
frictions of the North Atlantic core countries in Bosnia, we elaborate on the

111
reconciliations that followed the Operation Allied Force in Kosovo.
10
Having
analyzed evidence in favor of and against each of the arguments in the debate that
this chapter intends to address, we conclude by offering some considerations on how
we should look at transatlantic relations and the West within the security context.

III. NATO, the Cold War, and after
NATO was founded in 1949, when the USSR was believed to be the major
threat to Western Europe. The early formulation of NATO strategy for security was
known as “The Strategic Concept for the Defence of the North Atlantic Area.” This
document was developed between 1949 and 1950 and it outlined the Alliance
strategy for large-scale operations for territorial defense. The Cold War, however, set
the stage for the reformulation of such a concept and, in the 1950s, a new strategy,
emphasizing deterrence and NATO response to any aggression against its members –
including nuclear threats—was developed. This strategy was known as “massive
retaliation.” This strategic approach never ceased to be questioned between the
1950s and the 1960s, until “massive retaliation” was replaced with “flexible
response” in 1967. The new strategy focused on the idea of giving NATO “the
advantages of flexibility and of creating uncertainty in the minds of any potential
aggressor about NATO’s response in the case of a threat to the sovereignty or
independence of any single member country.”
11
The underlining idea was that the
aggressor had to perceive any kind of attack as involving unacceptable risks. The

10
The NATO air strikes, which began March 24, 1999 in Kosovo, was named Operation Allied Force.
11
NATO handbook, p.43 Available on line at: http://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/

112
mentioned documents were classified and not accessible to the public. Moreover,
even though the general principles were quite well known there was almost no
discussion on the specifics because the success of the strategy depended on secrecy.
The fear of communist ideology as well as the perceived politico-military
capacity of the Soviet Union had the effect of making the Western governments
plausibly uneasy. Thus, from 1949 to the end of the 1980s, NATO maintained
sufficient military capabilities to defend its members from the USSR. Nonetheless,
over the course of its existence, NATO adapted to the changing East-West relations
as well as to the transformation of the European security environment. Numerous
events have transformed the political map of Europe. For sure, the opening of the
Berlin Wall in 1989, beyond the symbolism, boosted the idea of an actually whole
and free Europe where security became conceptualized as indivisible.
NATO adjusted to this new security reality and began to demonstrate both a
willingness to cooperate in order to overcome the cold war divisions as well as a
readiness to broaden its understanding of security. At the Summit Meeting in London
in 1990, the representatives of the NATO member states announced the major steps
the Alliance would take to adjust to the new security environment.
12
The London
Declaration included proposals to develop cooperation between Eastern and Western
Europe. Moreover, in the framework of the CSCE Summit Meeting in Paris in 1990,
the 22 NATO members and the Warsaw Treaty Organization signed a major treaty

12
The other aim was to bring confrontation between East and West to an end, with that in mind the
Heads of State and Government within NATO also offered the Soviet Union and Eastern European
Countries to establish diplomatic relations with NATO and to work together for a new relationship
based on cooperation.

113
on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) and published a Joint Declaration
of non-aggression. The Joint Declaration officially ended adversarial relations and
emphasized the goal of the member states to renounce resorting to the threat or use
of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, in
accordance with the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act.
The Alliance responded to the European new security environment by
broadening its concept of security “to include dialogue and practical cooperation
with other countries outside the Alliance as the best means of reinforcing Euro-
Atlantic security.”
13
At the London Summit in 1990, NATO invited the six Warsaw
Pact nations – Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet
Union – to initiate regular diplomatic exchanges. The following year, at the Rome
Summit, NATO established a North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) to
oversee the future development of NATO-Central and the Eastern Europe
partnership. In March 1992, participation in the NACC was extended to incorporate
all members of the Commonwealth of Independent States and by June 1992, Georgia
and Albania had also become members. The construction of the North Atlantic
Cooperation Council (NACC) in 1991 emblemizes the challenge to reform and
adjust NATO for the new post-Cold War world.
The rationale of NACC was to introduce more consultation and more
cooperation among the members of NATO and the former members of the Warsaw
Pact. This incorporated a wide range of areas such as civil-military relations, military

13
See “NATO Transformed” p.5 available on line at:
http://www.nato.int/docu/nato-trans/nato-trans-eng.pdf

114
doctrines and budgets, defense conversion, and conceptual approaches to arms
control. This progression, enhanced in 1993 with the adoption of the Partnership for
Peace program, intended to “expand and intensify political and military cooperation
throughout Europe, increase stability, diminish threats to peace, and build
strengthened relationships by promoting the spirit of practical cooperation and
commitment to democratic principles that underpin the Alliance.”
14
The plan was to
prime states on the outside for potential membership in the alliance.
At the Ministerial Meeting in Oslo in 4 June 1992, NATO reaffirmed its
support in peacekeeping operations.
15
It reiterated its readiness “to support, on a
case-by-case basis in accordance with our own procedures, peacekeeping activities
under the responsibility of the CSCE, including by making available Alliance
resources and expertise.”
16
Its readiness, however, was not limited to support the
CSCE, but the UN as well. The Final Communiqué of the Ministerial Meeting of the
North Atlantic Council in Oslo, on June 4, 1992, also announced that NATO
supported “the valuable contribution of the United Nations to conflict settlement and
peacekeeping in the Euro-Atlantic region.”
17
Thereafter, in 1993, NATO established
an Ad Hoc Group on Co-operation in Peacekeeping aimed at: 1. developing a
common understanding on the political principles; 2. developing the tools for
peacekeeping; 3. sharing experience, and thus developing common practical

14
Carl C. Hodge, ed., Redefining European Security. (London, UK: Garland Science, 1999). p 19.
15
See http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c930610a.htm
16
See http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c920604a.htm (last accessed 9/15/06)
17
See http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c930610a.htm

115
approaches and co-operation in support of peacekeeping under the responsibility of
the UN or the CSCE.
18

In 1995, after the EU/UN failure in the Balkans and the consequent
abandonment of the Vance-Owen Plan, as well as the Serbs’ massacre of thousand of
Muslims in two “safe heavens” (Srebrenica and Zepa) and, finally, after the shelling
of Sarajevo, NATO launched air attacks on Serb air bases. Thereafter, in August, it
launched operation “Deliberate Force” on Bosnian Serbs positions.
19
The following
December, 60,000 NATO troops arrived in Bosnia. The operation, known as
Implementation Force (IFOR), had a one year mandate, under the Security Council
Resolution 1031, to oversee the implementation of the military aspects of the Dayton
Peace Agreement.
20
In other words, IFOR’s goals was that of guaranteeing the end of
hostilities and separate the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina armed forces from
those of the Republika Srpska. The Dayton Accords, however, established that the
UN turn over to IFOR all peacekeeping operations, giving birth to NATO’s first
large-scale operational peacekeeping mission. In the following years, NATO
missions extended to Kosovo (Operation Allied Forces, 23 March – 10 June, 1999),
Macedonia (Operation Essential Harvest, Amber Fox, 2001-2003), Greece

18
The Ad Hoc Group was established in accordance with the decision taken at the North Atlantic Co-
operation Council meeting on 18th December 1992, http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-
95/c930611b.htm
19
September 3, 1992 the United Nations and the European Community began peace negotiations to
stop the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The two negotiators were Lord David Owen for the EC and
Cyrus Vance for the UN, hence the Vance-Owen Plan. Their plan established that Bosnia was divided
into 10 provinces, but it was rejected by Bosnian-Serbs.
20
The Dayton Agreement established a cease-fire, the end of the siege of Sarajevo and the partition of
Bosnia into two entities, the Serb republic – Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation – the
Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina.

116
(Distinguished Games, 2004), Pakistan (Earthquake Relief Operation, 2005), Turkey
(Operation Display Deterrence, 2003) and the US (post 9/11 mission).
21
Some of
these operations were part of NATO’s disaster relief. In fact, in 1998 the Alliance
also created a Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) for
coordinating disaster relief efforts for the 46 member countries of the Euro-Atlantic
Partnership Council (EAPC) in case of a natural or technological disaster in the
EAPC geographical area.
22

Among the operations of the 1990’s, the Kosovo mission was the most
controversial because it was an aerial bombardment that NATO’s governments
framed partly as humanitarian intervention and, partly, as a response to the threat to
peace and security in the region. While the jury is still out on whether NATO
interventions have led to a more stable situation in the Balkans, it is clear that
NATO’s air campaign without a UN mandate created the powerful precedent, of
military intervention in a sovereign state. Among the NATO countries the central
problem in the public debate was, in fact, whether they had the right to intervene
militarily in the affairs of a sovereign state. In an important speech in Chicago on
April 22, Prime Minister Blair implied that the NATO campaign on behalf of the
Kosovars had turned the balance between human rights and state sovereignty. He

21
“For the first time in NATO's history, Alliance assets have been deployed in support of Article 5
operations. NATO is sending five Airborne Warning and Control Systems aircraft (AWACS) to the
United States and is also deploying its Standing Naval Force Mediterranean (STANAVFORMED) to
the Eastern Mediterranean.” http://www.nato.int/terrorism/deployment.htmThese are only the past
missions; there are many peacekeeping missions still active. They are Mediterranean Active
Endeavor, Kosovo (KFOR), Iraq (NTM-I), Macedonia (Allied Harmony), Darfur, Bosnia (Sarajevo
HQ), Afghanistan.
22
For more on this topic see http://www.nato.int/eadrcc/home.htm

117
argued, “we cannot turn our backs on conflicts and the violation of human rights
within other countries if we want still to be secure.”
23
What added fuel to the already
incendiary debate over the Kosovo mission, was precisely the fact that NATO
justified it as an intervention for the greater good, and the defense of individuals
whose human rights had been shamefully violated. In so doing, NATO was
demonstrating both its relevance in the security realm, for a post Cold War climate
dominated by civil wars and, at the same time, asserting its credibility for the
present/future. Thus, even though theoretically the end of the Cold War had
increased security options for NATO members, the post Cold War the Alliance
appears robust and healthy. Indeed, it became more vibrant than ever and the
evidence of its strength was that it initiated missions that even during the Cold War
would have been inconceivable (i.e. the use of force against another state on
humanitarian grounds without Security Council authorization). Thus, against the
expectations of the neo-realists not only did NATO not collapse, but in fact it grew
more assertive.

IV. NATO’s endurance and its inner tensions
As Stephen Walt reminds us, military alliances frequently disintegrate when
the perceptions of threats change.
24
In fact, the peculiarity of any alliance is a mutual
commitment for military support against an external threat under specific

23
Tony Blair, ‘Speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, 22 April 1999’.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june99/blair_doctrine4-23.html
(Last accessed 9/13/06)
24
Stephen Walt, “Why Alliances Endure or Collapse,” Survival, Spring 1997, vol.39, iss.1; p. 156.

118
circumstances. When this primary purpose ends, states generally tend to reconsider
their alliance commitments’.
25
However, NATO has not faltered as the neo-realists
had argued, but rather has moved in the opposite direction, even though inner
tensions that prevailed within the organization seemed to be an indication of the
appropriateness of the neo-realist arguments.
The two most relevant elements that contributed in keeping NATO a robust
and vibrant organization were the expansion of its membership and the growth of its
scope. The most adamant country, within the North Atlantic core, in favor of an
enlargement of NATO was the United States. Challenging both the negative
reactions from the Russians and European resistance, the U.S. ensured the
persistence of NATO for the next era by imposing its expansion. In order to
understand how a policy that was never collegially discussed among the Allies came
to be, we need to turn to American domestic politics.
In 1994, President Clinton’s announced that the question was “no longer
whether NATO will take on new members but when and how”.
26
In a speech to the
UN General Assembly on September 27, Clinton argued that “during the Cold War,
we sought to contain a threat to survival of free institutions. Now we seek to enlarge
the circle of nations that live under those free institutions.”
27
In March 1998, before
the Senate’s first debate on NATO’s enlargement to Poland, Hungary and the Czech
Republic Clinton wrote a letter to the then Democratic leader Senator Tom Daschle

25
Walt, Origins of Alliances.
26
William Clinton. The President's News Conference With Visegrad Leaders in Prague, January 12th,
1994.
27
William Clinton, “Reforming the UN,” Vital Speeches of the Day vol. 60 (October 15, 1993), p. 10.

119
strongly recommending “the Senate to reject any effort to mandate a pause on the
process of enlargement.” He urged that the mandate was “unnecessary and unwise,
for,” he continued, “it would reduce our own country's flexibility and leverage,
fracture NATO's open door consensus, and draw a new and potentially destabilizing
dividing line in Europe.”
28

His pronouncement came as a surprise since Clinton had won the election in
1993 focusing on the economy, not international politics and certainly not by
promising an extension of NATO to defend Europe. In effect, officials in both the
legislative and the executive branch of the US did not think that expanding NATO’s
membership was a good idea.
29
Even the Europeans did not show any particular
enthusiasm for NATO’s expansion. Moreover, the Russian intelligentsia, strongly
opposed NATO’s Eastern extension.
James Goldgeier’s Not Whether but When, provides a careful account of the
interplay of politics and policy in Washington, and explains how NATO enlargement
became policy. He writes that “Anthony Lake played the role of the ‘conceptualizer’
and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke was the enforcer. Lake and the
president laid out the vision between September 1993 and July 1994, and Holbrooke
then had the ‘chutzpah’ to move the policy forward in the fall of 1994.”
30
He

28
“Clinton Letter to Senator Daschle on NATO Enlargement,” March 14, 1998. The text of the letter
urging the Senate to ratify NATO’s enlargement is available on line:
http://www.fas.org/man/nato/news/1998/98031602_wpo.html (last accessed 03/02/2008).
29
On December 1997, for example National Security Adviser Samuel Berger sent a memo to Clinton
asking for his personal commitment to NATO enlargement. James M. Goldgeier, Not Whether But
When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO. (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1999). p. 144.
30
Goldgeier, Not Whether But When,” p. 11.

120
concludes that the US decision to expand NATO was largely the result of Anthony
Lake and Richard Holbrooke, who domestically, and thanks to their access to Bill
Clinton, were able to outmaneuver the opposition to enlargement inside the
executive, the military and the Pentagon.
In the end, and although the U.S. needed its allies’ support to make NATO
adjust to the new century, all the important decisions were indeed taken in
Washington. Washington’s behavior seems to be the perfect example of what Walt
calls “hegemonic leadership.” In other words, a strong alliance leader, or hegemonic
power, by exercising its power and by showing its strong commitment to preserving
the relationship is able to “keep its allies from straying.”
31

Indeed, it was the US, which developed the Partnership for Peace, a program
of military cooperation. It was decided that the enlargement had to be accomplished
through a two-track policy that would allow new members to join in, while
establishing a formal agreement with Russia. Moreover, it was the US that developed
the NATO-Russia accord, even though it asked NATO Secretary General Javier
Solana to negotiate the accord in order to minimize resentment in Europe and in
Russia. Finally, notwithstanding Italian and French interest in Slovenian and
Romanian membership, the US also decided which countries were going to join in
the first round of NATO’s enlargement.
32

31
Walt, “Why Alliances Endure or Collapse”, p. 162.
32
Goldgeier, Not Whether But When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO. Washington: Brookings
Institution Press), 1999. p. 5

121
Thus, in the 1990s, Washington was clearly showing a strong interest in
keeping NATO active.
The NATO alliance will remain the anchor of American engagement in
Europe and the linchpin of transatlantic security. That is way we must keep
it strong, vital and relevant.(…) Only NATO has the military forces, the
integrated command structure, the broad legitimacy and the habits of
cooperation that are essential to draw in new participants and respond to
new challenges.
33

In March 1996, Solana, emphasized that the main purpose of the alliance
“had changed from one of preventing war to actively shaping peace…NATO was
now about much more than just collective defence.”
34

What was the European reaction to the American way of preserving the
Alliance? Were the North Atlantic core countries satisfied with the American plan?
In other words, as neo-liberals would put it, was there consensus about the future of
NATO? Evidence shows that there was little agreement on how it was supposed to
be carried out. Europeans leaders, for example, were preoccupied with Russian
reactions to the eastward expansion. In a 1996 interview, German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl stated that it would be wrong to talk about NATO’s eastward expansion with a
sense of victory because it would show a lack of consideration for Russia’s
“understandable security interests.”
35
Just a few months later, the German Foreign

33
1995 NNS p.26.
34
Quoted in Hodge, Redefining European Security. p 19.
Speech given by the secretary-general of NATO at the Russian Council on Foreign and Security
Policy, March 20, 1996.
35
“Kohl Cautions NATO about Eastward Expansion.” Xinhua News Agency, February 3, 1996.

122
Minister Klaus Kinkel reiterated the German concern that an Eastward enlargement
would challenge Russia.
36

Between 1996 and 1998, the relationships between core NATO countries
became increasingly tense giving way to some doubts about the solidity of the
relationship between the core countries of the North Atlantic. In 1996, Germany
publicly came up with a new political theme for the renovation of NATO, the so-
called Europeanization of NATO. Such policy was backed up and carried on by the
French and, surprisingly, by the British, which generally tend to side with the United
States in security issues. Mr. Volker Ruhe, Germany defense minister, Anglophile
and committed Atlanticist, begun leading the European discussion over the
renovation of NATO by arguing that the Alliance had to be reformed in a way that
would allow Europe to assume more responsibility in crisis management. Even
though this proposal was aimed at situations in which Americans did not want to
become involved, it was still a significant and potentially strong attempt at tipping
the balance of power within NATO and in so doing it constituted a challenge to
American leadership. At least, this is what Washington read into it.
37
Mr. Ruhe
suggested that the NATO’s Cold War structures had also to be reformed so that the
enlargement could include central and eastern Europe without irritating the Russians.
The necessity of such a transformation was due, in his word, to the fact that “the
Americans want[ed] to be relieved in Europe, and the Europeans want[ed] to have a

36
“NATO Holds 16 + 1 talks with Russia in Berlin.” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, May 29, 1996.
37
“The Aging Alliance.” The Economist, October 23, 1999.

123
stronger identity.”
38
The British, who usually support American views, shared this
outlook.
39
The British defense minister, Mr. Portillo, also argued for new flexible
structures within NATO under European command.
40

What we are talking about is the levels of headquarters, to give the necessary
flexibility so that they can be led by Europeans only. The NATO structures
now are mirroring very much the past. A lot of the NATO headquarters still
mirror the cold war, and the fixed situation between east and west. We are
thinking about radical change. We need to make the Europeans able to deal
with a crisis situation that has to be dealt with by Europeans alone.
41

The US too was considering changes, but not as radical as the Europeans
would have liked them to be. William Perry, US Defense Secretary, affirmed that
“the time has come to streamline and modernize NATO, recognizing that our
challenge is no longer simply to execute a known plan with already designated forces
as it was during the cold war.”
42
However, at the NATO Berlin Summit in June
1996, the US accepted the proposition to allow the European allies to conduct
operations under the NATO umbrella, when the US was not involved.
43

But this promise was not enough and, in September, France, which at the
beginning of the year had declared its will to resume an active role in NATO,
conditional upon the reforms to the alliance, threatened a boycott of the discussions
at the upcoming NATO meeting unless the US agreed to let France, Spain, and Italy,

38
Quentin Peel, “Ruhe’s mission to Europeanise NATO: German defence minister is recruiting
support for reduced US role in alliance.” The Financial Times. February 23, 1996. p.2.
39
At this time, Washington seemed to embrace a stronger European defense identity. See Peel,
“Ruhe’s mission to Europeanise NATO”, p.2.
40
Peel, “Ruhe’s mission to Europeanise NATO”, p.2.
41
Peel, “Ruhe’s mission to Europeanise NATO”, p.2.
42
CNN News, “European Security Check – NATO’s Future Role,” March 19, 1996.
43
Agence France Presse, “NATO begins talks on Bosnia, reform of the Alliance.” Brussels. June 13,
1996.

124
on a rotating base, have NATO command for the Mediterranean.
44
The American
response to Chirac on the point has always been a categorical no. The justification
was that the Mediterranean had to be commanded by an American because of the
presence of the US Sixth Fleet and of American strategic interests in the
Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Gulf region.
45

The French request, however, was backed up by Germany and by the rest of
Europe, to the extent that Mr. Ruhe proclaimed that the question of the AF South
command was “not a French demand but a European demand.”
46
However, when
President Clinton finally agreed to back up a plan for a new rapid-reaction force to
handle crises on the southern Mediterranean with France to command the force,
Germany, Italy and Spain withdrawn their support for France and argued instead that
French demands be considered in five or six years.
47
Thus revealing that
disagreements existed not only between the U.S. and the Europeans, but among the
Europeans themselves.

44
June 1997, NATO meeting. Agence France Presse, “Chirac threatens pull-back from NATO over
southern command: report.” Bonn. September 28, 1996.
45
Agence France Presse, “Chirac threatens pull-back from NATO.” Jim Mannion, Agence France
Presse, “US-France dispute clouds NATO defense ministers meeting.” December 16, 1996. Agence
France Presse, “Sticks to its guns over NATO southern command.” December 17, 1996. Associated
Press, “French Defense Minister Visits Pentagon,” Washington. March 25, 1997. Deutsche Press
Agentur, “Bonn throws weight behind France in NATO dispute on fleet.” Paris. July 3, 1997.
46
Agence France Presse, “Sticks to its guns over NATO”.
47
In this occasion Mr. Ruhe took a personal position not supported by the Kohl government, which, to
the contrary, has always been very supportive of France. See International Herald Tribune, “Clinton
offers Paris compromise on NATO; US to endorse a new French-led force.” Paris. March 14, 1997.
Associated Press, “French Defense Minister Visits Pentagon.” In July, in an interview German
Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said that Germany “unconditionally” supported France on its demand
that NATO Southern Command be headed by a European, but the question was already over. See
Deutsche Press Agentur, “Bonn throws weight behind France in NATO dispute on fleet.” Paris. July
3, 1997.

125
Another element of contention within the North Atlantic core counties in
those years has been the question regarding the so-called flexibility of NATO. In a
speech in Berlin in May 1998, President Clinton articulated the American stance on
NATO’s new role. He said, “yesterday’s NATO guarded our borders against military
invasion, tomorrow’s NATO must continue to defend enlarged borders and defend
against threats to our security from beyond them – the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, ethnic violence and regional conflict.”
48
On this point, the French
disagreed with Americans, and the rest of Europe agreed with the French criticism.
French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine argued that it was already difficult to
maintain the cohesion of NATO within its classic mission parameters, and given the
enlargement of its membership, as well as its action and decision making
mechanisms all happening at once, would drain NATO’s role.
49

The Europeans particularly disliked the American idea that NATO could
react to crises anywhere in the world if they had “implications for the defense of
common interests.” The Europeans accused the US of wanting to use NATO’s broad
mandate to push NATO into the role of global policeman. US Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright denounced the European interpretation as “hogwash,” insisting
that the US was not trying to create a “global NATO.”
50
France, Germany and the
United Kingdom also feared that the broadening of NATO’s role would have been

48
Jeffrey Ulbrich, Associated Press, “Atlantic Alliance expanding its horizons.” June 22, 1998
49
Ulbrich, “Atlantic Alliance expanding its horizons.”
50
Angus Mackinnon, Agence France Presse, “US clashes with European allies over future NATO
strategy.” December 8, 1998.

126
used by the US as a pretext for using military action without United Nations
approval.
The idea that the US could act through NATO without UN support also made
Russia uneasy. France and Germany supported Russia’s insistence that “any use of
force must first be approved by the United Nations Security Council.”
51
Finally, a
compromise was achieved that each decision of NATO intervention was to be taken
on a “case by case” basis.
52
Referring to the Kosovo case, in which NATO indeed
acted without the UN Security Council mandate, a French official said, “We will do
it again if necessary, but we have no intention of giving NATO a blank check.”
53
A
British official added that it was “not good for NATO to arrogate to itself what
sounds like a unilateral right – if only because it might give similar ideas to the
Russians or the Chinese about invading some small neighbor of theirs.”
54
But in the
end, the U.S., the U.K., France and Germany all agreed on the premise of NATO’s
humanitarian war in Kosovo.
Before moving on to the intervention in Kosovo, it is of great significance,
from the perspective of this chapter, to address the case of Bosnia where the
disagreements within the core countries are not merely a matter of normative
speculation, but have an impact on a real crisis and seem to raise a further valid point
in favor of the neo-realist predictions. The background to the Yugoslav crisis has

51
See Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, in Agence France Presse, “Albright told that NATO and
Europe’s defense are complementary.” December 10, 1998.
52
Agence France Presse, “Albright told that NATO”.
53
Joseph Fitchett, “A more united Europe worries about globalizing NATO,” International Herald
Tribune December 31, 1998.
54
Fitchett, “A more united Europe worries about globalizing NATO”.

127
been extensively dealt with elsewhere. However, what is important for our purposes
is that the North Atlantic core countries show signs of disagreement on how to deal
with real world crisis even before the question of the renovation of NATO becomes a
transatlantic political issue. This case is relevant to analyze because, to some extent,
it seems to offer evidence to the pessimist claim of a breaking up of the transatlantic
solidarity in the post Cold War while, at the same time, indicating inaccuracy in the
neo-liberal claim.
In 1992, as American and European public opinion were increasingly
exposed to the coverage of horrific atrocities committed in Bosnia, both the British
and the French governments suggested dispatching armed escorts to safeguard the
relief convoys of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It was the
intention of both governments to prevent a deployment of ground troops in a combat
role, but neither felt that they could afford to remain inactive as the worst abuses of
human rights were being perpetrated in Europe since World War II. Even though it
could be argued that the consent of the Bosnian government to deploy peacekeepers
might have been sufficient to legally justify such an operation, the UK and France
preferred to work within the United Nations framework. On 13 August 1992, the
Security Council “deeply concerned by reports of abuses against civilians
imprisoned in camps, prisons, and detention centers” adopted resolution 770, which
authorized member states under Chapter VII of the Charter to “use all necessary

128
means” to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians in Bosnia in an effort to restore
international peace and security in the area
55

Notwithstanding an almost carte blanche
56
from the Security Council, the
French and the British engaged their forces in peacekeeping missions which could
only use force in self-defense. When it became clear that the peacekeepers were in
no conditions to prevent starvation in besieged towns, stopping the Bosnian Serbs
from shelling these areas as well as preventing them from committing ethnic
cleansing, President Clinton and his advisers, began pressing for lifting the arms
embargo against the Bosnian government and using NATO air strikes to persuade
Serbians to end ethnic cleansing. The Clinton administration’s “lift and strike”
initiative only accentuated the transatlantic discord. France and Britain fiercely
opposed the interdiction of the supply lines of the Bosnian Serbs from the air and the
arms’ embargo lift on the Bosnian government because they feared that air strikes
would bring retaliation against their peacekeepers.
57
They also opposed lifting the
arms embargo because, as Douglas Hurd put it, it would only have served to escalate
the conflict creating a “level killing field.”
58
Faced with European criticism and,
most of all, with the daunting question of whether to commit the United States to
join in the enforcement of a dubious peace agreement, the American administration

55
Resolution 770 (13 August 1992). Available on line:
http://www.un.org/documents/sc/res/1992/scres92.htm (last accessed 7/13/07)
56
Unrestricted and unconditional power to act.
57
Berdal in Nicholas Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press,2000), p. 253
58
Wheeler, Saving Strangers, p. 253 note 31.

129
abandoned the “lift and strike” initiative, which gratified the Europeans.
59
The efforts
of American officials to quickly blame the Europeans for the failure of their initiative
suggest that there was little agreement on how to deal with the situation in Bosnia, as
well as with how to use NATO, and, finally, it shows that there was no attempt to
present a united North Atlantic front to the Serbs.
However, the violation of the ceasefire on the safe-areas offered NATO a
new and challenging mission. In a report to the Security Council on the modalities
for implementation of Resolution 836, the UN Secretary-General stressed the need
for a credible air-strike capability provided by Member States in order to protect
UNPROFOR.
60
The UN Secretary General reported that his request to NATO to
prepare plans for the provision of the necessary air support capacity, had been
replied to by way of a letter confirming NATO's willingness to offer protective air
power in case of attacks against UNPROFOR.
61
Many criticized the mixed results
that NATO air strikes produced. In fact, although in 1994 the air strikes against
Bosnian Serb forces assaulting Gorazde stopped the offensive allowing measures of
relief to reach the civilian populations, in 1995, the Serb forces attacked Sarajevo,

59
For an analysis of the U.S., European and NATO involvement in Bosnia, Richard H. Ullman, ed.,
The World and Yugoslavia’s War, Council of Foreign Relations, 1996; Richard Holbrooke, To End a
War (Random House, 1998).
Ivo Daalder, Getting to Dayton: the Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Brookings, 1999).
60
According the Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to resolution 836 (1993) (S/25939), the UN
Secretary affirmed “since it is assumed that UNPROFOR ground troops will not be sufficient to resist
a concentrated assault on any of the safe areas, particular emphasis must be placed on the availability
of the air-strike capability provided by Member States.” See Report of the Secretary-General pursuant
to resolution 836 (1993) (S/25939), Available on line at: http://www.unhchr.ch (Last checked
03/04/2008)
61
Report of the Secretary General pursuant to General Assembly 53/35. The Fall of Srebrenica.
http://www.unhchr.ch
(Last accessed 7/16/07)

130
Zepa, Bihac, and Srebrenica and they all fell. The failure of NATO air power
confirmed British and French fears that the Serbs would respond to such attacks by
hostage taking, which they did.
Reflecting on the lessons of the Bosnian War, Nicholas Wheeler argues that
there was a further adverse consequence of NATO’s air strikes in Bosnia and that
was the establishment of the belief in Clinton’s and Blair’s minds that air power was
the only means to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo.
62
He claims that
this belief “followed directly the endgame of the Bosnian War, which was that
NATO air strikes had compelled Milosevic to end hostilities.”
63
I would add,
however, that by interpreting NATO intervention as the ultimate means that led to
Dayton, the North Atlantic core countries revitalized NATO, finding a new role for
the Alliance in the security-military area. NATO, which could no longer be thought
of as an alliance against the USSR, became the Western armed wing to be used in a
security crisis. Furthermore, by framing NATO’s air strikes as a success, they have
been able to use Bosnia as leverage to justify an even more controversial intervention
in Kosovo and that in turn further contributed to strengthening NATO’s role for the
post Cold War. Finally, the interventions in Bosnia and in Kosovo constructed as
humanitarian, strengthened the relations within NATO allies and enabled them to
recast themselves as protectors of human rights. However, before addressing the
reconstruction of the West on humanitarian values, we need to go back to the

62
Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society. p. 256
63
Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society, p. 256

131
Kosovo humanitarian war since it constitutes the turning point leading to the North
Atlantic core countries reconstituting their self- image.

V. Operation Allied Force as a Western Humanitarian War
From the perspective of this chapter, the significance of Operation Allied
Force as a humanitarian war is immense: for the first time since the creation of the
United Nations, a group of states, namely members of NATO, explicitly justified
their use of force against another state on humanitarian grounds without Security
Council authorization. This action, that many considered illegal and with dubious
humanitarian purposes produced two main results: On the one hand, NATO’s air
attacks proved its credibility.
64
The eagerness of the North Atlantic core countries to
demonstrate NATO’s reliability in situations of post Cold War crisis shows their
determination to not cast further doubt on NATO’s future. This demonstrates that
there was consensus in keeping NATO alive. On the other hand, in Kosovo, the West
bent two principles: the principle of the non-use of force and the principle of non-
intervention in internal affairs of states. By justifying the intervention in Kosovo as a
“just war,” the North Atlantic core countries challenged what were accepted and
recognized norms and, in so doing, reconstructed themselves as the protector of
human rights. Whether a war can be “humanitarian” in the sense that it can be waged
and justified as an instrument towards the enforcement of human rights is highly

64
As Walt argues, “because alliances are formed primarily to increase their members’ security,
anything that casts doubt on their ability to contribute to this goal will encourage the members to re-
evaluate their position.” Hence, proving that NATO had credibility was crucial to avoid its
dissolution.

132
controversial; what is relevant, however, is a rediscovered sense of a Western
community built up around questions of humanitarian values.
As tensions in Kosovo escalated, the Clinton administration promptly
condemned the forced Serbian expulsion of Kosovars. In March 1998, Madeleine
Albright announced that in Kosovo the international community would not stand by
and watch ethnic cleansing, as it did in 1991 in Bosnia, “we don’t want that to
happen again” she emphasized.
65
The idea of defending human rights in Kosovo,
however, had the risk of provoking the Russians and therefore the Contact Group in
its March 9
th
statement was only able to issue a bland recommendation. In the
statement, the Contact Group condemned both the Serbian forces and the Kosovo
Liberation Army (UCK, Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves) for the violence in Kosovo
and asked for a cessation of the hostilities.
66
The Security Council Resolution 1160
reinforced the Contact Group’s position and called upon “the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia immediately to take the further necessary steps to achieve a political
solution to the issue of Kosovo through dialogue and to implement the actions

65
She argued “one of the reasons that we believe it is very important to deal with the Kosovo
situation, is because of its potential impact on the neighbors. We believe that in 1991 the international
community stood by and watched ethnic cleansing and the dismemberment, and really watched how
the people of Bosnia were attacked. While the international community watched, we don't want that to
happen again this time, and we are concerned about refugees and a variety of ways that a disruption of
Kosovo might affect the neighboring countries.” The full remark can be found in the Transcript:
Albright, Dini Press Briefing in Rome March 24, 1998. On line at: http://www.usembassy-
israel.org.il/publish/press/state/archive/1998/march/sd3326.htm (last accessed 03/04/08)
66
The Contact Group was created in April 1994 as the Contact Group on Bosnia and Herzegovina and
consisted of the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom
and the U.S. In May 1996, it was expanded to include Italy. In the fall of 1997, the Contact Group
became the main coordinator for handling the Kosovo war.

133
indicated in the Contact Group statements of 9 and 25 March 1998.”
67
Although no
country voted against the resolution, Russia and China were quick to point out that
the Security Council was interfering in what they considered to be a matter of
‘domestic jurisdiction.’
The domestic or internal jurisdiction of a state pertains exclusively to the
state and interfering in such a matter constitutes a violation of international law. This
norm, which originates from the Roman law, was codified into the United Nations
Charter. Art. 2 (7) clearly states, “nothing contained in the present Charter shall
authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the
domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such
matters to settlement under the present Charter.”
68
However, because of possible
Sino- Russian reactions as well as to avoid the likely breach of international law, the
majority of the members found a way to circumvent those questions by arguing that
human rights violations in Kosovo constituted a clear threat to peace and security in
the Balkans. The dreadful sight of the refugees leaving Decani, Wheeler argues,
shocked the Blair Government, which thereafter embarked on the preparation of the
British public opinion in favor of a forceful Western response.
69
Wheeler states that
in the case of Kosovo, the media pressure was not what pushed the government to

67
United Nations Resolution 1160, 31 March 1998. Available on line at:
http://www.un.org/peace/kosovo/98sc1160.htm (last accessed 03/03/08).
68
http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/
69
In the case of Kosovo, Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Minister Robin Cook argued that the
only way to stop the Serbs was the use of military force and that Britain and NATO had to prepare to
take such actions. Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society, p.
259.

134
take a position, rather he claims, “it was Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign
Minister Robin Cook who took the lead in arguing that Britain and the Alliance had
to be prepared to use force to stop Serbian ethnic cleaning in Kosovo.”
70

Thereafter, US Defense Secretary William Cohen moved swiftly to announce
at the September NATO meeting of defense ministers that if Serbs did not cease fire,
“we shall act.”
71
The “we” Secretary Cohen was referring to was the NATO allies.
But within NATO not everybody agreed on the strategy of threatening to use force.
Germany, Italy and Greece, for example, were reluctant about such an option. The
main question that alarmed these countries was the question whether NATO should
act without explicit Security Council authorization. This was a problem that
concerned the UK and the US less; nonetheless, in June, Robin Cook declared that
they would need a mandate from the Security Council. The mandate, according to
Cook, was also going to address Russian concerns by explaining why it was “so
important that they do not stand in the way.”
72
The problem was that the absence of
the Security Council authorization, allowing NATO to use force, would have
impeded any forceful action by NATO. Furthermore, if NATO decided to take action
with no authorization, significant political and moral considerations would have to
be contemplated. By September, however, it became evident that the Security
Council was not going to issue the resolution Cook and Cohen had hoped. The

70
Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society, cited in John Steele,
‘Learning to Live with Milosevic’, Transitions, 5. p. 20
71
Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in InternationalSociety. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000), cited in Steele, ‘Learning to Live with Milosevic’.
72
Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society.

135
Security Council in fact was deadlocked with Russia and China having expressed in
informal consultations that they would have vetoed anything that legitimized the use
of force against the Serbs.
73

In this situation, NATO members began the search for a formula that would
give the threat or use of NATO’s force some legitimacy based on existing Security
Council resolutions. The principle legal basis for a military action in the FRY was to
be the concept of ‘humanitarian intervention,’ linked as close as possible to the
Security Council resolutions.
74
This had the goal of ensuring the legitimacy of
NATO military actions. Nonetheless, NATO members were not fully persuaded of
this course of action, and among them, Germany was the most worried. According to
Catherine Guicherd, Germany Foreign Minister, Klaus Kinkel, was particularly
worried about justifying NATO’s intervention through Resolution 1199.
75
The
question for Germany was that NATO air strikes would have been against the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and that was a concern both because it would have
taken NATO outside of its region and because Germany had sour WWII memories in
the Balkans.
76
The German Bundestag in October discussed the question and, after a

73
In September 1998, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1199 by fourteen votes, which China
abstaining. The resolution was passed under Chapter VII, with the Security Council affirming “that
the deterioration of the situation in Kosovo, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, constitutes a threat to
peace and security in the region.” http://www.un.org/peace/kosovo/98sc1199.htm
(last accessed 7/17/07).
74
For a summary of the relevant points raised at the NATO meeting see Bruno Simma, ‘NATO, the
UN and the Use of Force: Legal Aspects.” European Journal of International Law; 1999:10, 1. p. 7.
75
Catherine Guicherd, ‘International Law and the War in Kosovo,’ Survival, 41/2 (1999), p.26-7.
76
Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society. p. 262.

136
long political debate, it approved Germany’s participation in any air strikes.
77
The
German Federal Government recognized the legal flaw of the absence of a Security
Council authorization, but argued that “the situation was so desperate as to justify the
NATO threat, even without UN authorization.”
78
However, Kinkel also emphasized
before the Bundestag that “the decision of NATO (on air strikes against the FRY)
must not become a precedent. As far as the Secretary Council monopoly on force is
concerned, we must avoid getting on a slippery slope,” he concluded.
79
It can only
be observed that it must have been a hard decision for Germany since the ethical
grounds of such decision were intertwined with the knowledge of acting outside of
international law.
NATO air strikes against Serbian targets were avoided at the last minute
thanks to the successful talks the Contact Group Special Envoy, Richard Holbrooke,
had with Milosevic, who agreed to the cessation of hostilities (the so-called ‘October
Agreement’). Nonetheless, the question of NATO’s authority to act without an
explicit Security Council mandate touched a raw nerve among several members.
Besides those that opposed such an idea since the beginning (i.e. Russia and China),
also other members expressed deep concern about the legality of any NATO military
action without Security Council authorization.
80
Costa Rica pointed out, for example,
that although the goals of the resolution were “ethically and morally unquestionable”

77
The Bundestag is the National Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany. The debate on
Germany’s participation to air strikes is discussed in Simma, ‘NATO, the UN and the Use of Force:
Legal Aspects”, p. 12.
78
Simma, ‘NATO, the UN and the Use of Force: Legal Aspects”, p. 12.
79
Kinkel quoted in Simma, p.13.
80
http://www.securitycouncilreport.org(last accessed 07/16/2007)

137
they had “to be achieved by means of international law.”
81
The October Agreement,
unfortunately, did not last long, and by the end of the year, it became clear that the
cutback in the fighting had only been transitory. In February 1999, due to the parties’
refusal to reach an agreement, the negotiations were suspended until March in Paris.
But as the Paris talks were collapsing and the Serbs were resuming ethnic cleansing
the Alliance governments, on March 23 made the decision to launch air strikes
against the FRY.
The North Atlantic core counties offered four key motivations for such
decision. First, they argued that their action was intended to stop a humanitarian
catastrophe; second that the credibility of NATO was at risk; third, that the ethnic
cleansing in Kosovo posed a long-term threat to European security and, finally, that
NATO’s use of force was conforming to Security Council resolutions. In a statement
before the House of Commons, Robin Cook, justified the Allies decision by
emphasizing these motivations:
“We were left with no other way of preventing the present humanitarian crisis
from becoming a catastrophe than by taking military action to limit the
capacity of Milosevic’s army to repress the Kosovar Albanians…Our
confidence in our peace and security depends on the credibility of NATO.
Last October it was NATO that guaranteed the cease-fire that President
Milosevic signed…What possible credibility would NATO have the next time
our security is challenged if we did not honour that guarantee? The
consequence of NATO inaction would be far worse then the result of NATO
action.

81
http://www.securitycouncilreport.org (last accessed 07/16/2007)

138
At some point [the conflict] would have spilled over into neighboring
countries of the region, and then NATO would have been forcd to act, but in
circumstances more difficult and dangerous than now.”
82

The Clinton administration offered a similar rationale to the American people. In a
speech at the American Foundation of State, County and Municipal employees,
Clinton argued that the West had a moral responsibility to stop the terrible atrocities
that were taking place in Kosovo:
we ought to consider what would happen if we and our allies were to stand
aside and let innocent people be massacred at NATO's doorstep. That would
discredit NATO because we didn't keep our word. But that's not important,
except insofar as what it means to you. You've got to decide, my fellow
Americans, if you agree with me that in the 21st century, that America, as
the world's superpower, ought to be standing up against ethnic cleansing if
we have the means to do it and we have allies who will help us do it in their
neighborhood. And you have to decide whether you agree with me that we
have a clear interest, after what we saw in World War I, World War II, in
the cold war and all the people who died, in a Europe that is united, not
divided; democratic, not dictatorial; and secure and at peace, not racked by
ethnic cleansing—and if you believe that's good for us economically and
politically, over and above the humanitarian issue.
83

He also underlined, as Madeleine Albright did a year before, that the world
had stood aside in Bosnia while Milosevic was perpetrating “genocide in the heart of
Europe” and that what happened a few years before could not be tolerated again
because Kosovo, he stated, “is about our values.” At the same time, he emphasized
Europe’s and America’s security were indivisible and that if the US did not act now,
it would have to do it later with more loss of human lives and at an higher cost.

82
Statement by the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, in the House of Commons, 25 March 1999 quoted
in Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society, p. 266.
83
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=57294&st=&st1=
(last accessed 07/17/2007)

139
While there have been arguments that the humanitarian and security
motivation offered by the West were an excuse to expand its sphere of influence into
the Balkans, there is not much evidence to support the argument that the Operation
Allied Force was induced by realpolitik.
84
Instead, this is a case in which an
important element of the decision of using force in Kosovo was the policy-makers’
belief that this was a just war, and therefore rationalized as a humanitarian war.
85

Embedded in the justification of the Kosovo war as humanitarian there were
at least two violations of international law: the violation of the non-use of force if not
in self-defense and the violation of the principle of sovereignty (i.e. the non-
interference in a matter of domestic jurisdiction.) By using the rationale of the
humanitarian war, the West initiated a revision of accepted norms of international
law, also known as jus cogens. These are a group of norms, which according to the
Vienna Convention, art. 53, cannot be modified by norms established by treaties. Ius
cogens norms are accepted and recognized by the international community and can
be modified only by subsequent norms with the same character.
86
One example of

84
The Russian Government made the argument. Wheeler recalls that Boris Yeltsin commented ‘Bill
Clinton wants to win…He hopes Milosevic will capitulate, give up the whole Yugoslavia, make it
America’ protectorate.’ Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International
Society, p. 267
85
In discussing ethnic cleansing against the Kosovars, Madeleine Albright said that “opposing ethnic
cleansing is central to our values... We are reaffirming NATO's core purpose as a defender of
democracy, stability and human decency on European soil.” Quoted in Walter Isaacson, “Madeleine’s
War,” Time Magazine, May 9, 1999. On line at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,24446,00.html See also Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook’s speech to the Labour Party Conference September 28, 1999. He stated: “In Kosovo Europe
witnessed the greatest persecution of a whole people since the days of Hitler or Stalin. We acted
because the age of mass deportation and ethnic cleansing belongs to Europe's past. We are not going
to let it come back.” The document is on line at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/459926.stm.
86
Art. 53 “A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of
general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general

140
ius cogens norms is the principle contained in the United Nations Charter art. 2 (4)
that establishes that “[a]ll Members shall refrain in their international relations from
the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of
any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United
Nations.”
87
The exception to the non-use of force is set up in art. 51 that permits
“individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of
the United Nations.”
88

The Western attempt to change international law in favor of ‘the rule of
force’ as a normative principle poses a significant legal puzzle for the international
community with regard to the normative value of existing international norms and
institutions that regulated the use of force.
89
Besides the legal argument, the rationale
of Operation Allied Force as humanitarian intervention is relevant for our
understanding of the West because it had the double effect of relating the North
Atlantic core states on shared humanitarian values while incidentally refocusing
them on a new common cause: the protection of human rights. What came out of the
Kosovo experience was a reconstituted West. The Western policy-makers publicly
declared that their action in Kosovo was guided by moral purposes. The painful
German decision to participate in the NATO air strikes even in the absence of

international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a
whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a
subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.”
http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf
87
http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/
88
http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/
89
Daniel H. Joyner, “The Kosovo Intervention: Legal Analysis and a More Persuasive Paradigm.”
European Journal of International Law; 2002; 13,3. p.597 and Simma, ‘NATO, the UN and the Use
of Force: Legal Aspects”, p. 12.

141
Security Council authorization is an indication of the morality and value-laden
backdrop of the intervention in Kosovo. Ethnic cleansing could have been
overlooked and it would not have been the first time. The West could have decided
to interpret the violence in the Balkans as a matter of domestic jurisdiction and
therefore not intervene and, in so doing, would have maintained a legal and
acceptable position. In this case, the Western intervention was built on the morality
of the action despite its illegality. In so doing, the North Atlantic core countries
reconstituted their common security interests to reflect their vision of the West as a
set of states committed to defending human rights, by force and, if necessary, by the
violation of other international norms.

VI. Conclusion
This chapter has shown the shortcomings of both the neo-realists and the neo-
liberals’ claims through the assessment of what happened in the 1990s within
NATO. Attempting to establish which of the two approaches is more truthful, useful
and accurate with respect to the present dynamics of the North Atlantic relations, and
in so doing to shed light on the future of the West, this chapter has reached four
relevant conclusions.
First, in making arguments about the future of NATO, or alliances in general,
we should look at the domestic politics of the leader of the alliance as well as at the
dynamics between allies. The Clinton administration’s determination in expanding
both NATO’s membership and its scope is an indication of the salience that the

142
alliance had for the U.S. The American administration’s strong commitment to
preserving NATO ultimately minimized the resentment in Europe on the
enlargement as sustained by Washington. On the other hand, the attempts of the
European core countries to Europeanize NATO, to gain the command for the
Mediterranean, and to control the so-called flexibility of NATO suggest that they
also wanted NATO to endure. This shows that while the North Atlantic core
countries disagreed on how to transform NATO, they did not question the
importance of NATO for the post Cold War.
Second, in making claims about the future transatlantic relations, both neo-
realists and neo-liberals in my debate, should have analyzed how the U.S. and
Europe framed Bosnia and later Kosovo. If NATO was believed to have the power of
solving international crisis beyond its traditional region and scope, it follows that its
members were clearly attempting to make NATO active and vibrant by redesigning
and expanding the purposes of the alliance. Indeed, contrary to neo-realist
expectations, NATO expanded its membership and broadened its scope.
Furthermore, an analysis of Bosnia and Kosovo vis-à-vis Euro-American relations
offers evidence to the neo-liberals that there was consensus on the importance of
NATO and therefore the unity of the transatlantic relations and the West was not at
risk.
The third point is related to the previous. The core countries interpretation of
NATO intervention in Bosnia as the decisive means that led to the Dayton Peace
Agreement, further confirms that they did not want to cast doubts on the future of

143
NATO. Moreover, they constructed the Bosnian intervention as a success, which
ultimately allowed them to use NATO air strikes also in Kosovo. The Kosovo war
further established the credibility of NATO for the post Cold War. This, once again,
verifies the neo-liberal point that there was consensus on the importance of NATO.
Fourth, even though the neo-liberal argument seems to be more accurate with
respect to the results, it should be noted that they do not take into account the
frictions that occurred in the 1990s within NATO between the U.S. and Europe nor
did they elaborate a theory for the continuation of security cooperation in the post-
Cold War era. In their conceptualization, the transatlantic relations of the Cold War
did not change as a result of the end of the East-West rivalry. This is a major
limitation of the neo-liberal argument because even though the transatlantic relations
and the West outlasted the Cold War the U.S. and Europe have found new reasons,
or better, new principles that kept them together. The neo-realist argument, on the
other hand, is much more sophisticated. While neo-liberals tend to simplify and
make claims without much elaboration of causal relations between what they argue
and the evidence, neo-realists offer a more elaborated theory. Nevertheless, both
approaches neglected to study the meaning of the Kosovo intervention for the
transatlantic relations. The most important lesson to be drawn from the Kosovo
‘humanitarian intervention,’ in the context of this chapter, is the redefinition of the
transatlantic relations and the West on humanitarian grounds. The West in fact has
established that it is legitimate to use force in matters covered by the principles of
sovereignty and without the authorization of the Security Council. But it has also

144
proved that it sees itself as a moral authority that shares common principles and that
in the name of fundamental principles, such as human rights, it is ready to violate the
rules that it requires others to obey.

145
Chapter 4: The Case of the ICC
I. Introduction
This chapter focuses on another critical aspect of the transatlantic relations,
international justice, and argues, in a similar vein as the previous chapter, for an
understanding of the transatlantic relations as a dynamic process. Policy
disagreements between the U.S. and Europe are symptomatic of the evolving nature
of such relations. Their practices in the case of the establishment of the International
Criminal Court show that the transatlantic partners share common principles (i.e.
protection of human rights), but disagree on the mechanisms to put in place in order
to prevent these violations. While in the security area they appear to have overcome
policy divergences through ‘unifying’ practices which have allowed for a
redefinition of Euro-American relations for the post Cold War era, in the case of
international justice, sharing the idea that human rights should be protected did not
result in policy conformity. Transatlantic relations are an evolving process; therefore,
it is only by understating them as such that we can make sense of its future. In
examining the reasons behind the disagreements on the ICC, I consider how different
understandings of concepts such as justice, unity and plurality influenced the U.S.
and European practices on preventing human rights violations.
The aim of this study is also to evaluate the neo-realist and neo-liberal claims
on the transatlantic relations of the post Cold War. Neo-realists argued that with the
dissolution of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the common threat, there
would be no more reasons for making a commitment to the Atlantic community.

146
Conversely, the neo-liberals argued that the US and Europe share norms and values
as well as a political identity and claimed that the complex web of institutions they
belonged to decreased the likelihood of conflict, or a split in the partnership (see
Table 4).
This chapter and the following examine both positions. These evaluations
will allow me not only to judge which version, combination or reformulation of the
debates on the future of the North Atlantic core relations have been most accurate or
insightful, but it will also allow me to offer my considerations on how we should
look at the future of the transatlantic relations as well as to open a broader discussion
about the future of the West.
The case of the International Criminal Court was selected because it
suggested a disintegration of the transatlantic relations. This case is important
because the disagreements between the U.S. and Europe appear to supersede the
bonds among partners of NATO.
Yet, the academic debate on the International Criminal Court focused on the
extent to which the court could contribute to bringing perpetrators to justice and
preventing potential atrocities.
1
While these issues are certainly important, this

1
Antonio Cassese, “The Statute of the International Criminal Court: Some Preliminary Reflections,”
Journal of International Law vol. 10, No.1 (19991), pp. 144-71; Tom J. Farer, “Restraining the
Barbarians: Can International Criminal Law Help?”, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 22, No.1 (2000),
pp. 90-117; Giulio Gallarotti, and Arik Y. Preis “Toward Universal Human Rights and the Rule of
Law: The Permanent International Criminal Court”, Australian Journal of International Affairs,
Vol.53, No.1 (1999), pp. 95-111. John B. Griffin, “A Predictive Framework for the Effectiveness of
International Criminal Tribunals”, Venderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. Vol. 34, No.2 (2001),
pp. 406-55; Henry A Kissinger, “The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction”, Foreign Affairs, Vol.80, No.4
(2001), pp. 86-96; Jelena Pejic, “Creating a Permanent International Criminal Court: The Obstacles to
Independence and Effectiveness”, Columbia Human Rights Law Review. Vol. 29: (1998), pp. 291-

147
chapter approaches the topic from a different angle. Because the neo-realists and the
neo-liberals approached the question of the continuity of the Atlantic community at
the socio-cultural level, this chapter seeks to investigate socio-cultural differences
that may have emerged in the absence of the common threat and that, consequently,
may have produced divergent policies providing grounds for the neo-realists claim
that there was no more a sense of commitment to the Atlantic community. The key
element that emerges from this case, and can be anticipated here, is that there is a
discrepancy over the meaning of certain values (i.e. justice, unity, plurality, and
sovereignty). This is relevant because part of the optimist argument is that the North
Atlantic core countries share common values. It is because they share such values,
along with shared norms, political identity and common institutions that those
countries, neo-liberals argue, will keep cooperating. This case aims at evaluating
such claims.
This chapter will offer a brief history of the International Criminal Court and
of the idea of an international tribunal. Then, drawing from the statements of the
American policy-makers, which I have collected from numerous sources, it will
provide an analysis of the American official state policy on the ICC for the years

354; Popovski, Vesslin “International Criminal Court: A Necessary Step Towards Global Justice”,
Security Dialogue, Vol. 31, No.4 (2000), pp. 405-19; Rudolph, Christopher. “Constructing an
Atrocities Regime: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals”, International Organization, Vol.55, No.3
(2001), pp.655-91. Michael L. Smidt, “The International Criminal Court: An Effective Means of
Deterrence?”, Military Law Review, Vol.167 (2001), pp. 156-240; Thomas W. Smith, “Moral Hazard
and Humanitarian Law: The International Criminal Court and the Limits of Legalism”, International
Politics. Vol. 39 (2002), pp. 175-92; Teitelbaum, Alejandro “Statute of the International Criminal
Court: A Critique”, Social Justice Vol.26, No.4 (1999), pp. 107-14.

148
1998-2002.
2
I will then articulate, based on the statements of the American and
European Union policy-makers, the concepts of justice, unity, plurality and
sovereignty. Finally, I will conclude the chapter by offering my considerations on the
divergence between the U.S. and Europe over the ICC, on the neo-realist and neo-
liberal claims about the future of the Atlantic community and the way we can
understand the West in the post Cold War context.

II. The International Criminal Court: origins
The evolution of the International Criminal Court in the twentieth century can
be traced back to four main phases: the emergence of the idea of an international
court (1899-1945); the embodiment of such an idea during the Nuremberg
international military tribunal (1945); the attempts to establish the international court
in the Cold War era (1945-1992); and, finally, the establishment of the two ad hoc
tribunals (Yugoslavia and Rwanda) along with the negotiations leading to the
adoption of the Court’s Statute at the Conference of Rome (1993-1998). Although
the entire history of the court can be fascinating to learn, because this work mainly

2
My sources are policy-makers public statements, Senate hearings, newspaper articles, academic
articles and personal interviews with the policy-makers who had the kindness to respond and to talk to
me when I contacted them. The analysis in this chapter covers the Clinton last three years as President
(1998-2000) and the first two years of the Bush administration (2001-2002). Even though the year
2002 is outside my debates framework, I have decided to include it because this is a salient year both
for North Atlantic relations in the context of the ICC and for the ICC and its future per se’.

149
deals with the Cold War and the post Cold War period, the following pages will
focus on those two periods.
3

Without going too much into the history of the establishment of a permanent
court, it is safe to argue that over the course of the years one of the biggest objections
to the court has been its supra-national power, which could potentially limit the
power of the states over their territory and their nationals. In fact, many states had
been concerned with the idea of loosing their sovereignty. States did not want to
abdicate the exercise of their sole authority over their territory and thus they opposed
the idea of an international court that could put on trial and sentence their citizens.

In
essence, those states made the case that a court with such broad ranging authority
would have been incompatible with the notion that international law governs only
inter-states relations.
Nonetheless, right after WWII the United Nations reconsidered the idea of
establishing a permanent international criminal court notwithstanding the unsolved
question of sovereignty. Many states in fact recognized that ad hoc tribunals had
intrinsic problems.
4
Because of the limits of such tribunals, the question of the

3
For a through history of the court see Leila Nadya Sadat, The International Criminal Court and the
Transformation of International Law: Justice for the New Millennium, (Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational
Publishers, Inc., 2002).
4
Ad hoc tribunals are those established exclusively to deal with a specific situation. They are not
permanent and they are established post bellum. In general, no matter how fair the actual trial
proceedings are, ad hoc tribunals give the impression of arbitrary and selective prosecution. This
charge was actually raised at both Nuremberg and Tokyo. Furthermore, there is the problem of delay.
Ad hoc tribunals take usually time to be established and during that time evidence can be destroyed
and additional lives can be lost. Finally, ad hoc tribunals often fail to build the kinds of institutional
memory and competence that are the characteristics of permanent courts. Prosecutors must be found
each time and must have experience in international law and personnel have to be gathered and
instructed. These problems could undermine the ability of the court to conduct a fair trial. Examples

150
permanent court was raised once again, this time, in connection with the formulation
and adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948. But the efforts to create an
international penal court failed one more time because the International Law
Commission (ILC), which had been appointed by the General Assembly of the UN
to study the possibility of establishing a permanent criminal court, was deeply
divided. The division was, again, about the question of sovereignty.
5
In 1951, the
ILC produced two separate reports, one supporting the court’s establishment and one
rejecting it. Given the stalemate, the General Assembly passed the question of the
ICC to the Committee on International Criminal Jurisdiction, which had the task to
elaborate concrete proposals for the General Assembly to consider.
6
The Committee
recommended the establishment of a “semi-permanent” court that would hold
sessions only when matters before it required consideration.
7
It also proposed that the
court’s subject matter jurisdiction was limited to international crimes “provided in
conventions or special agreements among States parties.”
8
Finally, the Committee
suggested that cases could proceed only if the State or States of the accused

are: the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo and, more recently, the
International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. For more on the subject
see John R. Jones and Steven Powles, International Criminal Practice, (Herndon, VA: Transnational
Publishers, 2003).
5
The first report, by Ricardo Alfaro, concluded that an ICC was both “desirable” and “possible.” See
Ricardo J. Alfaro, Question of International Criminal Jurisdiction, UN Doc. No. A/CN.4/15 (1950).
The second report signed by Emil Sandström concluded the creation of an ICC was both possible and
desirable. See Emil Sandström, Question of International Criminal Jurisdiction, UN Doc. No.
A/CN.4/15 (1950).
6
Report of the Committee on International Criminal Jurisdiction on its Session Held from 1 to 31
August 1951, U.N. GAOR, 7
th
Sess., Supp. (No.11), U.N. Doc. A/2136 (1952) art 2, par. 11.
7
Report of the Committee on International Criminal Jurisdiction on its Session Held from 1 to 31
August 1951, U.N. GAOR, 7
th
Sess., Supp. (No.11), U.N. Doc. A/2136 (1952), art. 3.
8
Report of the Committee on International Criminal Jurisdiction.

151
nationality, and the State or States, in which the crime was alleged to have been
committed, expressly conferred jurisdiction upon the court.
However, because the question of sovereignty was still an unsolved problem,
very few Member States committed to the Statute and, in 1953, the General
Assembly requested a second Committee to issue a new report with an amended
version of the Statute. The 1953’s Commission modified the text of the previous
Statute, although not substantially. The 1951 and 1953 Statutes were never
implemented for lack of political consensus. Instead, the idea stalled in the UN for
more than thirty-five years.
The legal national and international complexities related to the establishment
of the ICC, as well as the deadlock in the UN resulting from the Cold War, rendered
the achievement of a draft for an international criminal court nearly unworkable.
9

Thus, the question of the creation of the ICC remained on the General Assembly’s
agenda until the relations between East and West begun normalizing, allowing the
work on the ICC to be resumed. In 1981, the General Assembly requested the
International Law Commission to prepare a Draft Code of Crimes. As work began,
members of the Commission called attention to the need to establish the Code’s
implementation, and constantly asked the General Assembly whether the ILC should
prepare an ICC statute. Finally, in 1988 the General Assembly asked the ILC to

9
As I have underlined earlier, the court was supposed to have the power to try heads of State or other
State officials, which resulted in a highly sensitive and political question. Furthermore, the court’s
successful operation would ultimately require some concessions of national criminal jurisdiction, as
well as extensive cooperation by national authorities. William A. Schabas, An Introduction to the
International Criminal Court, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

152
consider the question of the Code’s implementation, and in 1989 explicitly
demanded the ILC to undertake the question of the creation of an ICC. The ILC
provisionally adopted a Draft Code of Crimes in 1991, and in 1992 created a
working group on an international criminal court. In 1992, the Working Group
produced an extensive report delineating the general bases upon which the
establishment of the ICC could proceed.
Following the 1992 report, the General Assembly granted the mandate to the
ILC to work on a draft statute for the ICC.
10
But this project gained momentum only
after the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) by the Security Council to be held in The Hague. Its adoption
suggested that a permanent court was needed and that countries, including the US,
might be willing to support the ICC establishment, at least under certain
circumstances.
11
The success of both the ICTY and the ICTR
12
demonstrated that
serious violations of international humanitarian law could be successfully punished
by international criminal prosecutions and emphasized the need for a permanent
institution.
13

10
Comments and Observations on the Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of
Mankind Adopted on First Reading by the International Law Commission at its Forty-Third Session,
U.N. Doc. A/CN.4/448 and Add.1 (1993).
11
The images of genocide and ethnic cleansing committed in the Former Yugoslavia resulted in a
strong awareness of the need to both prevent and punish violators of human rights. Leila Nadya Sadat,
The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of International Law: Justice for the New
Millennium, (Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational Publishers, Inc., 2002), p.40.
12
ICTR stands for International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
13
William A. Schabas, The UN International Criminal Tribunals: The Former Yugoslavia, Rwanda
and Sierra Leone, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

153
The ILC’s 1994 Draft took the position of neither defining nor codifying
crimes under general international law, but the drafters in Rome took the opposite
position and defined the crimes within the court’s jurisdiction.
14
This involved
protracted and difficult negotiations between states that wanted broad definitions of
crimes and those that wanted narrow ones to make the court less effective. The
Diplomatic Conference to consider the April Draft Statute was held in Rome from
June 15 to July 17, 1998 and, after five weeks of negotiations, finally a Statute that
reflected nearly a century of work was approved. However, while the European
Union applauded the Rome statute U.S. officials did not sign it; signaling a discord
that seemed to supersede the bonds among partners of NATO. Thus, while the
prevision of those who envisaged a loosening of the sense of commitment to the
Atlantic community seems to be accurate in its end results a more correct evaluation
of their claim requires an appropriate investigation of the causes of the North
Atlantic core discordance. This is what the following sections will address.

III. American Official State Policy and the ICC
In the 1990s, President Clinton issued numerous calls for a permanent war
crimes tribunal. Speaking in Rwanda, he called for sharper vigilance against
genocide and swifter prosecution of its perpetrators in a new permanent international
criminal court. Clinton acknowledged that the world could have protected the
victims of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, but did not. After listening to several victims’

14
Leila Nadya Sadat, The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of International Law:
Justice for the New Millennium, (Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational Publishers, Inc., 2002), pp.40-41.

154
stories, he stated “we cannot change the past, but nations should learn from it.”
15
In
his address before the UN General Assembly, President Clinton, responding to recent
horrors in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, and East Timor, called for strengthening the
international community’s capacity to “prevent and, whenever possible, to stop
outbreaks of mass killing and displacement.”
16
However, the analysis of the domestic
political process reveals continuous tensions between “enhancing an international
normative framework and preventing encroachment on a nation’s unfettered right to
use force.”
17

The tension within the Clinton administration between the determination to
establish a permanent war crimes tribunal and the need to protect the action of
American officials is evident in David Scheffer’s words. Scheffer, Albright’s
ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, and head of the US delegation in Rome,
became quite emotional describing a trip that he had taken to Rwanda in 1997.
18

Supposedly, Scheffer grew silent for a moment, gazing out toward the Coliseum,
before continuing:
I have this recurrent dream in which I walk into a small hut. The place is a
bloody mess, terrible carnage, victims barely hanging on, and I stagger out,
shouting, ‘Get a doctor! Get a doctor!’ and I become more and more enraged
because no one’s reacting fast enough.
19

15
James Bennet, “Clinton in Africa: Clinton Declares U.S. with World, Failed Rwandans”, New York
Times, March 26, 1998, p. A 2.
16
M. Shane Smith, “How to combat mass killing” The Boston Globe, September 26, 1999, p. E7.
17
Sarah B. Sewall, Carl Kaysen, and Michael P. Scharf in Sarah B. Sewall and Carl Kaysen , eds.,
The United States and the International Criminal Court, (Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, 2000), pp.2-3.
18
Lawrence Weschler in Sewall and Kaysen, The United States and the International Criminal Court,
p.91.
19
Quoted in Sewall and Kaysen, The United States and the International Criminal Court, p.91.

155
After that, Lawrence Weschler claims, Scheffer went on arguing for the
importance of establishing a permanent war crimes tribunal. At the same time,
however, Scheffer also argued that
… the American armed forces have a unique peacekeeping role, posted to hot
spots all around the world. Representing the world’s sole remaining
superpower, American soldiers on such missions stand to be uniquely subject
to frivolous accusations by parties of all sorts. And we simply cannot be
expected to expose our people to those sorts of risks. We are dead serious
about this. It is an absolute bottom line with us.
20

Sheffer in this quote raises a real concern that could explain reluctance: angry
parties could blame the U.S. for all kinds of crimes in an effort to dissuade them
from participating in foreign actions. However, Europeans do participate in
peacekeeping operations, but did not have similar concerns.
21

Clinton had to balance the effects of the ICC signature both domestically and
internationally.
22
Internationally, it would have been a win-win situation. In fact,
signing the ICC treaty would have increased the role of the US leadership in the
international community. On a domestic level, however, between 1998 and 2000 he
had to make sure that his international commitment would not hurt the Democratic
candidate for the American Presidency, his vice-president Al Gore. He probably did
not want to be perceived as the President who had not pondered the risk that

20
Sheffer quoted by Weschler in Sewall and Carl Kaysen, The United States and the International
Criminal Court, pp. 91-92.
21
Europe and peacekeeping see Julian Lindley-French, Terms of Engagement, Challiot Papers no.52,
May 2002. http://aei.pitt.edu/514/01/chai52e.pdf (last assessed 06/08/07)
22
On the concept of the two levels game (domestic and international effects), see. Robert Putnam,
“Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of the Two-Level Games.” International Organization,
Vol.42 (1988), pp. 427-69.

156
American officers might have incurred.
23
Furthermore, between 1998 and 2000
Republicans held the majority in the Congress. Senator Jesse Helms, the Republican
head of the Foreign Relations Committee, had already let it be known that any treaty
emerging from Rome that would have subjected American servicemen and officials
to be seized, extradited and prosecuted for war crimes would have been “dead on
arrival.”
24

Because of Congressional opposition, the Clinton administration paid a lot of
attention to the question of the possible foreign jurisdiction over Americans.
“Through five years of intensive negotiation on this treaty and on the supplemental
documents the United States has labored constantly to achieve two major objectives.
One: establish a truly legitimate engine for international justice on a permanent basis,
and two: ensure that there are appropriate safeguards in the treaty and the treaty
regime so that American personnel are no subject to any unwarranted investigation
or prosecution by the court.”
25
In essence, the Clinton administration identified the
need for exemptions of U.S. nationals from the court’s potential jurisdiction. The US
opposed the ICC’s power to exercise jurisdiction over the nationals of non-States
Parties
26
to the Statute without the consent of those States.
27
The fact that such power

23
Most likely if people were concerned for their soldiers and felt that the current administration didn’t
do enough to protect them, Al Gore could have lost the Presidential elections, which he eventually
did; but not for those reasons.
24
Barbara Crossette, “Helms Vows to Make War on U.N. Court.”New York Times. March 27, 1998. p.
A9.
25
Barbara Crossette, “Clinton Weighing Options On World Criminal Court.” New York Times. Dec.
11, 2000. p.A5.
26
The expression “non State Party” is international law terminology that refers to states that are not
part of a treaty.

157
would be exercised, only when the national of the non-party was suspected, on
reasonable grounds, of committing genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes
on the territory of a State Party, and when his/her country was found unable or
unwilling to proceed genuinely against the individual, was not considered
sufficiently reassuring.
28
Scheffer claimed that this system would endanger
Americans.
Consider the following - he argued - A state not party to the Treaty launches
a campaign of terror against a dissident minority inside its territory.
Thousands of innocent civilians are killed. International peace and security
are imperiled. The United States participates in a coalition to use military
force to intervene and to stop the killing. Unfortunately, in so doing, bombs
intended for military targets go astray. A hospital is hit. An apartment
building is demolished. Some civilians being used as human shields are
mistakenly shot by U.S. troops. The state responsible for the atrocities
demands that U.S. officials and commanders be prosecuted by the ICC. The
demand is supported by a small group of other states. Under the terms of the
Rome Treaty, absent a Security Council referral, the Court could not
investigate those responsible for killing thousands; yet U.S. senior officials,
commanders, and soldiers could face an international investigation and even
prosecution.
29

Both before and during the Rome Conference, the US aimed at shaping a
Court that it could control in order to avoid proceedings that could be used against its
nationals. Although it had flaws, the Treaty on the International Criminal Court
negotiated in Rome had many provisions that the United States supported. It

27
Through ratification, States accept the jurisdiction of the Court over the crimes in the Statute
(Article 12 (1). However, the Court will not exercise its jurisdiction over a crime unless at least one of
two States is a party to the Statute art. 12, par. 2 or has consented ad hoc to the Court’s jurisdiction
article 12, par.3. See Bruce Broomhall, International Justice and International Criminal Court:
Between Sovereignty and the Rule of Law (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), p.80
28
Broomhall, International Justice and International Criminal Court, p.164.
29
David J. Sheffer in Sarah B. Sewall and Carl Kaysen, The United States and the International
Criminal Court, pp. 116-117.

158
promoted values that American people subscribe such as justice, due process, and
respect for the rule of law.
30

In Rome, it had been the strong hope of the United States, as reflected in
President Bill Clinton’s long commitment to establish an appropriate
international criminal court, that the Conference would achieve a consensus
on the resolution adopting the Treaty.
31

But the US was not successful in achieving its aim in Rome, and because of
the vehemence of the Defense Department and Congressional criticisms, it voted
against the adoption of the Statute.
32
Two years later, on December 31, 2000, the
United States surprisingly, given its internal political division, signed the 1998 Rome
Treaty on the International Criminal Court. Clinton argued that in doing so the US
wanted to reaffirm its “strong support for international accountability and for
bringing to justice perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against
humanity.”
33

He also made clear that signing such a treaty showed the American pledge
“to remain engaged in making the ICC an instrument of impartial and effective
justice in the years to come.”
34
He further claimed that the US had a long history of
commitment to the principle of accountability. He pointed both to the US
involvement in the Nuremberg tribunals that brought Nazi war criminals to justice

30
David J. Sheffer in Sarah B. Sewall and Carl Kaysen, The United States and the International
Criminal Court, p.116.
31
David J. Sheffer in Sarah B. Sewall and Carl Kaysen, The United States and the International
Criminal Court, p.116.
32
Broomhall, International Justice and International Criminal Court, p.167.
33
Clinton Announces U.S. is Signing International Criminal Court Treaty. Statement by the President:
Signature of the International Criminal Court treaty. The White House. Office of the Press Secretary.
December 31, 2000.
On line at http://usembassy.state.gov/posts/pk1/wwwh01010302.html
34
Statement by the President: signature of the International Criminal Court treaty.

159
and to the American leadership involvement in the effort to establish the
International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He
declared: “Our action today sustains that tradition of moral leadership. Clinton,
however, was well aware that the ICC treaty was going to be “dead on arrival” for
the opposition it would have encountered in a Republican controlled Congress and
he did not sign it until the deadline for signatures, December 31, 2000. However
when he signed the treaty, he stated, “I will not, and do not recommend that my
successor submit the Treaty to the Senate for advice and consent until our
fundamental concerns are satisfied.”
35
The question of the ICC and the protection of
American servicemen and women thus was an issue that equally preoccupied
Democrats and Republicans. Indeed, this is not an issue that divided Congress,
Democrats too were concerned with the ICC version that the Europeans supported. A
U.S. prosecutor, politically affiliated with the Democrats, admitted that even if they
had the majority, the ICC treaty would not have been ratified because Democrats
shared many of the preoccupations manifested by the Republicans.
36

However, the Bush administration abandoned the efforts to negotiate and
obtain “protections” for American officials. The previous policy was replaced by a
stance of active hostility, which led to the dodging of the ICC jurisdiction. The initial
stance of the Bush administration, over the early course of 2001, was one of
withdrawal from the ICC process, as the administration worked to develop a policy

35
Statement by the President: signature of the International Criminal Court treaty.
36
Personal interview with Richard Ben-Veniste, who served as one of ten commissioners on the
bipartisan 9-11 Commission.

160
distinct from its predecessor. The attacks on September 11, 2001 and the US
retaliations against Afghanistan suspended this process into the early months of
2002. As it became clearer that the ICC was going to become a reality, the US
became more and more concerned and Washington began to issue negative
statements on the ICC.
37
It soon became evident that the Bush administration was
planning to denounce the signature that the Clinton administration had given. The
event that triggered the US reaction was the simultaneous ratification of ten states at
a special ceremony held at the UN on 11 April 2002. This event brought the number
of ratification beyond the sixty needed. At this point, it was clear that the statute
would enter into force on 1 July 2002. At the time of the deposit of the Rome
Statute’s sixtieth instrument of ratification, States Parties included permanent
Security Council members, France and the United Kingdom (with Russia as a
signatory), as well as the entire EU and all NATO members, with only two
exceptions.
38

In response to the future establishment of the ICC, on 6 May 2002 the US
delivered a letter to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declaring that the US did
“not intend to become party to the treaty” and that consequently the United States

37
The ICC Statute had reached the number of ratifications that made it active.
38
Exceptions in NATO are Turkey which did not sign and Greece which signed but had not yet
ratified.) By 31 December 2000, the deadline for signature set down in art. 125 of the Statute, 139
States had signed the Rome Statute, while twenty seven had ratified. According to its terms, the
Statute ‘shall enter into force on the first day of the month after the 60
th
instrument of ratification,
acceptance, approval or accession with the Secretary General of the United Nations’ art. 126 par.1.
With the simultaneous deposit of the ten instruments of ratification at the UN on 11 April 2002, the
number of ratifications rose to sixty-six, triggering the entry into force of the Rome Statute on 1 July
2002. See Broomhall, International Justice and International Criminal Court, p 76.

161
had “no legal obligations arising from its signature on 30 December 2000.”
39

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asserted that the action “effectively
reverse[d] the previous U.S. government decision to become a signatory.”
40
This act
reflected an unprecedented and controversial U.S. reliance on Article 18 of the
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties for authority to undo the obligation,
incurred with a signature in order to respect the object and purpose of a treaty.
41

Furthermore, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman detailed a series
of U.S. policy commitments related to international justice that attempted to frame
the ‘un-signing’ in line with the U.S. commitment to accountability on international
crimes.
42
It claimed that the U.S. believes in justice and the promotion of the rule of
law and stressed that Americans:
… believe those who commit the most serious crimes of concern to the
international community should be punished. We believe that states, not
international institutions are primarily responsible for ensuring justice in the
international system. We believe that the best way to combat these serious
offenses is to build domestic judicial systems, strengthen political will and
promote human freedom. We have concluded that the International Criminal
Court does not advance these principles.
43

The reasons he gave are the following:

39
Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, John R. Bolton, International
Criminal Court: Letter to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (6 May 2002).
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/9968.htm.
40
Secretary Rumsfeld Statement on the ICC Treaty, United States Department of Defense News
Release No. 233-02 (6 May 2002) on line at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2002/b05062002_bt233-02.html.
41
“A State is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty
when…(a) it has signed the treaty or has exchanged instruments constituting the treaty subject to
ratification, acceptance or approval, until it shall have made its intention clear not to become a party
to the treaty…” Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, (1969) 1155 U.N. T.S. 331, art.18.
42
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, American Foreign Policy and the
International Criminal Court, Remarks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (May 6,
2002) on line at http://www.state.gov/p/9949.htm
43
Grossman, American Foreign Policy.

162
We believe the ICC undermines the role of the United Nations Security
Council in maintaining international peace and security. We believe in checks
and balances. The Rome Statute creates a prosecutorial system that is an
unchecked power. We believe that in order to be bound by a treaty, a state
must be party to that treaty. The ICC asserts jurisdiction over citizens of
states that have not ratified the treaty. This threatens US sovereignty. We
believe that the ICC is built on a flawed foundation. These flaws leave it open
for exploitation and politically motivated prosecutions.”
44

To such statements, the European Union replied that “the US unilateral action
may have undesirable consequences on multilateral treaty making, and generally on
the rule of law in international relations.”
45

Yet, Grossman declared that the U.S. would “work together with countries to
avoid any disruptions caused by the Treaty, particularly those complications in U.S.
military cooperation with friends and allies that are parties to the treaty.”
46
Also the
State Department seemed to have a similar position. Colin Powell argued that even
though the ICC deals with the kinds of war crimes that the United States abhors and
although the US supported the tribunal for Yugoslavia, the tribunal for Rwanda, the
US did not find that the ICC was appropriate for American men and women in the
armed forces or American diplomats and political leaders.
47

The Bush administration was particularly concerned with the fact that the
prosecutors of the ICC did not respond to any higher authority and were not
refrained by the Security Council or any other institution according to Powell. He
argued, these prosecutors have “the authority to second-guess the United States after

44
Grossman, American Foreign Policy.
45
Declaration by the EU on the position of the US toward the International Criminal Court (May 13,
2002), on line at http://www.ue2002.es/principal.asp?idioma-ingles.
46
Declaration by the EU on the position of the US
47
Colin Powell, Secretary of State, May 6, 2002. ABC News Program “This Week.”

163
we have tried somebody and take it before the ICC.” This, in Powell’s view, was not
appropriate. Probably, Powell feared that countries that had open issues with the US
could have used the provisions of the ICC to seek revenge. Therefore, the U.S.
focused on bilateral immunity agreements, also known as Article 98 agreements, as a
way to avoid the ICC jurisdiction.
48
These agreements were consented by the Rome
Statute, and allowed the United States to remain engaged internationally with their
friends and allies while providing American citizens with essential protection from
the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, particularly against politically
motivated investigations and prosecutions. However, these agreements did not
constitute, in the U.S. view a sufficient form of protection because they did not
ensure that the ICC would not initiate an investigation or issue an indictment against
American nationals. Article 98 agreements thus did not satisfy American policy-
makers who were trying to achieve a total exemption for their nationals.
In order to achieve such an exemption, the US used its veto power at the UN
announcing that it would veto the resolution for a UN peacekeeping mission in
Bosnia-Herzegovina if its demands were not accepted. After two weeks and several
government statements objecting to the US initiative, a compromise resolution was
agreed upon. Resolution 1244 requested the ICC to refrain from commencing or

48
“The international agreements mentioned in Article 98(2) of the Rome Statute are referred to by
several terms, including Article 98 agreements, bilateral immunity agreements (BIAs), impunity
agreements, and bilateral non-surrender agreements. Starting in 2002, the United States began
negotiating these agreements with individual countries, and has concluded at least one hundred such
agreements. Countries that sign these agreements with the United States agree not to surrender
Americans to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.”
http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/intl/guides/article_98.cfm (last accessed 08/07/07)

164
proceeding with an investigation or prosecution of any case involving current or
former officials or personnel from a contributing State that is not party to the Rome
Statute, for a period of one year from 1 July 2002. In addition, it also expressed the
intention of the Council to renew the resolution “for as long as necessary.”
49
This
measure assured only a temporary and unstable form of exemption because the U.S.
had to keep gathering votes for renewals.
In my personal interview Marisa Lino, U.S. Senior Negotiator at the Political
Military Affair Bureau during those years and U.S. negotiator for Article 98
agreements, affirmed that the U.S. needed such bilateral agreements. Those
agreements, she said, established that “we will not turn over to the ICC your people
without your permission and we don’t want you to turn over anybody from the U.S.
to the ICC without our permission.”
50
She also added, “at home we had a tremendous
amount of pressure to put on those provisions that would have protected the U.S.
from frivolous or politicized accusations of war crimes against humanity or
genocide.” Lino also underlined that the administration had problems with the
principle of complementarity.
51
She gave an insightful example as to why the U.S.
did not feel sufficiently protected by such provision. She said, “If tomorrow Donald
Rumsfeld retires already there are cases accusing our high level officials before the

49
Security Council Resolution 1422 (July 12, 2002). See Judy Dempsey, ‘Little Applause on Criminal
Court Deal’ Financial Times (July 15, 2002).
50
Private Interview with Marisa Lino. Florence, Italy 2004.
51
The principle of complementarity is a provision adopted in the Rome Statute according to which if
a case is being considered by a country with jurisdiction over it, then the ICC cannot act unless the
country is unwilling or unable genuinely to investigate or prosecute. http://www.icc-
cpi.int/about/ataglance/faq.html

165
ICC. What happens? He is now a private citizen and he goes to Europe. Is he going
to be arrested? The U.S. government is not going to put Rumsfeld to trail for crimes
against humanity, even though some people in Europe think he is a war criminal
because of what has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
52
Thus, beyond the public
discourse about the protection of the U.S. military there was another, less spoken
concern, that of protecting the administration’s policy-makers. Nonetheless, the
Clinton administration was probably more open to work multilaterally to ease the
domestic concerns while the Bush administration took a more rigorous position of
rejection of the ICC. The Bush administration adopted an openly hostile policy,
seeking to undermine the legitimacy of the court through the Article 98 agreements.
In sum, the main objections to the court of the Bush administration were that
it seriously threatened sovereignty and allowed states hostile to the US to misuse the
court and turn it against US military personnel in mission. Europe instead
conceptualized the principles of the Rome Statute in line with its fundamental
principles and objectives: commitment to freedom based on human rights,
democracy and rule of law.

IV. Critical Differences within the ICC debate
Ideas are important determinants of government policy, especially foreign
policy. Ideas, in fact, help to order the world and, insofar, they shape agendas, which

52
Private Interview with Marisa Lino. Florence, Italy 2004.

166
can greatly influence outcomes.
53
In this framework, the idea of the “West” can
become a socio-political and cultural construction that obscures differences between
the US and Europe, therefore, preventing the understanding of divergent policy
choices. In fact, while the US aimed at a court with limited power and rejected the
idea that an independent prosecutor would decide what cases to pursue, the European
countries, together with NGOs, were determined to have a different kind of court
with an independent prosecutor and relative freedom from the U.N. Security
Council.
54
The Europeans also sought large autonomy for an “Assembly of States
Parties” to oversee the court, allowing it to expand crimes or add new ones by a two-
thirds vote. Inclusion of the crime of aggression, not well defined by customary
international law, became a further point of contention between those who favored
the International Law Commission (ILC) model court,
55
supported by the US, and

53
I borrow the concept of ideas as road maps the book by Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane, Ideas
and Foreign Policy (Itacha, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 13.
The literature on the role of ideas in foreign policy is so large that I offer only a few key works. The
themes of how beliefs of individuals about social life identify possibilities for action, reflect moral
principles, and specify causal relationship are pursued in cognitive psychology by Robert Jervis,
Perceptions and Misperceptions in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1976); John D. Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1974); Robert Axelrod, “Schema Theory: An Information Processing Model of Perception and
Cognition” American Political Science Review, Vol.67 (1973), pp. 1248-66; Ole R. Holsti, “The
‘Operational Code’ Approach to the Study of Political Leaders: John Foster Dulles’ Philosophical and
Instrumental Beliefs.” Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol.3 (1970), pp. 123-57; Alexander
George, “The Operational Code”: A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and
Decision-Making.” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 13 (1969), pp. 190-222.
54
Those that favored a strong and independent court were also known as the “like minded group”
(LMG). This group was composed of middle powers and developing countries (i.e. Canada and some
African States).
55
The International Law Commission (ILC) had been appointed by the General Assembly of the UN
to study the possibility of establishing a permanent criminal court. The court was envisaged by the
Committee as a “semi-permanent” institution that would hold sessions only when matters before it
required consideration. The proposed court’s subject matter jurisdiction was limited to international
crimes “provided in conventions or special agreements among States parties” to the Statute. Finally,

167
the practitioners of the “new diplomacy,”
56
the EU and Canada. Europeans argued
the principles of the Rome Statute were fully in line with the principles and
objectives of the Union.
57
Indeed, the European Council stated that from its very
beginning, European integration has been firmly rooted in a shared commitment to
freedom based on human rights, democratic institutions and the rule of law, which
were the principles included in the Rome Statute.
58
These common values have
proved necessary for securing peace and developing prosperity in the European
Union.
59
The European countries were unified by common values and goals, by a
unique model of society, and by particular economic and legal arrangements.
60
At
the international level they tend, when possible, to present a unified foreign policy.
The EU Commissioner for External Relations, Chris Patten argued, the court “is the
most important advance for international law since the establishment of the United
Nations.”
61
In this context, the U.S. rejection of the ICC was taken as a challenge.

cases could proceed only if the State or States of the accused nationality, and the State or States, in
which the crime was alleged to have been committed, expressly conferred jurisdiction upon the court.
56
The phrase is used by David Davenport, “The New Diplomacy,” Policy Review, Washington, Dec.
2002/Jan 2003, iss. 116, p.17. In Ottawa, to pass the text of the treaty banning anti-personnel land
mines, small and medium sized powers, he argues, used “new diplomacy,” whose characteristics were
innovative technology and amazing speed.
57
European Council Common Position on the International Criminal Court, 11 June 2001
(2001/443/CFSP). Official Journal of the European Communities 12.6.2001. L. 155/19
http://europa.eu.int/geninfo/query/engine/search/query.pl
58
Giuseppe Mammarella and Paolo Cacace, Storia e Politica dell’Unione Europea, (Bari: Editori
Laterza, 2000)
59
Mammarella and Cacace, Storia e Politica dell’Unione Europea.
60
Ruth Wodak and Gilbert Weiss, “European Union Discourses,” in Wodak, ed., New Agenda in
(Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory, Methodology and Interdisciplinary. (Philadelphia, PA: John
Benjamins Publishing Company, 2005).
61
Statement of Commissioner for External Relations, Chris Patten, on the International Criminal Court
and the mandate for the UN Mission in Bosnia- Herzegovina, made at a press conference with Federal
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Goran Svilanovic in Belgrade, on 3 July 2002
http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/news/ip02_991.htm

168
“We will allow nobody to water down the commitments contained in the ICC
treaty,” he warned. Contrast his words with that of Mr. Bolton of the American
Enterprise in his testimony before the Committee in Foreign Relations. He asked:
“why should we believe that bewigged judges in The Hague will be able to prevent
what cold steel has failed to prevent?”
62

The American policy-makers’ image of justice seem be besieged with
questions of use of force, lack of trust and conspiracy theory. Senator Rod Grams
claims, “I believe the greatest force for peace on this Earth is not an international
court; it is the United States military…a treaty which hinders our military is not only
bad for America, but it is also bad for the international community.”
63
Dr. Jeremy
Rabkin, a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University, in his
testimony at the US Senate, is even more explicit on the idea that justice should
advantage the strongest. “Opponents,” he argued, “insisted it would send an
unacceptable signal to provide exemptions for the great powers. But won’t it send an
even better signal to launch a prosecution against an American official?”
64
The US
concept of justice differs somewhat from that of the Europeans. For Washington the
super-power’s justice system is flawless, for Europeans it is flawed. Under Secretary
for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman, states that the US believes “the ICC

62
John Bolton. U.S. Congress, Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations, The International Criminal
Court: protecting American servicemen and officials from the threat of international prosecution:
Hearing before Committee on Foreign Relations. 106
th
Cong., 1
st
sess. June 14, 2000
63
Senator Rod Grams, Hearing before Committee on Foreign Relations. 106
th
Cong., 1
st
sess. June 14,
2000
64
Dr. Jeremy Rabkin, U.S. Congress, House. Committee on Foreign Relations, The International
Criminal Court. Hearing before Committee on Foreign Relations. 106
th
Cong., 2
st
sess., July 25 and
26, 2000.

169
undermines the role of the United Nations Security Council in maintaining
international peace and security.”
65
Furthermore, he argues, the US believes that
“states, not international organizations are primarily responsible for ensuring justice
in the international system”
66

The UN Security Council, however, is an international institution. The
problem of the US is twofold. On one hand it wants to maintain its powerful seat at
the UN Security Council, and on the other, it wants to guarantee itself impunity. The
UN Security Council gives the US both legitimacy and protection that no decision in
the international realm can be made if it does not have the US endorsement. On the
other hand, and here is where the American double standards become evident, the
US declares that States not international organizations should deal with justice in the
international system. It is legitimate to ask who these states are. What state does have
the power to ensure justice in the international system?
There are other considerations to make at this point because what appears
from the reading of the public statements is a great deal of mistrust for the
international judicial system. Mr. Bolton asks, as I mentioned earlier, “why should
we believe that bewigged judges in The Hague will be able to prevent what cold steel
has failed to prevent?”
67
Mr. Grossman argues that a transitional government has to
deal with its collective past and that the State should choose how it does so. He
claims that a democratic government should decide whether prosecuting crimes or

65
Marc Grossman, American Foreign Policy.
66
Marc Grossman, American Foreign Policy.
67
Bolton, Hearing before Committee on Foreign Relations. 106
th
Cong., 1
st
sess. June 14, 2000.

170
reconciling that the ICC should not take these decisions. Why then did the US push
for establishing courts like the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTFY)?
The European Union (also supportive of both the Rwanda and Yugoslavia
tribunals, but conscious of their limits)
68
did not appear to be threatened by the ICC.
“No longer will the international community have to create international criminal
tribunals after the fact - after the crimes that we all deplore have already been
committed.”
69
The European Commission warmly welcomed the inauguration of the
International Criminal Court in The Hague. The EU believes it to be a fundamental
means to maintain peace. “The Union is convinced that compliance with the rules of
international humanitarian law and human rights is necessary for the preservation of
peace and consolidation of the rule of law.”
70
The ICC “is an essential means of
promoting respect for international humanitarian law and human rights, thus
contributing to freedom, security, justice and the rule of law as well as contributing
to the preservation of peace and the strengthening of international security, in
accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
71

In the European social context, the court was framed within the human rights
discourse; this contributed to the creation of a positive image of the court itself and it
also generated a positive image of Europe as the paladin of human rights.

68
Many of the indicted are still on the loose and this badly reflects on the two courts image.
69
Council Common Position of June 2001 on the International Criminal Court (2001/443/CFSP).
Official Journal of Europe and Communities 12.6.2001. L. 155/19.
70
Council Common Position of June 2001.
71
Council Common Position of June 2001.

171
The consolidation of the rule of law, respect for human rights and
international humanitarian law, the preservation of peace and the
strengthening of international security are among the priorities of the external
relations of the European Union (EU). The Union is strongly committed to
promoting the early establishment of the International Criminal Court and its
Rome Statute, which represent a key prerequisite for achieving these
priorities.
72

In presenting the Council Common position on the ICC, Chris Patten, stated:
The inauguration of the International Criminal Court is a historic
achievement, perhaps the most significant development in international law
since the creation of the United Nations. This landmark has been made
possible by the joint efforts of governments, international organizations and
civil society worldwide. The Court brings hope for the thousands of victims
who have suffered in the past from atrocities over which the Court will have
jurisdiction: crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. The Court
sends a powerful message to any potential perpetrator of such crimes:
impunity has ended."
73

In a personal speech one year before he had underlined that
In the twenty-first century, potential tyrants and mass murderers will know in
advance that the international community is prepared to hold them
accountable for massive violations of human life and dignity. It is our belief
and our hope that this awareness will help reduce the frequency and the
severity of such crimes. But when it does not, and the relevant national legal
authorities are unwilling or unable to act, the international community will
have in place a complementary system of criminal justice that is fair,
transparent and effective.
74

The implications of this speech are: 1. for the Europeans the court constitutes
a protection against violations of human rights. 2. international organizations, not
states, should deal with gross violations of human rights. The whole discourse
revolves around humanitarian questions. While this discourse conveys the European

72
Council Common Position on the International Criminal Court 2003/444/CFSP Official Journal L.
150 18.06.2003.
73
Council Common Position 2003/444/CFSP
74
Chris Patten, Speech. Plenary Session European Parliament - Strasbourg, 25 September 2002 -
SPEECH/02/431.

172
understanding of international relations and regulations of controversies, it also gives
the sense of a possible new European identity built around themes and images of
humanitarianism.
The Europeans built consensus on the ICC over values shared by many other
countries and NGOs. Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman in explaining the
American policy toward the ICC claims that the judicial system established by the
ICC does not have “checks and balances,” which he says is something the US
strongly believes in. He affirms that the US political system is based on the principle
that an unchecked power could be abused notwithstanding the good intentions of
those who established it. However, the European nation-states political systems are
also based on checks and balances and EU members ratified the Treaty of Rome
instituting the ICC. Furthermore, transferring his checks and balances reasoning to
the international system, it could be argued that the US is an unchecked power and
that its power could be abused notwithstanding the good intentions of the American
government.
According to Secretary of State Powell, the court would have the authority to
“second-guess the United States” after Americans tried somebody and took him/her
before the ICC. He argued that this is not a situation the US believes is appropriate
for “our men and women in the armed forces or our diplomats and political
leaders.”
75
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that “clearly the existence of
an International Criminal Court, which attempts to claim jurisdiction over our men

75
Powell'. “This Week.”.

173
and women in uniform stationed around the world, will necessarily complicate U.S.
military cooperation with countries that are parties to the ICC treaty.”
76
In fact,
“those countries may now incur a treaty obligation to hand over U.S. nationals to the
court, even over U.S. objections. The United States would consider any such action
to be illegitimate…any attempt to turn a U.S. national over to the ICC would be
“regarded as illegitimate by the U.S.” and that, “we must be ready to defend our
people, our interests and our way of life.”
77
Secretary of State Powell even
commented that the US is no longer bound in any way to the ICC’s purpose and
objective.
78
Chris Patten reaffirmed “its determination to encourage the widest
possible international support for the ICC through ratification or accession to the
Rome Statute and its commitment to support the early establishment of the ICC as a
valuable instrument of the World Community to combat impunity for the most
serious international crimes.”
79

The American emphasis on the question of jurisdiction leads to another
critical difference, the conceptualization of sovereignty. The 20
th
century inaugurated
restrictions to unlimited state action. The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 set
up the rules governing the conduct of wars on land and at sea. The Covenant of the
League of Nations limited the right to wage war, and the Briand-Kellogg Pact of
1928 condemned war as “the” solution to resolve international controversies as well

76
Rumsfeld. Statement. May 6, 2002.
77
Rumsfeld. Statement. May 6, 2002.
78
Powell'. “This Week.”.
79
Chris Patten, Prague, 7/8 December 2001. Message of support to the No Peace without Justice
Conference on the International Criminal Court.

174
as its use as a tool of national policy. These treaties were followed by the Charter of
the United Nations (Article 2), which established the responsibility on member states
to “settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that
international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered” and supplemented
it with the injunction that all members “shall refrain in their international relations
from the threat or use of force…”
Yet, the Charter specifies as one of the crucial principles of the UN “the
principle of sovereign equality of all its Members.” Because of such developments,
sovereignty is no longer equated with unrestricted power. States have accepted a
considerable body of law limiting their sovereign right of acting as they please. In
essence, states imposed on themselves limits even though there are cases in which
states are considered as bound by certain rules of international law despite the lack of
satisfactory proof that they expressly or implicitly accepted these rules. States,
however, cannot impose new rules on a state without its consent.
The degree of international restrictions is intertwined with the degree of
national sovereignty. More limits to action in the international scenario restrict
domestic decision-making. Americans always associate the ICC with loss of
sovereignty.
80
Mr. Caspar Weinberger, Former Secretary of Defense, referring on the
ICC states that “the whole concept really tests whether the idea of sovereignty exists
any longer. And it is a very major step along the road toward wiping out individual

80
Both Democrats and Republicans had this problem.

175
national sovereignty.”
81
Jeremy Rabkin affirmed that “what we should worry about
is not simply a physical threat to our servicemen but a wider threat to our national
sovereignty. Other countries may want to share their sovereignty with an
international criminal court. We should make it clear in advance that we would
regard such action as an extremely hostile act against the sovereign rights of the
United States. We should make it clear that we will defend our own sovereignty,
whatever other countries may do.”
82
For Rabkin the ICC attempted to undermine
U.S., but Ruth Wedgwood, professor of law at Yale, pointed out that “many
countries thought it would be more deferential to national sovereignty to have a court
be treaty based or not at all.”
83
Rabkin, however, reiterated “I think one of the
reasons why so many people want this institution to be established is they want to
establish in principle that there is an international authority which rightly sits above
sovereign states and judges them. And I say in principle that is wrong.”
84
He
continued, “There should not be anything higher than the United States…I am sure it
will have bad consequences, because it promotes a certain way of thinking, which is,
to use an old-fashioned term, subversive. It is literally subversive of our
constitutional order…God is above us, as above all other states. And that is very
important. To set up an international authority that is higher than our own
Government really is, I think, and surely the Founding generation would have said,
that is almost blasphemous. It is putting international authority in the place of

81
Caspar Weinberger, US Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearing, June 14, 2000.
82
Rabkin, United States. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearing, June 14, 2000.
83
Wedgwood, United States. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearing, June 14, 2000.
84
Rabkin, United States. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearing, June 14, 2000.

176
God.”
85
It should be noted that Rabkin testimony was applauded by the president of
the US Senate Committee for Foreign Relations, Jesse Helms.

V. Conclusion
The ICC represents an unusual disagreement. In fact, there is no doubt that
the U.S. and Europe, over the course of the years, have condemned the violation of
human rights, the most serious crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and of
war crimes in the new and violent civil wars. To that extent, in the 1990s, they have
undertaken military interventions (i.e. Bosnia and Kosovo) and have established ad
hoc tribunals (Rwanda and Yugoslavia). The key, as this chapter has tried to show, is
that their support takes a different form because of different conceptualizations of
certain concepts. The disagreement over the ICC thus supersedes the bonds of the
Atlantic community.
Yet, while the neo-realists who envisaged a loosening of the sense of
commitment to the Atlantic community seem to be accurate, my investigation has
revealed that the tension between the transatlantic partners is not about the
disappearance of a common enemy; rather it is about different conceptualizations of
the meaning of justice and sovereignty. The different understanding of such concepts
produced different policies, which amplified tensions within the transatlantic
relations. Furthermore, Europeans came to conceive the promotion of human rights
as the ideological foundation of their foreign policy. The ICC case also allows for a

85
Rabkin, United States. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearing, June 14, 2000.

177
consideration of the different experience the United States and European countries
have with international institutions, especially tribunals. Europeans are accustomed
to international tribunals. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg handles
thousands of cases every year and, when it sentences governments to do something,
they comply. The United States has not had a similar experience and resents any
limitation to its sovereignty. Consequently, Europeans believe that international
tribunals are a good form of prevention and enforcement to thwart international
violations because of their everyday experience with supranational tribunals. By
contrast, the United States has never had to practice diplomacy among equals. When
it was a rising power, isolationism protected it from the European powers and when
it broke its isolationism to intervene in World War II it did it as a superpower, taking
over “the leadership of the free world.” The U.S. preoccupation with limitations to
its sovereignty and the protection of its service members should thus be understood
within the larger U.S. recent historical political context. Such context also explains
why the U.S. envisages the use of military force as the instrument for maintaining
peace in the international realm.
This case, as the previous one, had the purpose to evaluate the claims of the
neo-realists and neo-liberals and suggests that the cause of the disagreement on the
ICC is due to the different understandings of the meaning of justice and sovereignty.
The U.S. and Europe do share human rights values, but disagree on the meaning of
other values such as justice and sovereignty, which constitute the subtext of human
rights values. This disagreement produces divergence on how to handle violations of

178
human rights. Accordingly, the Europeans choose the international tribunal and the
U.S. favors the use of military force. The way policy-makers conceive the concepts,
mentioned earlier, matters in understanding divergence and convergence in the
transatlantic relations because it influences their practices, which in turn, widens or
shrinks, magnifies or minimize, disagreements. Therefore, divergence or
cooperation, or as in Table 4, political split or cooperation, depends, as rightly
pointed out by the neo-liberals, on shared values. However, while broad
encompassing values like human rights indicate agreement and thus seems to
corroborate that there is a sense of the Atlantic community in the post Cold War era,
the sub-textual concepts (justice and sovereignty) point to the opposite direction.
The next chapter will investigate how the U.S. and Europe have interacted in
another important realm of transatlantic relations, economic development, to once
again evaluate neo-realist and neo-liberal claims and thus determine the accuracy of
their arguments in the case of debt relief, which at first seems to confirm the neo-
liberal claim.

179
Chapter 5: The Case of Debt Relief
I. Introduction
This chapter investigates another key area of the transatlantic relations:
economic development. This case study, as the previous ones, aims to analyze the
behavior of the U.S. and Europe in order to determine the accuracy of the neo-realist
and neo-liberal claims on the future of the transatlantic relations. In addition, as the
previous case studies, it examines whether U.S. and European practices signaled a
redefinition of the transatlantic relations in the post Cold War. While the renovation
of NATO would suggest a renewed identity that would bring the allies closer, the
case of the ICC indicates that on issues of international justice different concepts of
justice and sovereignty resulted in policy divergences. The issue debt relief,
however, points to common Euro-American positions, within the G7,
1
toward
solving the problem of unsustainable debt burdens; but here as well, the issues
revealed cultural variances. I suggest that in order to understand the future of
transatlantic relations we consider the discrete cultural practices and values of the
member nations, as elements that always have the potential to influence their
ongoing relations and define their identity. In fact, the continually evolving
consolidations of these identities, determine their contingent policy preferences. This
chapter, similar to the analytical aims of the previous one, assesses the contending

1
The G7 turned into the G8 when Russia became formally involved in the Summit process starting
with the 1998 Birmingham Summit. The G7 Group of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors
continues to exist, is distinct from the G8 and excludes Russia. My focus in this chapter is the G7 thus
Russia’s role is not analyzed. Without intending any offense to Japan and Canada to make this work
manageable and for consistency with the rest of this work I will analyze the U.S. and the European
states members of the G7.

180
arguments in the debate whether the disappearance of the Soviet Union will bring to
an end the sense of commitment to the Atlantic community or whether norms,
values, political identity and institutions will keep the U.S. and Europe together.
The case study which is the concern of this chapter, involves an economic
policy question, on an overarching level, as laissez-faire economists might suggest,
but this is an economic question valanced very different from many other economic
questions because the issue also involves social and cultural values (i.e.
unsustainable debt burden, poverty, social justice etc.). In the case of debt relief,
advocacy movements, mainly Jubilee 2000, believed the high level of debt in third
world countries constituted a wrong that creditor nations had the moral obligation to
address. In response to their activism, a policy was drafted, in which the value laden
idea that the un-payable debts of the poorest countries ought to be forgiven became
embodied in a policy, the HIPC initiative.
In June of 1999, the G7 leaders
2
announced that they had “decided to give a
fresh boost to debt relief to developing countries.”
3
They explained that even though
in recent years the international creditor community had introduced a number of debt
relief measures for the poorest countries (i.e. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries,
HIPC), the recent experience suggested that further efforts were needed “to achieve a

2
The G8 leaders signatory of the Final Communiqué in Cologne were: Prime Minister Jean Chrétien
for Canada, President Jacques Chirac for France, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for Germany, Prime
Minister Massimo D’Alema for Italy, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi for Japan, President Boris Yeltsin
for the Russian Federation, Prime Minister Tony Blair for the United Kingdom, President William J.
Clinton for the U.S. The Acting President for the European Union, Jacques Santer, also singed the
Communiqué.
3
G8 Final Communiqué Köln. June 20, 1999.
http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/finance/fm061899.htm (last accessed 11/29/06)

181
more enduring solution to the problem of unsustainable debt burdens.”
4
The
Communiqué offered a new hope to the world’s most impoverished countries while,
at the same time, presenting a united image of the North Atlantic core countries and
the West to the skeptics who foresaw a disintegration of the Atlantic community in
the post cold war world. For the explicit message of the communiqué suggests that
the G7 collectively were ready to undertake measures to solve the question of the un-
payable debt. What is it about debt relief that has so captured the attention of
Western world leaders as a whole? What factors have contributed to the initiative of
debt cancellation at the national political level? Answering these questions will allow
me to assess which version, combination or reformulation of neo-realist and neo-
liberal arguments on the future of the North Atlantic core has been more accurate
and insightful on this particular issue.
In this chapter, I first look at communalities within the G 7 and specifically at
what the U.S. and Europe agreed to do in order to solve the problem of unsustainable
debt burdens. To this end, I analyze the Cologne Initiative and I show how the IMF
and World Bank incorporated it into HIPC’s enhancement. I then provide G7
leaders’ arguments to further highlighting the widespread Euro-American
agreements on this topic. I also discuss the compliance of the G7 countries with their
pledges in order to try to determine if indeed they are united on the issue. Finally, I
outline how an NGO, Jubilee 2000, a coalition of religious and labor organizations
whose goal was to cancel the un-payable debts of the most impoverished countries

4
G8 Final Communiqué Köln. June 20, 1999.

182
by the dawn of the new millennium, pressured policy-makers both in the United
States and in Europe to write off such debt. The different approach the organization
adopted is indicative of Euro-American distance on the traditional/secular values, in
line with the most recent Ronald Inglehart cultural map of the world dated about the
year 2000 (see Appendix).
5

II International perspective: Debt Relief and Western Communalities
Debt relief is not a new issue on the international agenda. Discussions over
the problem of what developed countries, many of whom are IMF and World Bank
shareholders, should do about the un-payable debt of the world’s poorest countries,
have filled newspapers and academic journals since the first oil crisis in 1974. What
makes the topic significant in this study is the re-born interest between 1997-2000
around the issue and most of all the commitment of the North Atlantic core countries
to follow through in resolving the issue in 1999. In this section, I will look at the G7,
the institution in which the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, along

5
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). See Figure 2.4 Cultural map of the world about
2000, p. 63.
Inglehart’s cultural map of the world about 2000 shows the location of eighty societies surveyed on
two main dimensions of cross-cultural variation. The vertical axis reflects the polarization between
traditional authority and secular rational authority linked with the process of industrialization. The
horizontal axis reflects the polarization between survival values and self-expression values linked
with the rise of postindustrial society. Although his global cultural map is based on a factor analysis
that uses less than half as many variables as he used in his 1989-91 Values Survey, and it is based on
almost twice as many countries, he concludes that the locations of the respective societies on the
cultural map of the world about 2000 are strikingly similar to those on the cultural maps produced
earlier. It becomes evident from this map, as Inglehart argues that the United States has a much more
traditional value system than any other post-industrial society except for Ireland. On the
traditional/secular dimension, the United States ranks far below other rich societies, with levels of
religiosity and national pride comparable with those found in some developing societies.

183
with Japan and Canada first initiated discussions on this issue. An analysis of the G7
documents show that these countries agreed on debt reduction. In essence, the G7
nations committed themselves to forgiving up to 90% of the debt owed directly to
them (usually referred to as bilateral debt).
6
In addition, they also pledged to
contribute to a Heavily Indebt Poor Countries (HIPC) “trust fund” to help
international financial institutions – primarily, regional development banks, such as
the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank – to write
off loans to HIPC participants (usually called multilateral debt). Two other crucial
institutions, however, managed the HIPC program and forgave part of the debt owed
to them, the IMF and the World Bank. The most important document that shows the
commonality of intent with regard to the debt relief was the G7 Cologne Initiative,
which successively led to the World Bank and the IMF’s enhancement of the HIPCs.
From its very beginning, the Initiative has been seen, both by the United
States and Europe, as a means to lifting a burden that was impoverishing and
deteriorating already feeble economies. “Between 1970 and 2002 Africa received
$540 billion in loans. Despite the fact that over that same period, African countries
paid back $550 billion—$10 billion more than the original loans—at the end of 2002
they still owed another $293 billion.”
7

6
Report of G7 Finance Ministers on the Kolon Debt Initiative to the Kolon Economic Summit.
Cologne, 18-20 June, 1999. “To achieve debt sustainability, we would be prepared to forgive up to 90
percent and more in individual cases if needed, in particular for the very poorest among these
countries”. http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/finance/fm061899.htm (accessed 11/29/06)
7
http://www.data.org/whyafrica/issuedebt.php (accessed 9/27/06)

184

Figure 13 Outstanding Debt in Developing Countries, 1970-2001
Source: World Bank, Global development Finance, 2002

In reaction to the build up of foreign aid owed by many poor countries, in the
late 1980s, the Paris Club and other bilateral creditors rescheduled some of these
debts, but the problem remained. Many poor countries faced debts whose value had
more than doubled by the mid-1990s.
8
To respond to this crisis, in 1996, the World
Bank and the IMF launched the HIPC Initiative.
9
The HIPC, as it is generally

8
http://web.worldbank.org
9
For the World Bank it was the International Development Association (IDA), which is the Bank
concessional lending arm for poor countries to initiate the process. I contacted the media office as

185
referred to, was comprehensive and called for “the voluntary provision of debt relief
by all creditors, whether multilateral, bilateral, or commercial and aim[ed] to provide
a fresh start to countries struggling to cope with foreign debt that plac[es] too great a
burden on export earnings or fiscal revenues”.
10
The HIPC was certainly a major
departure from previous debt relief efforts. In fact, this was the first time in which
the debts of the World Bank and the IMF were included for write-off under the
scheme. As Jubilee 2000 claims, “HIPC was also the first attempt by creditors to
deal with the debts of the poorest countries in a comprehensive way. Previously
debtor nations negotiated separately, and at great cost, with sets of bilateral
(government to government) or multilateral (institutions owned by a range of
governments) or private creditors and, as a result, their debts were not viewed as a
whole. HIPC changed that.”
11
Even if it constituted the first step in a positive
direction, the HIPC was heavily criticized for “providing too little relief, too late”.
Many critics condemned the so-called “structural adjustment” (SAPs) conditions

well as the public affairs office at the IMF but they have not been able to tell me what countries
proposed the HIPC Initiative.
http://web.worldbank.org
10
http://web.worldbank.org
11
http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk (accessed 10/9/06). The World Bank and the IMF do not
give any credit to the Jubilee 2000 campaign for their decision to launch the HIPC Initiative. The
World Bank’s websites says “Starting in the late 1980s, the Paris Club and other bilateral creditors
rescheduled and forgave many of these debts. But by the mid 1990s, with an increasing share of debt
owed to multilateral lenders such as the World Bank, the IMF, and regional development banks, a
new debt relief initiative was called for, involving these creditors, to address the concern that poor
countries’ debts were stifling poverty reduction efforts. In response, in 1996 the International
Development Association (IDA, the World Bank’s concessional lending arm for poor countries) and
the IMF launched the HIPC Initiative.” Further research should be done to understand the impact of
transnational social movements on the debt relief issue.
http://web.worldbank.org (accessed 10/10/06)

186
attached to the HIPC debt relief.
12
Among the harsher critics in Academia, Jeffrey
Sachs and Alfred Stiglitz over the course of the 1990s opposed the SAPs and
criticized both the IMF and the World Bank accusing them of foul play.
Accordingly, Macleans Geo-Jaja and Garth Mangum, for example, argued that
structural adjustment programs and stabilization polices have not only rarely
accomplished anything, but they have usually deteriorated the human conditions and
further compounded the already precarious economic situation.
13

In 1999, the G7 launched what is known as the Cologne Debt Relief Initiative
to enable the HIPCs to obtain “faster, deeper and broader debt relief” in return for
firm commitments to channel the benefit into “assisting the most vulnerable
segments of population.”
14
Poverty alleviation however also required the
intervention of two key institutions: the IMF and the World Bank. The Cologne
Initiative called on the IMF and the World Bank “to develop a new framework for
linking debt relief with poverty reduction” which had to focus on “better targeting of
budgetary resources for priority social expenditures, for health, child survival, AIDS
prevention, education, greater transparency in government budgeting, and much

12
SAPs is the acronym for Structural Adjustment Programs. Examples of structural adjustment
conditions are privatizations of state industries, local currency devaluation and cuts to social services.
According to Fantu Cheru, an economist from Ethiopia, who teaches at American University in
Washington, and who wrote a book entitled The Silent Revolution in Africa: Debt, Development and
Democracy (London: Zed Press, 1989) “Structural adjustment programs have been particularly
divisive, setting farmers against civil servants, civil servants against labor unions. Mass mobilizations
for democratic alternatives become almost impossible. Everybody is so poor that survival takes
priority over long-term solutions that can build solidarity among urban and rural people”. Fantu
Cheru, “Please don’t develop us any more” Middle East Report, September-October 1990. p. 27.
13
Geo-Jaja Macleans and Garth Mangum, “Structural Adjustment as an Inadvertent Enemy of Human
Development in Africa”, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 32, no. 1 (Sept., 2001), p.30-31.
14
Report of G7 Finance Ministers on the Kolon Debt Initiative to the Kolon Economic Summit.
Cologne, 18-20 June, 1999. http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/finance/fm061899.htm (accessed 11/29/06)

187
wider consultation with civil society in the development and implementation of
economic programs”.
15

Thus, in 1999, the World Bank and the IMF enhanced the HIPC Initiative “to
provide a deeper, more rapid relief to a wider group of countries, and to increase the
Initiative’s links with poverty reduction.”
16
As a result, currently twenty-nine
countries are profiting from HIPC debt relief, of whom nineteen have reached a so-
called completion point.
17
Ten additional countries are benefiting from some debt
relief and another eleven will become eligible as soon as the agreement of
macroeconomic reforms and poverty reduction become effective.
18

Few cases in the recent history of US-European relations, especially after
1991, have shown such a united and determined attempt to pursue a common foreign
policy. The shared enthusiasm among creditors to come through on their financial
commitments is evident in the speeches of the G7 leaders.
For the French President Jacques Chirac, the G7 debt reduction measures
represented an "intelligent, generous and courageous" move, which allowed

15
http://clinton2.nara.gov/ (accessed 10/17/06)
16
http://web.worldbank.org (accessed 11/29/06)
17
“In order to receive the full and irrevocable reduction in debt available under the HIPC Initiative,
the country must: (i) establish a further track record of good performance under IMF- and IDA-
supported programs; (ii) implement satisfactorily key reforms agreed at the decision point, and (iii)
adopt and implement the PRSP for at least one year. Once a country has met these criteria, it can
reach its “completion point,” at which time lenders are expected to provide the full debt relief
committed at decision point.” http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/hipc.htm (last accessed
8/15/2007).
18
http://web.worldbank.org (accessed 11/29/06). It is also worth noticing that in 2006, following the
G8 Gleneagles Summit, “the World Bank joined the IMF and the African Development Bank in
implementing the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), forgiving 100 percent of eligible
outstanding debt owed to these three institutions by all countries reaching the completion point of the
HIPC Initiative. The MDRI will effectively double the volume of debt relief already expected from
the enhanced HIPC Initiative.”

188
"countries to benefit rapidly."
19
The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder prior to
the Summit expressed the idea that “without drastic reduction in their foreign debt
the world's poorest countries will never be able to integrate into the world
economy.”
20
Afterward, he declared the Summit to have been an “extraordinary
success.”
21
Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, was no less enthusiastic. He said,
“we will be writing off literally billions of dollars worth of debt," adding "I believe
this summit will mark probably the biggest step forward in debt relief."
22
Finally and
importantly, President Clinton called the Cologne Initiative a “historic step to help
the world’s poorest nations achieve sustained growth and independence”.
23
In
March, prior to the Cologne Summit, the American President announced, “our goal
is to ensure that no country committed to fundamental reform is left with a debt
burden that keeps it from meeting its people’s basic human needs and spurring
growth. We should provide extraordinary efforts to build working economies.”
Indeed, the G7 reached a degree of consensus that is relatively unique. While the
previous cases analyzed in this dissertation, NATO and the ICC, call into question
political and cultural assumptions on which the US and Europe have operated, the
debt relief with its moral basis appealed to both, giving birth to the Cologne
Initiative. However, even so, issues of cultural distance manifest themselves with
regard to the issue, and these differences reiterate Inglehart’s cultural map. The U.S.

19
Deutsche Presse Agentur, “Rich nations agree debt relief for poorest”. June 18, 1999.
20
City briefing, The Guardian (London), June 15, 1999. p. 22.
21
Press Release. Cologne. June 21, 1999.
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1999koln/pr_june21.html
22
Deutsche Presse Agentur, “France cancelling poorest Africans’ debt.” June 18, 1999
23
Washington Street Journal, June 21, 1999.

189
and European countries, except for Ireland, are still far apart in terms of traditional
versus secular values. The morality of the issue, as we will discuss later, was in fact
internalized differently. While in the U.S. the advocacy movement appealed to the
policy-makers’ Christian values, in Europe it was presented as a social justice issue.
An analysis of the G7 countries on the question of the debt relief reinforces
what we have argued so far, that indeed the U.S. and Europe, was united on this
problem. A compliance study put forward by the G8 Research Group and published
on the G8 Information Center website, shows compliance from every country except
the United States.
24
However, the study was published prior to October 2000, when
Congress appropriated the additional $435 million needed for 100% debt
cancellation, making the United States fulfill its commitments.
The study confirms that France made reasonable efforts to comply with the
Cologne Initiative. In 2000, the French Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry,
Laurent Fabious, insisted that “France would not betray this commitment.”
25

Consequently, the French government pledged to cancel its entire bilateral
development debt as well as all its commercial debt for countries eligible for the
Paris Club Treatment. Approximately 8 billion euros were allocated for debt
cancellation. “According to Mr. Hubert Védrine, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the
French financial effort within the HIPC initiative will amount to 0.37% of the French

24
The study is entitled “Compliance with G8 Commitments: From Koln 1999 to Okinawa 2000.
Compliance Studies by Issue Area: Köln Debt Initiative.” I will keep referring to the G7 and not the
G8 because it was the G7 to commit to the Debt Initiative, not the G8. The document can be found on
line on G8 Information Center website:
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2000okinawa/compliance/debt.htm.
25
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2000okinawa/compliance/debt.htm

190
GDP putting them ahead of Japan (0.22%), Germany (0.16%) and the United States
(0.05%).”
26
Gerhard Schröder, the study argues, was ready to not only comply
completely with the debt initiative, but he revealed at the EU-Africa Summit in April
2000 that he would suggest that Germany entirely write off the debt of the poorest
countries, a commitment of 700 million deutschmarks.
27
The Italian government
respected the terms of the Köln Debt Initiative and cancelled all commercial and
Official Development Assistance (ODA) debt for countries with a per capita income
lower than 300 dollars.
28
Moreover, it contributed 60 million dollars to the ESAF-
HIPC Trust Fund, and another 70 million dollars to the World Bank's HIPC Trust.
29

The Research Group document also reports that after the Köln Summit, Tony Blair
brought up at the British House of Commons that the Debt Initiative was the most
important achievement of the Summit, clearly showing – the document says - “a
strong belief in the commitment taken by the member countries.” In addition, Britain
was also the first country to propose full cancellation of the bilateral debts of
countries eligible for HIPC and remained at the vanguard of international debt relief

26
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2000okinawa/compliance/debt.htm
27
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2000okinawa/compliance/debt.htm
28
ODA are “net disbursements of loans or grants made on concessional terms by official agencies of
member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)”. The
definition can be found in the glossary of Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith, Economic
Development, (Addison Wesley, 2003) p.804.
29
“Following extensive discussions on financing of the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative
(HIPC) and Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) initiatives, agreement has been reached
on the main elements of a financing package that will enable the IMF to make its contribution to the
HIPC Initiative and to continue concessional lending for sustainable growth and poverty reduction in
its low income member countries. […]Bilateral pledges amount to about SDR 1.5 billion "as needed"
and come from a wide cross-section of the IMF's membership, demonstrating the broad support for
the HIPC and ESAF initiatives. Industrial countries as well as a large number of developing countries-
-including some low-income countries that have had ESAF-supported programs in the past--have
made pledges to the ESAF-HIPC Trust.” http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/nb/1999/nb9962.htm

191
efforts. As for the United States, the study does not believe that the US
notwithstanding President Clinton and the Department of State commitment would
follow through, because in March 2000, the amount of money necessary for debt
relief had not yet been approved by the Senate.

III National Perspective: Debt Relief and Diverging Western Paths
As I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, an advocacy movement
had been initiated known as Jubilee 2000, a transnational campaign to cancel the un-
payable debt of the world poorest countries. I have also suggested that the movement
adopted a strategic framing that tapped into the values of the targeted policymakers
in order to get their attention and build a broader coalition. However, even though
the advocacy movement exploited shared existing value traditions in the U.S. and
Europe the persuasion tactics adopted also reflected the differences in the value
system of the participating nations.
30
As Inglehart’s Cultural map of the world (about
the year 2000) shows, there is in fact a remarkable difference in the value systems of
the North Atlantic core countries. On the traditional versus secular dimension, the
United States ranks far below the UK, France and Germany. The moral arguments of
“right and wrong” that Jubilee 2000 adopted in the U.S., as opposed to the social
justice arguments adopted in Europe, reflect the distance among the traditional vs.
secular-rational values within the North Atlantic core countries (see Table 4).

30
Ronals Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). See Cultural map of the world about 2000, p. 63.

192
We can now look inside the U.S. to examine how policy-makers were
motivated by moral concerns. To this extent, I will offer, as an example, one of the
most dedicated advocates for debt relief, the Irish rock star Bono and his approach to
the un-payable debt in the United States. Normally, the fault line for foreign aid in
Washington ran along party lines, with center and leftist Democrats tending to
support it, while Republicans, especially in the conservative wing, opposing it.
However, the rule in this case seems to have been broken to allow for an important
exception, especially on the Republican side. The religious foundations of the Jubilee
2000 movement, in fact, undeniably struck a cord with some members of the
Republican Party. Among these we recall John Kasich of Ohio, the conservative
Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee and Spencer Bachus of
Alabama, an arch-conservative, according to the Washington Post, who became one
of the most passionate supporters of debt relief.
31

In 1997, Bono was approached by Jamie Drummond, at the time a Jubilee
2000 organizer. Drummond recalls Bono turned out to be “a very brilliant political
lobbyist.”
32
In effect, Bono’s lobbying efforts helped bring other Republicans into
the fold, most notably Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah as well as the
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Republican Senator of
North Carolina, Jesse Helms. In late 1999, Bono arranged a meeting with
Congressman John Kasich, who was a key player for debt relief, given his position

31
Esther Scoot. Kennedy School of Government Case Program. “Debt Relief for Poor Nations: The
Battle in Congress.” (C15-01-1613.0)
32
Tamara Straus, Jubilee 2000: The Movement America Missed, Alternet, March 6, 2001. p.3
http://www.alternet.org/story/10568/ (accessed 10/9/06)

193
as chairman of the House Budget Committee. Kasich, however, was not an easy
candidate to enlist in the campaign, mostly because he was highly critical of foreign
aid, which he considered “a joke”.
33
The Congressman, however, admitted to have
been very impressed by Bono’s powerful arguments. Apparently, Bono aiming at
Kasich’s Christian values talked of “biblical injunctions to succor the poor and
downtrodden” and Kasich joined in.
34
In spring 2000, Bono met with Senator Jesse
Helms, another skeptic of foreign aid. Once again, Bono realized that his usual
arguments in favor of debt relief was not going to make the crusty Republican
change his mind. Thus, Bono recalls, “I started talking about Scriptures. I talked
about AIDS as the leprosy of our age.”
35
He told Jesse Helms that married women
and children were dying of AIDS and governments encumbered by debt could not do
anything about it. The Senator was reported to have broken down and cried and then,
grabbing his cane, the New York Times Magazine wrote, he said “I want to give you
a blessing.” Next he hugged the singer and added “I want to do anything I can to
help you.” In its almost naïve simplicity, Bono’s statement seems to reflect the
motivations, and also the limits, of the American policy on debt relief. A policy that
springs out of a deeply rooted belief in the “Christian way of life”, and in the
conviction that good Christians help the poor and the underprivileged. Bono’s
modus operandi on this particular issue became a pattern: By talking to the
Republicans as Christians, Bono helped them cross the ideological divide.

33
James Traub, “The Statesman” The New York Times Magazine, September 18, 2005. p. 86.
34
James Traub, “The Statesman” The New York Times Magazine, September 18, 2005. p. 86.
35
James Traub, “The Statesman” The New York Times Magazine, September 18, 2005. p. 86

194
His Christian value-bounded arguments proved to be crucial. In fact on
Capitol Hill, Clinton’s goal for a budget amendment seeking a total of $920 million
for bilateral and multilateral debt reduction over the next four years had run into
resistance from Republican leaders and, after weeks of struggle, the administration
and congressional negotiators reached a very limited compromise. Congress would
appropriate $110 million for bilateral debt relief for the year 2000 and suspend, until
the following year, deliberation over the White House request for funds for both
multilateral and bilateral loan forgiveness.
36
In 2000, the administration submitted a
new request for debt relief funding. It demanded $210 million in supplemental funds
for multilateral debt relief for FY2000; $225 million as a combination of bilateral
and multilateral debt reduction for FY2001; and, finally, $375 million in “advance
appropriation” for the same reason. At this point Congress, primarily the members of
the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee and their chairman, Sonny Callahan, an
Alabama Republican, had to make an important decision for the future of the debt
relief. In order to get Callahan to rule in favor of debt relief, the rock star and its
band “ginned up” the clergy members in his district. “The debt relief issue is now a
speeding train”, the Congressman said to the New York Times. “We’ve got the pope
and every missionary in the world involved in this thing, and they persuaded just
about everyone here that this is the noble thing to do.”
37
Callahan later admitted
“Priests and pastors sermonizing on debt relief on Sundays, telling their

36
Esther Scoot. Kennedy School of Government Case Program. “Debt Relief for Poor Nations: The
Battle in Congress.” (C15-01-1613.0)
37
Joseph Kahn, “Leaders in Congress Agree to Debt Relief for Poor Nations,” The New York Times,
October 18, 2000. p. A12

195
congregations to tell Callahan to take care of this, including my own bishop.
Eventually I gave in”.
38
Soon after October of that year, Congress appropriated the
additional $435 million needed for 100 percent debt relief. “It’s not often we have a
chance to do something that economists tell us is a financial imperative and religious
leaders say is a moral imperative,” President Clinton said satisfied with the outcome
in Capitol Hill.
39

The approach used in Washington to lobby lawmakers by appealing to their
Christian values and duties is indicative of the cultural variance that I have been
speaking of between the U.S. and Europe, as it reveals that what triggered the US
Congress into acting in favor of the debt relief was a call to the lawmakers’ Christian
values. By contrast, as we are about to see, the spark that provoked Europeans into
forgiving the debt was in fact mass protests triggered by social justice arguments.
The U.S. and Europe, to some extent and with some fissures, share a common
Christian culture, but notwithstanding the Christian roots of its movement, Jubilee
2000, did not use the same strategy in Europe and pressured European lawmakers
through public opinion instead. The movement never felt compelled to engage public
opinion in the United States. Even though the organization worked its way through
churches and used congregations to make the debt relief pass in Congress, the larger
public in the United States was mostly unaware of the debt relief question and by and
large uninformed of the social crusade in Europe. According to Ann Pettifor, at the
time director of Jubilee 2000, in the United States “the campaign never took off

38
James Traub, “The Statesman” The New York Times Magazine, September 18, 2005. p. 86
39
Kahn, “Leaders in Congress”.

196
because it never left the beltway.”
40
She argued that “[t]he people in NGOs in
Washington are completely fixated on Capitol Hill. What we have learned [in the
UK] is that you had to ignore the institutions of power and go to the streets and the
churches and the trade unions and community organizations, and you had to teach
them about international finance and debt, which takes a lot of hard work. It requires
traipsing up and down the country, making speeches, talking to people, educating
them really.”
41

David Bryden, the former head of Jubilee 2000 US, partially disagrees with
Pettifor. He believes that the reason why the campaign did not reach the public has to
do with the fact that debt relief did not attract American self-interests and claims that
Europeans felt more responsibility towards debt relief because they had once
colonized those countries. Bryden also claims that organizations like Bread for the
World and the Presbyterian and Methodist churches gathered and triggered
thousands of members on the debt relief issue. However, he admits that “[o]ur task in
the US was to convince, first and foremost, Congress to go along with the idea
because that’s the way the system works in the US.”
42
Even though this is a
legitimate position to take because, to a great extent, Capitol Hill decisions’ result
from lobbying, this is not always the case. In fact, mass movements over the course
of the years have also deeply affected U.S. politics (i.e. the civil right movement, the
protest against the war in Vietnam or the No Nukes movement). Nonetheless, Jubilee

40
Tamara Straus, Jubilee 2000: The Movement America Missed, Alternet, March 6, 2001. p.3
http://www.alternet.org/story/10568/ (accessed 10/9/06)
41
Straus, Jubilee 2000.
42
Straus, Jubilee 2000.

197
2000 did not try to engage public opinion in the U.S. while in Europe it adopted just
that strategy. It attracted and educated public opinion and, ultimately, public opinion
put pressure on European governments.
The situation just described highlights cultural variance the U.S. and Europe
in the 1990s. Since 2001, with the George W. Bush administration we have grown
accustomed to Christian value-bounded political arguments in Washington. Between
1999-2000, the years in which the question of the cancellation of the debt was in the
Appropriations Committee,
43
religious beliefs of neo-conservatives were generally
considered less relevant to foreign policy decision-making. Yet, a Washington
outsider identified the Achilles’ heel of Congress which is significant both to
understand the arguments that influenced American lawmakers and to understand
why the advocacy movement adopted a different strategy in Europe.
The idea of creating public opinion on the question of the debt relief took off
with Ann Pettifor’s acknowledgment that in the UK, the public was unaware of the
problem. When she was hired by a group of aid agencies in the United Kingdom to
push the debt relief agenda they thought that her idea of attracting the public to the
cause was ridiculous because the origin of the debt was too arcane.
44
However, she
followed through and began working with two elderly advocates, Martin Dent and

43
The Committee writes the legislation that allocates federal funds to the numerous government
agencies, departments, and organizations on an annual basis. Appropriations are limited to the levels
set by a Budget Resolution, drafted by the Senate Budget Committee.
44
Straus, Jubilee 2000.

198
Bill Peters,
45
who decided to connect the question of the debt cancellation to the Old
Testament idea of the jubilee; thus, linking an economic issue to Christian values.
According to the Old Testament in fact every 50 years all debts should be canceled,
land should be returned to the dispossessed and all slaves should be set free.
46
Dent
and Peters believed that Jubilee 2000 had the potential to become the new
abolitionist movement. The reason behind it, as they put it, was that “third world
indebtedness was the new form of slavery”.
47
Therefore, the founders of Jubilee
2000 began a political campaign that “was part religious crusade, part
telecommunications war” and part, I would argue, a social crusade.
48
The movement
first promoted its ideas through evangelical churches all over the world, where it
obtained a major victory for their cause, and then it pulled in other religious groups,
human rights groups and third world aid organizations as well as labor unions and
non profits. What these groups brought into the Jubilee 2000 campaign was a global
and social-oriented communication network.
49

All the efforts that Jubilee 2000 made on behalf of debt relief, paid back at
the Birmingham G8 Summit, not so much in terms of actual policy-making toward

45
Martin Dent is a retired professor and Bill Peters is a retired British ambassador. They had worked
in relief project in Africa and were involved with the 1980’s debt reform movement.
46
Third Book of Moses, Leviticus, Chapter 25 “Each seventh year to be kept as a sabbath year—Each
fiftieth year to be one of jubilee, in which liberty is proclaimed throughout the land—Laws revealed
for sale and redemption of lands, houses, and servants—The land is the Lord’s, as are the servants—
Usury forbidden.” http://scriptures.lds.org/en/lev/25 (accessed 10/10/06)
47
Straus, Jubilee 2000.
48
Straus, Jubilee 2000: The Movement America Missed, Alternet, March 6, 2001. p.2
http://www.alternet.org/story/10568/ (accessed 10/9/06)
49
Members were connected via email and Jubilee 2000 take advantage of fast communication and
organization both in the North and the South. As a result, between 1995 and 1998 Jubilee 2000
opened offices in Ghana, Peru, West Africa, Germany, India, Italy and the US.

199
the debt relief (that was something more evident at the Cologne Summit the
following year), but rather in terms of popular participation in the quest for debt
cancellation, which in turn triggered policy-makers to pay attention to the cause. The
rationale for dropping the debt had clear social justice connotations. Jubilee 2000
argued, “we are not against all debt - all countries rely on credit (which becomes
debt). But we are calling for an end to unjust, or ‘illegitimate’, debt, which should
not be paid either because payment is an intolerable burden on poor countries, or
because the supposed ‘debt’ itself is simply unfair.”
50

The world leader who was more affected by the issue was Tony Blair who
became a crusader for debt relief.
51
However, he had not always been so enthusiastic
about it and initially he was not even interested in listening to what the movement
had to say. In May 1998, at the G7 Birmingham Summit, Jubilee 2000 organized a
chain of 70,000 people to symbolize the bonds of debt in order to push the world
leaders for debt forgiveness. Ann Pettifor recalls that after months of preparation and
coordination with British authorities the Summit was moved from Birmingham.
Apparently Helmut Kohl, Germany’s chancellor, had a problem with the protesters

50
http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/?lid=2675
51
In 1999 British Chancellor Gordon Brown (currently British Prime Minister) and Clare Short,
British Secretary of State for International Development put forward a plan to help the world’s
poorest countries. The plan had four points: cut the debt, boost the aid, give a billion and sell the gold.
For more on the plan: http://www.hm-
treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/press/1999/press_42_99.cfm
In 2004, Tony Blair launched a commission for Africa. “In early 2004, the British Prime Minister,
Tony Blair, established the Commission for Africa. The 17 members of the Commission, 9 from
Africa and all working in their individual and personal capacities, published their report "Our
Common Interest" on 11 March 2005. The Commission's report is addressed to the leaders of the G8
and to the wider international community. It is also addressed to the people of Africa and the world as
a whole. The measures proposed by the Commission constitute a coherent package to achieve the
Commission's goal of a strong and prosperous Africa.”
http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/home/newsstories.html

200
because thousands of postcards were sent to remind Germans that their debt had been
forgiven in 1953 giving German children a future and asking whether African
children could be given the same hope.
52
She also recollects that the day before the
demonstration Britain’s International Development Secretary, Clare Short, called in a
small group of Jubilee 2000 leaders to point out that she did not want Tony Blair or
any leader of the G7 to be embarrassed by them. But the promise that it would have
been a peaceful demonstration did not reassure the British organizers and
consequently, in Birmingham there were no world leaders, but 9 kilometers of
people demonstrating for the debt cancellation.
53
However, as Pettifor writes there
were also 3,000 journalists sent to cover the G7 the summit, who were now without
the G7 leaders and no world event to cover. To her, this was the most exciting
moment because the journalists not having much to report turned to covering the
demonstrators and after that it did not take much for Tony Blair to fly back to
Birmingham to meet with the Jubilee 2000’s leaders.
54
When they met the protesters
presented Tony Blair with a petition which contained 1.5 million signatures. He
responded to the Jubilee 2000 petition by announcing to “welcome the commitment
so many of you have shown today to help poorest countries in the world. Your
presence here is a truly impressive testimony to the solidarity of people in our own

52
Ann Pettifor, “A personal view of the Jubilee 2000 'human chain' demonstration on 16 May 1998,
during the G8 summit in Birmingham” http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/?lid=280 (accessed
11/9/06).
53
The G8 was moved from the city and held on an estate in the village of Weston-under-Lizard,
approximately 20 miles outside Birmingham.
54
Pettifor, “A personal view of the Jubilee 2000 'human chain' demonstration on 16 May 1998, during
the G8 summit in Birmingham” http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/?lid=280 (accessed 11/9/06).

201
countries with those in the world’s poorest and most indebted. […] I can assure you
that […] we are all committed to helping heavily indebted poor countries free
themselves from the burden of their unsustainable debts.”
55

This statement represents the first political acknowledgment of the Jubilee
2000 campaign and even though it does not clearly suggest the positions of the G8
leaders, nor does it reveal any difference in their attitude toward the issue, the remark
is still relevant for it indicates the magnitude of the involvement of public opinion in
Europe, which eventually mobilized into a mass movement. In Europe, the cause of
debt relief has been a bottom-up issue that spread from the streets to the media and
finally engaged policy-makers. The media coverage has been particularly important
in rising awareness of debt relief and engaging politicians in Europe. Between 1997
and 2001, there were many articles in European newspapers, which addressed the
movement surrounding debt relief, as well as the issue itself.
56
The first article to be
published was an editorial in The Guardian, which argued that “debt is a comparable
injustice to the slave trade”. But in December of 1997, this was the only article.
Things changed, as I noted before, with Birmingham. The campaign saw an
opportunity and took advantage of it, gearing more public opinion toward the
cancellation of the debt claiming social injustice. The Guardian in the UK began

55
Response by the Presidency on Behalf of the G8 to the Jubilee 2000 Petition. On line:
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1998birmingham/2000.htm (accessed 12/4/06).
56
To the contrary, my analysis of U.S. newspapers indicates that articles and editorials had a strict
economic, almost technical approach and did not address the protests to cancel the debt. In sum, they
seem to confirm the opinion of Pettifor when she argued that the reason for the lack of public opinion
involvement in the U.S. was that there was no attempt to create public opinion on debt relief. My
argument about U.S. newspapers is based on the analysis of the New York Times, the Los Angeles
Times and the Wall Street Journal for the years 1997-2000 so that it could be a fair comparison to the
European newspapers which I analyzed for the same period.

202
pushing for Jubilee 2000’s campaign to cut third world debt.
57
On January 21, 1999
the British newspaper explained why it was supporting the campaign. “Foreign debt
is crippling parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America: 21 million children will die
because of debt. Millions more will grow up unable to read or write as government
budgets for health and education are dwarfed by debt repayments to the West. […]
Existing provision is too little and too slow. Debt cannot be left to the bankers and
the economists; it needs a mass campaign. It is time to break the chain. This is not
about charity, it is about justice. At the end of the 20th century, it is the New
Slavery.”
58
Justice seems to be the key word. Paul Vallely, writing in the
Independent commended “in the early days, a call for unilateral action by individual
countries was seen as hopelessly utopian, but thanks to the moral agenda articulated
by Jubilee 2000, the ground of the argument has shifted.”
59

The Guardian never stopped reporting on what had to be done to give voice
to the campaigners and offering information on how the debt should be dealt with
not only through recent and past articles as well as editorials, but by maintaining a
website with links to the NGOs involved in the campaign. The message it sent was
as clear as the title of one among many of its editorials “Cancel Debt Now” which
had appeared in January 1999.
60
Other newspapers did not immediately endorse the

57
Details of the Guardian's campaign for the debt relief can be found at
www.newsunlimited.co.uk/debt
58
http://www.guardian.co.uk/debt/Story/0,,208935,00.html
59
In his article Vallely discussed the Gordon Brown, the then UK Chancellor, announcement that
Britain would write off one hundred percent of the debts of at least 26 countries. See Paul Vallely, “A
billion people go to bed hungry each night,” The Independent, December 18, 1999.
60
http://www.guardian.co.uk/

203
campaign, but rather criticized it. The Financial Times and The Economist were
quite skeptical and cynical about the idea of any debt being cancelled as well as
about its benefits. However, when negative coverage of the issue appeared, Jubilee
2000 responded, and the previously challenging press mutated into advocacy.
61
To
have a sense of the shift, in December 1999, The Economist wrote “debt campaigners
are right that the new century ought to bring a new deal between rich and poor
countries, and that the rich can afford to do more for the world's poor. Debt relief is
an important way of helping them. But it is not-and cannot be-a magic wand.”
62
In
the same vein, in 2000 it argued that “[a]bolishing debt would help to create a fresh
balance sheet, but for many countries debt-relief would only benefit Ukrainian arms-
dealers.”
63
However, in 2004, The Economist seems to have softened its position,
“[w]ith backers that include Bono and the pope, the campaign for poor-country debt
relief has proved a powerful coalition. […] The truth is that poor countries need
more resources from the rich. If competition to sound most generous leads rich
countries to put more money in the aid pot, then it is worth pursuing.”
64
For certain,
the campaign has been particularly strong in the United Kingdom. But articles and
editorials filled the pages of all major newspapers in Europe from France to
Germany and Italy.
65

61
Pettifor, Jubilee Research Analysis, The World Will Never Be the Same.
http://www.jubileeresearch.org/analysis/reports/world_never_same_again/intro.htm
62
“Do you believe in fairies?” The Economist, December 31, 1999, p. 3
63
“Special: Africa: The heart of the matter”. The Economist, May 13, 2000, p. 22.
64
“Finance And Economics: Clean slate; Debt relief”. The Economist, October 2, 2004, p. 85.
65
I am addressing only these countries because these are my European North Atlantic countries,
except for Italy. Furthermore, they all have a seat at the G8. For France, among many others see:
“L'Afrique découvre sa compétitivité; Principal handicap pour les économies locales: le poids excessif

204
In Europe celebrities were also involved in the debt relief cause, but they
mainly stirred up public opinion to catch policymakers’ attention. In May1999,
Comic Relief’s Debtwish brought popular profile to the problem of the debt, with
Ewan McGregor, Lenny Henry and others traveling to Africa. In June 1999,
Peruvian songstress Susana Baca performed to thousands of supporters in London. In
February 2000, for example, Jubilee 2000 used the stage of the San Remo festival,
Italy’s biggest music event. Italian pop star Jovanotti, opera star Luciano Pavarotti
and other artists, including Bono delivered a fervent plea to a television audience of
17 million people to raise awareness of the debt crisis and call on political leaders to
cancel the debts. After that, Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema promised to
reconsider his government’s approach and “agreed to consider doubling the number
of countries eligible for cancellation of all their debts to Italy.”
66
In September,
Marie Claire, a fashion magazine, ran a special “drop the debt” feature over forty
pages long.
American newspapers had an inward-looking political and economic
approach instead to debt relief, and did not focus on the mobilization of people
around the world to cancel the debt as European newspapers had done. My analysis

de la dette”, Le Monde , February 10 1998. “Sur fond de litige entre Air Afrique et ses creanciers, la
France souhaite une 'prise de responsabilite africaine'sur le probleme de la dette de la compagnie. - Le
tribunal de commerce de Paris saisi du sort d'Air Afrique,” Les Echo. February 19, 1999, p. 17. “La
dette impayable et le jubilé 2000 ; Christine von Garnier, sociologue et secrétaire du Réseau Europe-
Afrique, estime que ce serait une bonne et juste politique à long terme que d'effacer la dette des pays
les plus pauvres”, Le Temps. June17, 1999. “L'Afrique réclame une annulation importante de sa
dette”. La Croix. August 31, 1999, p. 2. “Les Européens veulent aider l'Afrique à s'adapter à la
mondialisation; La question de la dette était au centre du sommet du Caire. Pour le président de la
Commission européenne, Romano Prodi, un nouveau modèle de partenariat doit permettre au
continent africain de s'adapter à la nouvelle économie mondiale”. Le Monde. April 5, 2000.
66
http://www.jubileeresearch.org/jubilee2000/news/italy230200.html

205
of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal for the
years 1997-2000 leads to these conclusions. In 1997, those newspapers did not
publish articles or editorials on the debt relief issue. In March 1998, the Wall Street
Journal announced “Africa needs debt relief, roads, environmental protection, health
care, education and an end to grinding poverty and malnutrition. But these problems
are surmountable. Years ago, few people thought the poverty-stricken nations of
Southeast Asia could become self-sufficient. But until the recent crisis, their growth
was dazzling. Likewise, once-impoverished Latin America today is growing rapidly
and attracting massive investments that fuel further growth.”
67
A few day later, the
Los Angeles Times published one article about Africa and the debt reporting Bill
Clinton’s historic visit to sub-Saharan countries, which highlighted, according to the
newspaper, a new U.S. partnership with Africa.
68

In January 1999 the Los Angeles Times reported that Vice President Al Gore
had announced that “the administration would propose new funding to relieve the
debt smothering the world’s developing countries.”
69
In 1999, the New York Times
published two articles on debt relief. One article announced President Bill Clinton’s
proposal for extensive debt forgiveness for “some [of the] poorest nations” while, at
the same time, warning that Congress IMF approval was required. It also remarked
such approval would have been difficult to reach because “the fund has traditionally

67
E. Jordan Jr Vernon, “Africa’s Promise,” Wall Street Journal, March 26, 1998.
68
Adonis Hoffman, “The Historic Trip That Could Seal a Partnership,” Los Angeles Times, March 29,
1998
69
James Flanigan, “Gore Reveals Debt-Relief Plan for Poor Nations,” Los Angeles Times, January 30,
1999.

206
been reluctant to endorse such programs for fear that breed expectations among
borrowing nations that if they wait long enough, they will not have to repay their
loans.”
70
A second article appeared in November and reported that the House
approved a compromise foreign aid bill by a vote of 316 to 100.
71
In June 1999,
within the context of the restructuring of the global financial system, the Wall Street
Journal mentioned “religious and social-action groups, organized under the banner
of ‘Jubilee 2000’ have given a big push to debt relief. Thousands of activists have
turned up at the G-7 summit here and at last year’s summit in Birmingham in Britain
to urge a complete write-off of developing nations’ debt by the year 2000.”
72
Even so,
they did not cover the grass-roots movement nor funneled debt relief into social
justice arguments. Thus, between 1997 and 1999, American newspapers, or at least
those examined here, seem to have been disengaged with the mass movement and
with the extent to which debt relief was an issue of social justice as European
newspapers had characterized and treated the issue of debt cancellation. The issue is
indeed a political-economic question, but by discussing it merely in those terms did
not contribute to mobilizing public. In January 2000, the Los Angeles Times
published another article on debt relief explaining the critics concerns, yet the article
did not endorse the moral duty of cancelling the debt. The article further informed
the readers that some had complained that “the stringent structural adjustments

70
David E. Sanger, “Clinton to Offer Debt Relief Plan for Poor Nations,” New York Times, March 16,
1999.
71
Eric Schmitt, “House Passes Compromise Bill for $13.5 Billion in Foreign Aid,” New York Times,
November 6, 1999.
72
Bob Davis, “G 7 Moves to Revamp Financial Systems - West Proposes Reducing Debt of Poor
Nations, Steps to Avert Crises,” The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 1999, p. A23.

207
required by international lenders could perpetuate the paternalistic north-south
dynamic that has shackled the continent throughout its modern history” and added
that others had countered that “without such tough guidelines, inept African leaders
will squander the money they save.”
73
Once again, there is no discussion of “values”
or the moral implications behind debt relief. Finally, in April 2000, the Los Angeles
Time published an editorial, which reported on the debt relief movement with an
angle similar to the articles that had been published in Europe. This commentary
states “debt relief for the world’s poorest countries is supported by a movement
known as Jubilee 2000. … This worldwide movement” the article continues, “was
begun by Christians who believe that the 2,000
th
anniversary of the coming [of]
Christ is a Jubilee year.”
74
After having explained the meaning of the Jubilee for
Christians the article encourages support for the issue by taking it to the Christian
values/right and wrong argument. Waters argues “relief from debts is desperately
needed by many poor countries throughout Africa and Latin America. Debt relief
will give these countries a fresh start and improve their ability to serve their people.
Supporters of Jubilee 2000 now include a diverse group of Catholic, Protestant and
Jewish religious groups. These activists know that forgiving the debts of the world’s
most impoverished countries is the right thing to do.”
75
Yet there was no major

73
Dean E. Murphy, “In Africa, Debt Relief has 2 sides,” Los Angeles Times, January 27, 2000.
74
Maxine Waters, “Commentary; Third World Debt Relief is the Right Thing to Do; Foreign Policy:
Poor Nations are being forced to cut health and education services to pay back debts,” Los Angeles
Times, April 14, 2000, p. 9.
75
Maxine Waters, “Commentary; Third World Debt Relief is the Right Thing to Do”.

208
coverage of the mass mobilization in Europe and one article is clearly not sufficient
for initiating a nationwide movement.
This leads to conclude that in the US debt relief was not a bottom-up issue,
but rather a top-down one. Congress passed debt relief legislation because of
intensive lobbying in Washington and because of the NGO’s and celebrities’ skillful
ability to exploit the “Christian values” aspect of the issue. In addition, because
Jubilee 2000 representatives in the U.S. had a general sense that in the United States
things happen in Washington, not in the streets, they did not try to engage American
media and its public opinion on this issue.
76
My research of U.S. newspapers shows
that they did not cover mass protests in Europe inhibiting the possible formation of
mass movements in the US. In Europe, on the contrary, there was a grass-roots
movement that started in the UK and eventually engaged all of Europe. Governments
in Europe responded to the mass protests. There are several examples of protests all
of which were covered by the European media. The media thus helped to propel the
idea of the debt relief. These differences tell us that even when the US and Europe
agree on one issue they deal with it differently. They also tell us that the US and
Europe were responsive to different stimuli at the national level, at least in the case
of the debt relief.

76
As I said previously in this chapter, my analysis of U.S. newspapers indicates that articles and
editorials had a strict economic, almost technical approach and did not address the protests to cancel
the debt. Once again, my argument about U.S. newspapers is based on the analysis of the New York
Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal for the years 1997-2000.

209
IV Conclusion
While in the United States Jubilee 2000 and its most well-known activist,
Bono, appealed to Christian values through Biblical language and metaphors, in
Europe their approach was much more secular and detached from traditional values
arguments. This approach reflects the aforementioned Inglehart’s cultural map of the
world about the year 2000 (see Appendix), and his corresponding argument that the
U.S. has a much more traditional value system than any other European society
except for Ireland. Within the North Atlantic core, the United States ranks far below
European societies and while there is no doubt that debt relief captivated the
attention on both sides of the Atlantic because of its humanitarian characteristics, the
NGOs’ strategy indicates that there are still cultural differences that need to be
accounted for, if we want to understand where the transatlantic relations are going, as
well as the meaning of the West in the post cold war world.
How Jubilee 2000 framed the issue highlights the value distances within the
North Atlantic core countries as anticipated in Inglehart’s map. This in turn seems to
partially disprove the neo-liberal argument of common values as a unifying factor
within the West, while at the same time challenging the pessimist interest-based
argument that the end of the Cold War would bring separation within the
transatlantic relations. Yet, both in the U.S. and Europe, there was moral
commitment to the issue of debt relief. The difference rests on how decision-makers
were motivated to make foreign policy decisions based on moral reasons. Therefore,
the end result (i.e. the G7 agreement on debt relief as well as appropriations in the

210
U.S., the UK, France and Germany) lead us to conclude that the neo-liberals were
accurate in predicting political cooperation.
This chapter also leads to the conclusion that, even with the end of the
East/West rivalry, we can still talk about the West, although we cannot do so in
absolute terms for we need to recognize that there are instances in which the West
operates in an united fashion and others in which it does not. Also, we need to
acknowledge that transatlantic relations are an evolving process and therefore I
suggest looking closely at the processes itself as opposed to end results. This case
indicates that both the United States and Europe were committed to debt relief, but it
also confirms their cultural distance even when they cooperated on this specific
issue. Such cultural distance does not imply that they cannot cooperate in the future,
but we need to be aware of such differences if we are to fully understand the future
of the transatlantic relations and the West. Arguing that they will cooperate because
they share institutions, norms and values seems too vague of a statement if applied to
a real case like the one of debt relief. At least in this case, belonging to the same
institutions, the G7 along with the IMF and the World Bank, did not necessarily
mean sharing norms and values. If we look at deeper cultural values, the U.S. and
Europe are not so close. Therefore, whenever there is a potentially controversial
issue, even when they end up agreeing, we need to look at which cultural values the
issue involves or at how it has been framed.

211
Chapter 6: Conclusions
We began this study with a review of the debates that, during the 1990s,
attempted to predict the future of transatlantic relations and, by extension, of the
West, in the post Cold War era. The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union and the
resulting end of the East-West rivalry, had taken so many International Relations
scholars by surprise that predictions on what would eventually happen with
transatlantic relations in the future became the focus of a high spirited and ongoing
debate. These experts in fact, were deeply divided: while neo-realists anticipated a
deterioration of Euro-American relations, neo-liberals predicted the endurance of
transatlantic cooperation.
1
The debate today has shifted to address the future role of

1
For references on U.S. and European relations post 2001, see Francis Fukuyama, “The West may be
cracking Europe and America,” International Herald Tribune, 9 August 2002, pp.4-10. John Leech,
Whole and Free: NATO, EU enlargement and transatlantic relations, (Federal Trust for education &
research, 2002). Philip H. Gordon, “Bridging the Atlantic Divide,” Foreign Affairs.(January/February
2003), Vol. 82, No. 1, p. 70. James B. Steinberg, “An Elective Partnership: Salvaging Transatlantic
Relations,” Survival, (June, 2003), Vol. 45, No. 2; p. 113. Christopher Layne and Thomas Jefferson,
“America as European hegemon,” The National Interest, (Summer 2003) Vol. 13, No. 72, p. 17-30.
Ivo H. Daalder, The End of Atlanticism, Survival, (June, 2003), Vol. 45, No. 2; p. 147. Hall Gardner,
NATO and the European Union : new world, new Europe, new threats, (Burlington, VT: Ashgate
Publishing, 2004). Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at war. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, “New Trans-Atlantic
Unity,” NATO's Nations and Partners for Peace, 2004. pp. 20-24. William Wallace, “Broken
Bridges,” The World Today, (December 2004), Vol. 60, No. 12; pp. 13-16. Daniel Hamilton and
Daniel Sheldon, Conflict and cooperation in transatlantic relations, (Johns Hopkins University Press,
2004). Tod Lindberg, “We. A community in agreement on fundamentals,” Policy Review, (December
2004/January 2005), No. 128, p. 3-19. Elizabeth Pond, Friendly fire: the near-death of the
transatlantic alliance, (European Union Studies Association, 2004). Werner Weidenfeld, From
alliance to coalitions : the future of transatlantic relations, (Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers,
2004). E A Turpen, “Free world: America, Europe, and the surprising future of the West,” Choice,
(June 2005), Vol. 42, No. 10; p. 1895. Ivo Daalder, Crescent of crisis : U.S.-European strategy for the
greater Middle East. Matthew Evangelista, eds., Partners or rivals? : European-American relations
after Iraq, (V&P Publishing, 2005). Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, The inevitable alliance : Europe and the
United States beyond Iraq, (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Massimo D'Alema,
“Diplomacy Al Dente,” Wall Street Journal: Jun 14, 2006. p.14, Pierangelo Isernia, Philip P Everts,
“European Public Opinion on Security Issues,” European Security. Dec 2006. Vol. 15, No. 4, p. 451.
Thomas Ilgen, Hard power, soft power, and the future of transatlantic relations, (Burlington,
VT:Ashgate, 2006). Jeremy Poulter, “NATO as a Security Organization: Implications for the Future

212
the United States in NATO, on whether a coherent European Union could emerge as
a challenge to that alliance, and what part, if any Russia is likely to play within such
an union. To date, no firm conclusions have been reached, and the debate continues
as to the future of transatlantic relations.
2

With the invasion of Iraq in 2003, many experts began to worry even more about the
consequences of the war for Euro-American relations. Some European scholars, like
Vittorio Parsi, closer to the Realist position, made the case for the necessity and
durability of the transatlantic alliance.
3
Others, like Ted Hopf, argued instead for a
rapprochement between Europe and Russia, at the expense of the U.S.
4

Therefore, it has been critical to reflect on how the U.S. and Europe have
continued to interact, in order to assess the utility of both the neo-liberal and neo-
realist predictions. Such reflections also enable us to better understand the West in
the post-Cold War era, when defining the West purely by its juxtaposition with the
Soviet Union is no longer possible.
My analysis of Euro-American interactions during the 1990s has shown that
it is not viable to mediate any analysis of those interactions on an indiscriminate

Role and Survival of the Alliance,” RUSI Journal, 2006. Vol. 151, No. 3; p. 58-62. Andrew A Michta,
“Transatlantic Troubles,” The National Interest (November/December 2006), p. 62-67. Ryan C
Hendrickson, “The Miscalculation of NATO’s Death,” Parameters (Spring 2007), Vol. 37, No. 1, pp.
98-115. Daniel Dombey, “Transatlantic climate shift,” Financial Times, 4 June, 2007, p. 2. Richard
Haass, “The Atlantic Becomes a Little Wider,” Financial Times, 19 December, 2007, p. 2. Lance
Smith, “Is the Transatlantic Relationship Still Important?,” Vital Speeches of the Day. June 2007),
Vol. 73, No. 6; p. 249-252.
2
As a good example of the evolution of the debate see Matthew Evangelista, eds., Partners or rivals?
3
Vittorio Parsi, L’Alleanza Inevitabile: Europa e Stati Uniti oltre l’Iraq (Milano: Univesita’ Bocconi
Editore, 2003)
4
Ted Hopf, Putin and Bush, Perfect Together: Yet Russia’s Alliance with Europe is
Inevitable…Eventually. Policy Memo 300 of the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security,
November 2003 in Evangelista, Partners or rivals?

213
definition of the West. In the security realm, the somewhat elastic use of the “West”
tends to become more specific, and is generally indicative of Euro-American military
cooperation. Notwithstanding the sudden disappearance of the Soviet threat, the
transatlantic allies’ renovated security identity has allowed NATO to acquire new
tasks and prolong the military cooperation between Europe and the United States.
However, when we shift from strictly security issues, and focus our attention on the
realm of international justice, the concept of a unified “West” is useful only to the
extent that the concept sheds light on the fact that the U.S. and Europe continue to
share both common values and corresponding common interests, in promoting a
respect for human rights, but such interests coexist with different understandings of
justice and a much lesser emphasis on sovereignty—both conceptually and
materially. Similarly, in the instance of third world economic development, the
“West” is an effective description of American and European common policies,
insofar as such descriptions obtain towards an ethical understanding of the
cancellation of external debt for third world countries, but the definition of the
“West” in this context is also limiting for it obscures the very real distance in socio-
cultural values between Europe and North America.
It is only by envisioning and accepting the positionalities of the United States
and Europe as dynamic and evolving that we can begin to comprehend the historical
and contemporary significance of the “West”, and thus make any viable predictions
about the future of Euro-American relations. Chapter 3 has shown that military
cooperation between the United States and Europe have continued, within NATO,

214
without any questioning of the relevance of the alliance even after the disappearance
of the Soviet Union. Clearly, the alliance has survived the disappearance of the
external threat that had prompted its initial creation in the first place, and remained
as the key security organization for its members. However, subsequent to the
disappearance of the Soviet threat each party has emphasized different means for
achieving the newer and evolving goals of the alliance over time. Primarily, this
harmony within the alliance was accomplished by redefining the basis of
transatlantic relations on humanitarian grounds. The character of this “renovated
West” is deeply value-laden since the frictions that occurred in the 1990s were
reconciled through a re-born sense of Western identity developed on the protection
of human rights as a unifying principle.
5
Thus, even militarily, the unity and self
identification of the post-Cold War West is adjudicated by the common perception
that human rights must be defended.
As for issues of international law, in chapter 4, we have seen that for the
United States, “justice” should advantage the strongest and within this approach, it is
the power of the US military, and not the International Criminal Court, which can
ostensibly rectify injustice in the world. Contrary to this approach, in Europe the
establishment of the International Criminal Court was conceived within the larger
context of promoting respect for humanitarian law and human rights. Hence, this is a
fundamentally different conceptualization of how to achieve justice, one which does
much to explain the transatlantic disagreement on international law. On this

5
Tony Blair, “Speech to the Economic Club of Chicago,” 22 April 1999 and Ulbrich, Associated
Press, “Atlantic Alliance expanding its horizons”.

215
particular issue, the divergence within the West was triggered by a different
emphasis on sovereignty. Often international law trumps domestic decision-making
and generally states tend to be protective of their own domestic power.
6
However,
while the United States phobically criticized the court as another attempt to reduce
its national sovereignty, Europeans did not engage in this kind of discourse since, for
them, the protection of national sovereignty was less of a relevant issue.
7
The
European approach to this question, coupled with the determination to establish a
court with extensive jurisdiction, indicates that for Europeans, concerns over specific
issues of sovereignty are not primary when human rights violations are at stake. The
fact that the protection of sovereignty was not put forward as a rationale for limiting
the power of the ICC, denotes a lack of concern among European states over limits
to domestic power. In short, Europe did not envisage or privilege the protection of
sovereignty as being more salient than enforcing international justice, and supported
a strong and independent court, while the United States boycotted the International
Criminal Court largely on grounds of sovereignty. In Europe, the ICC was framed as
an effort to promote human rights and as a means for the preservation of peace and

6
Sovereignty is traditionally the most important norm. In principle states can do what they want on
their territory. See Stephen Krasner, Problematic Sovereignty, (New Your, NY: Columbia University
Press, 2001).
7
As explained in Chapter 4, the European Council declared that the Rome Statute, even though
limiting state sovereignty, was “fully in line” with the principles and objectives of the European
Union. See European Council Common Position, 11 June 2001. It should be noted that many
European countries have gradually accepted limitations to their sovereignty in order to be part of
European institutions, which are supranational structures. In essence, EU countries have, to some
extent, learned to trade-off part of their sovereignty because European common institutions can
impose decisions and rules on member states. In this sense see Walter Mattli, The Logic of Regional
Integration: Europe and Beyond. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). On European
integration see also Antje Wiener and Thomas Diez, European Integration Theory (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004).

216
the consolidation of the rule of law.
8
Conversely, in the United States, President
Clinton faced much criticism in Congress because of the question of the protection of
American officials stationed abroad.
9
In Washington, the ICC was, as Jesse Helms
declared in 1998, “dead on arrival.”
10

Finally, in the case of the third world economic development, the West
largely coincides with industrialized countries. This characterization has typically
positioned the West in opposition to other regions of the world, which are identified
by various names such as third world, less-developed, developing or underdeveloped
countries. This case study has shown that even though there was agreement on the
cancellation of debt for the poorest regions of the world, the rationale that the United
States and Europe took to agree on what were ultimately similar policies, were
significantly different. These differences, as explained in Chapter 5, are due to
divergent socio-cultural values. These differences in values over debt relief are best

8
European Council Common Position, 11 June 2001 and 16 June 2003. See also Lindley-French,
Terms of Engagement.
9
In my personal interviews, Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner on the 9/11 Commission, as well as
Marisa Lino, U.S. Senior Negotiator who drafted the text of Article 98 Agreements (i.e. the bilateral
non-surrender agreements protecting American citizens from the ICC) suggested that both
Republicans and Democrats were equally concerned with limits to sovereignty that could impinge on
the protection of American servicemen and women. See also, Bolton, Hearing. Committee on
International Relations, 25 - 26 July, 2000. Grams, Hearing. Committee on Foreign Relations, 14
June, 2000. Stephan M. Minikes, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe concisely summarizes the American position on the ICC as follows: “The United States
strongly objects to the ICC's claims of jurisdiction over the nationals, including government officials
and service members, of states not party to the treaty. We are concerned that the lack of accountability
over the ICC and its prosecutors will result in politically motivated attempts to investigate and
prosecute U.S. service members and other government officials. We strongly object to the ICC's claim
to be able to unilaterally decide whether an U.S. investigation or prosecution was adequate. We think
the treaty provides an opening for the ICC to undermine the role of the UN Security Council in
determining when a state has committed an act of aggression.” Minikes, U.S. Views Regarding the
International Criminal Court, July 4, 2002.
http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2002/11726.htm (last accessed: 03/15/2008)
10
Crossette, “Helms Vows to Make War on UN Court”.

217
described as the more overtly religious inflections of American society, as opposed
to the more secular approach of Europe. Once again, we should be aware of these
differences when we talk about the “West” and its future, because any
conceptualizations of such a West, as a term that identifies the U.S. and Europe, is
mostly likely the product of an oversimplification of a complex reality.
As paradoxical as it may seem for a study such as this that attempts to
redefine the West as a dynamic process, I am acknowledging that the pessimistic
analysis of some neo-realist positions on the future of the West were indeed well
founded.
11
In predicting the probability of a troubled transatlantic relationship they
were indeed accurate, and since the 1990s, the transatlantic relationship has indeed
been characterized by internal clashes within the West over much more than the
three cases covered in my case studies.
12
The U.S. and Europe have been at odds on
security and international law and these policy disagreements can justifiably be
interpreted as a political split. The flaw within the neo-realist view rests, rather, in its
inability to predict how certain common values could contribute to avoiding a more
serious split. Without an understanding of how specific values influenced the
redefinition of the West, even in terms of security issues, it is impossible to
comprehend why those disagreements did not bring about a total split in transatlantic

11
Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future,” pp.5-56. Harries, “The Collapse of ‘The West,’” pp. 41-53.
Kupchan, “Reviving the West,” pp. 92-104. Walt, “The Ties that Fray,” pp. 3-11. Kupchan, “Reviving
the West,” p. 92-104. Kagan, “Power and Weakness,” pp. 3-28. Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.
12
For example, in the cases of the Kyoto global warming treaty (Kyoto Protocol, 1997), the
Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or Anti-Personnel
Mines and on Their Destruction (Ottawa Treaty, 1997), and the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court Treaty (Rome Statute, 1998).

218
relations. In essence, while it is evident that the 1990s were years of change,
characterized by disagreements within the transatlantic partners, common values
such as the need to protect human rights redefined the West beyond the traditional
commonalities of being capitalist democracies.
In this study, I have also criticized the neo-liberal approach,
13
with its
emphasis on cooperation based on shared values, for not having taken into account
the evolution of transatlantic relations in the 1990s. In this case, an
oversimplification has impeded neo-liberals from explaining the disagreements of
the post Cold War world. Conversely, this study has drawn attention to the conflicted
relations, emphasized by several disagreements due to the different understanding of
some specific values.
14
This is not inconsistent with my critique of the neo-realists’
analysis, because on a broader scale, while it is clear that both the U.S. and Europe
do share the common value of protecting human rights, there is fundamental
disagreement on how to prevent such violations and on how to punish those who
violate such rights.
Clear cut claims, proposed by the neo-realists and the neo-liberals on the
future of transatlantic relations, opened the way for a new conceptualization of those
relations and the “West” in light of the events of the 1990s. This new
conceptualization must reflect both the agreements and disagreements within a

13
Elles, “Towards a New Transatlantic Relationship,” Duffield, “NATO’s Functions after the Cold
War,”. Robert Blackwill, The Future of Transatlantic Relations, Deudney and Ikenberry, “The Logic
of the West,” Nye, “The US and Europe,” McCalla, “NATO's Persistence after the Cold War,”
Anthony Blinken, “The False Crisis Over the Atlantic.”
14
As shown in Chapter 4, different understandings of these concepts induced and amplified tensions
among the transatlantic partners.

219
dynamic process, which should not be conceived either as a series of breaks within
the transatlantic relations, or as continuous cooperation, but rather as the dynamics of
an evolving process. Indeed theories must be proven by empirical evidence
otherwise they are merely intellectual exercises that do not respond to their key
purpose, namely, to be able to offer explanations for a given event. In essence, both
neo-realist and neo-liberal theories on the future of transatlantic relations must be
confirmed by evidence; otherwise they will be confined to the realm of speculation
and therefore not useful to understand the future of those relations.
Besides proving the validity of such theories, this study has focused on an
understanding of the transatlantic relations and the West in a changing world order.
What my study has attempted to do, is to show how during the 1990’s, the U.S. and
Europe had disagreements, mediated by fundamentally different understandings of
common values which, as in the case of the ICC, led to a divergent policy. These
disagreements, however, were mostly limited to issues of practice, how they wanted
to go about certain issues, as well as what issues were at stake. What they did not
challenge was the why: importance of staying united in enforcing international
justice.
Finally, a few reflections are essential on the lessons learned from the Euro-
American interactions in the 1990s, for post 9/11 transatlantic relations. Given that in
the aftermath of the end of the Cold War there were both agreements and
disagreements between the United States and Europe, is it reasonable to be optimistic
about their future, as neo-liberals predicted? Will the West keep cooperating on the

220
basis of shared economic interests, norms, values and political identities? Or will the
disagreements continue growing, as neo-realists believed? Should we expect a bigger
split? Also, will the results of the 2008 Presidential elections have a significant
impact on transatlantic relations?
A 2005 Pew Survey shows that Americans and Europeans take very different
views of the transatlantic alliance and therefore it seems that those who predicted
that a bigger split was coming are to some extent correct. Majorities in every country
of Western Europe say that Europe “should take a more independent approach to
security and diplomatic affairs than it has in the past.”
15
In Great Britain, France and
Germany, these percentages, have risen sharply between 2002 and 2003 and then, by
2005, have stabilized. However, the survey also points out, that while in Spain in
2002 60% of those polled had a preference for looser ties to the U.S., in 2005 such a
preference has declined significantly, to 50%. It is worth noticing that by contrast,
Americans increasingly favor a close partnership with Western Europe. Two-thirds
(66%) feel the U.S. and Western Europe should remain as close as in the past.
16

In addition, the survey reveals, that there is an even bigger gap between
Americans and Europeans over whether the U.S. should remain the sole global
military superpower, or if it would be better if a country or group of countries

15
Pew Survey, U.S. Image Up Slightly, But Still Negative. June23, 2005. On this point see also Euro-
barometer, The European Citizens and the Future of Europe. Qualitative Study in 25 Member States.
May 2006.
This study shows that European citizens view the EU protective character as a factor of peace,
stability and security, as well as capacity to be influent and strong on the world stage in face of the
other major countries or groups of countries (the United States).
16
Pew Survey, U.S. Image Up Slightly.

221
emerges as a rival to the U.S. While Americans reject the idea that another country
should challenge America’s global military supremacy, in Western Europe, large
majorities favor a countervailing military force.
17
In France, Germany, Spain and the
Netherlands more than 69% of the public is in favor of such view. Even most British
and Canadians favor an emphatic counterbalance to U.S. dominance. These are all
signals that it is indeed possible that the gap will continue to grow.
In addition to these somewhat negative and reactionary signs there are other
reasons to be pessimistic about the future. Two major points of contentions in
transatlantic relations today are, once again, the issue of NATO expansion, and
NATO’s operations in Afghanistan. The Bush administration is proposing an
expansion of NATO to include Albania, Croatia and Macedonia and to extend “road
maps” for membership to two former Soviet Republics, Ukraine and Georgia. But
his efforts seem to be in disarray because Europeans fear provoking Russia.
18

Germany and France are among the Western European countries that have opposed
granting Ukraine and Georgia a so-called Membership Action Plan (MAP), a key
step toward potential membership.
19
The potential confrontation with Russia’s
president Vladimir Putin, who will attend part of the Summit meeting of NATO
foreign ministers in Bucharest (on 2-4 April 2008), where the question will be
discussed, has caused anxiety among Europeans and it has further polarized the

17
Pew Survey, U.S. Image Up Slightly.
18
Steven Myers and Thom Shanker, “NATO Expansion, and a Bush Legacy, are in Doubt,” The New
York Times, March 15, 2008.
19
Op-Ed, Ukraine Turns to Germany and France to Back NATO Bid, Deutsche Welle. March 18,
2008. See also Op-Ed-, “Can NATO afford to Anger Russia?,” Der Spiegel, March 27, 2008.

222
transatlantic allies. Indeed, Western Europeans also object to the American plan to
install missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Russia
strongly opposes.
20

Another question that is polarizing the transatlantic allies is the debate over
NATO’s operations in Afghanistan. The Bush administration is openly accusing the
Europeans of shirking their duty to fight the Taliban. Defense Secretary Robert Gates
pointed the finger at the Europeans when in February 2008 he said that NATO could
become a two-tiered alliance with “some allies willing to fight and die to protect
people’s security, and others who are not.”
21
With violence increasing in Afghanistan
the United States is planning to bolster the NATO-led international contingent, but
so far few allies have stepped forward. Canada, which has sent 2,500 troops, has
threatened to withdraw unless other members of the alliance send more troops to
help secure the southern area. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, urged NATO
allies to step up troops contributions to help the Canadians. Germany is trying to
dodge the demand.
22
French officials said that France will contribute a substantial
number, but do not plan a formal announcement until the NATO Summit meeting in
Bucharest.
23

20
Before the G8 meeting in Germany in June 2007, Putin “threaten to target Europe with nuclear
ballistic or cruise missiles again (something given up after the Cold War) if the proposed defense
system went ahead.” BBC News, “Russia's President Vladimir Putin has objected to a proposed US
missile defence system in Europe.” October 12, 2007. But it is still possible that Russia will threaten
Europe again.
21
Myers and Shanker, “NATO Expansion.”
22
Konstantin von Hammerstein and Alexander Szandar, “NATO Turns Screws on Germany,” Der
Spiegel, February 11, 2008.
23
Helene Cooper, “Rice Presses NATO Allies to Expand Afghan force,” The New York Times, March
7, 2008.

223
These continuing tensions between the transatlantic allies constitute
legitimate reasons to be skeptical about the future, but maybe we are still too early in
the decade to make such a claim and reconciliation is still possible. The election of a
new president in the United States could bring the allies closer. European media are
saturated with election coverage and are strongly in favor of the Democrats,
especially Senator Barack Obama. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign to
become the first woman president dominated headlines in Europe last year, but
public opinion now appears to favor Obama to the former first lady.
24
Just to offer a
few examples, in Germany, the Berliner Morgenpost proclaims that Obama is ‘The
New Kennedy’ and the Frankfurter Rundschau compares Obama not only to
Kennedy, but also to Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt.
25
In France, Libération says
that the new leader of the French Socialist Party should be someone with Obama’s
profile.
26

Will the 2008 election matter for transatlantic relations? All signs are that it
very well could, regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican ends up winning
in what is currently a very close race. On foreign policy McCain would represent
continuity with the Bush administration, while Obama or Clinton would probably
represent a change towards multilateralism, something that the Europeans have been

24
Katrin Bennhold, “Obama Grabs the Spot Light, in Europe Too,” International Herald Tribune,
March 20, 2008.
25
Von Torsten Krauel, “Der Nue Kennedy,” Berliner Morgenpost, January 5, 2008 and Von Markus
Günther, “Umjubelte Rede über Rassismus in den USA,” Frankfurter Rundschau, March 19, 2008.
26
Fabrice Rousselot, “Occasion,” Libération, January 5, 2008.

224
asking for almost seven years.
27
The most recent Pew survey on transatlantic
relations shows that in 2004, a year after the beginning of the war in Iraq, discontent
with America and its policies had intensified rather than diminished and that the
opinion of the United States in France and Germany was still negative.
28
But these
attitudes are primarily reflective of the war in Iraq, which has always been very
unpopular as registered by European public opinion. The divide between the U.S.
and Europe is about policy differences, as I have tried to emphasize throughout my
work.
On security issues, since the collapse of the Soviet Union did not produce
shifting alliances that better suited the needs of the post-Cold War era, as some had
predicted,
29
we should not expect any dramatic political or military split at a time
when we face a new perceived common threat in the form of Islamic terrorism.
There will be points of divergence, as it happened not only in the 1990s but also in
the previous forty years, and as it is happening now, over the question of NATO
expansion and the debate over bolstering the NATO contingent in Afghanistan; but
these debates will likely not bring about a permanent split in the transatlantic
relations. The military spending of the Europeans in fact is much lower than the
United States therefore Europe needs to rely on the U.S. and needs to stay in NATO.
In the year 2009, the U.S. will spend 711 billion dollars on the military while France

27
Pew Survey, Bush Unpopular in Europe, Seen as a Unilateralist, August 15, 2001.
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=5 (last accessed: 2/22/2008)
In the point of Bush’s lack of understanding of Europe, his approval rating runs 40-60 percentage
points below President Bill Clinton (see cited survey)
28
Pew Survey, A Year After Iraq War, March 16, 2004.
29
Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future,” pp.5-56.

225
will spend 54, Germany 37.8, Italy 30.6 and Spain 14.4.
30
The sharp difference in
military spending indicates that there are not going to be major rifts in the
transatlantic alliance, but there will be divergences and convergences according to
the policies specific to each issue that arise.
Finally the “war on terror” deserves specific ruminations. While this new
conflict has produced policy divisions both between the U.S. and some European
countries and within Europe itself, on a deeper level, the rhetoric surrounding such a
“war” bears a striking resemblance to the rhetoric of the past. This tells us that on
strictly theoretical grounds, “the war on terror” has the potential to bring the U.S and
Europe even closer. This would also entail the need of a redefinition of the West that
is contingent once again on the identification of an enemy “other”.
Some right wing political rhetoric in the U.S. and Europe tends to construct
the war on terror as the “clash” between two enormous entities called “the West” and
“Islam.”
31
Scholars of International Relations are all too familiar with this attempt to

30
International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2008, U.S. Department of
Defense.
31
In 2001, Silvo Berlusconi, then Italian Prime Minister, stated that "we [in the West] must be aware
of the superiority of our civilization, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights
and - in contrast with Islamic countries - respect for religious and political rights". He added that he
felt that "Islamic civilization is stuck where it was 1,400 years ago". This quotation is taken from The
Sunday Telegraph, Is the West really best? Silvio Berlusconi's comments about Western superiority
attracted a barrage of criticism. But there can be no real comparison between representative
democracies and Muslim theocracies, September 30, 2001, but it has been widely reported and at
times in slightly shorter versions; see, for instance, BBC News, EU Deplores ‘Dangerous’ Islam Jibe,
September 23, 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1565664.stm
See also Le Monde Diplomatique, The War of a Thousand Years,
http://mondediplo.com/2004/09/01terror
Other European leaders have not been as candid in expressing their understanding of the War on
Terror as a clash between the West and Islam, but Pope Benedict XVI addressing the issue of the
relationship between Islam and the West said that “violence, embodied in the Muslim idea of jihad, or
holy war, is contrary to reason and God's plan, while the West was so beholden to reason that Islam

226
account for the post Cold War era summed up in the dramatic phrase “the clash of
civilization,” which, according to Edward Said, is a clumsy and ludicrous effort to
reformulate the cold war opposition.
32
Said’s observation however leads to an even
bigger consideration which transcends these academic debates and goes to the heart
of the reality of transatlantic relations: the identification of a new common enemy
and the significance of such an “enemy” for the West, in terms of its own identity
issues.
My analysis of the transatlantic relations and the West suggests that if
scholars and public intellectuals use “the West” in an indiscriminate fashion the term
will conceal diversity, rather than shed light on complexities. This is why I suggest
being careful in using this phrase. For it is a useful concept in certain instances, but
not so useful in others. When addressing transatlantic security “the West” has the
advantage of suggesting Euro-American military cooperation based on shared ideas
that human rights should be protected. But, in the instance of international justice
this meaning becomes more nuanced. While the idea of promoting human rights is a
common one, the diverging Euro-American concepts of justice and sovereignty

could not understand it.” See Ian Fisher, “Pope Calls West Divorced From Faith, Adding a Blunt
Footnote on Jihad”, The New York Times, September 13, 2006.
In the U.S. Paul Weyrich and William Lind, two leading American conservatives, wrote in a new
booklet titled "Why Islam Is a Threat to America and the West” that “Islam is, quite simply, a religion
of war." Mr. Lind stated that American Muslims "should be encouraged to leave. They are a fifth
column in this country." Ann Coulter, a popular right wing commentator, suggested that "we should
invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." The Rev. Franklin Graham,
son of the Rev. Billy Graham, said of Islam: "I believe it's a very evil and wicked religion." The Rev.
Jerry Vines, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that the Prophet Muhammad was
"a demon-obsessed pedophile." These quotations were all taken from Nicholas D. Kristof, Bigotry in
Islam – And Here, The New York Times, July 9, 2002, p. 21.
32
Huntington, “The Clash of Civilization?” and The Clash of Civilization. Remaking of World Order
(New York: Touchtone, 1996). Edward Said, “The Clash of Ignorance,” The Nation, v. 273, no. 12
(October 22, 2001).

227
makes the rhetoric that insists on common values less valuable. Likewise, on issues
of economic development, as in the case of debt relief, the term “West” is beneficial
to indicate common policies of external debt remission for the third world countries;
but it obscures the differences in socio-cultural values-across the Atlantic.
The West is clearly more complex than earlier IR theorists and public
intellectuals had assumed. Scholars need to see the West not as a monolithic entity
but as a heterogeneous set of states, each with a distinct set of values, ideas and
identities. In some areas of Euro-American relations these characteristics combine to
produce both common ground and policies, in other instances they pull the partners
apart. Further studies of agreements and disagreements within the West would
greatly enhance our understanding of the values and politics that are inherent to
transatlantic relations. Questions regarding European and American society and their
contemporary value systems mark another important area for future research. Euro-
American value differences can have important implications for transatlantic
relations. Increasing emphasis on traditional values (i.e. strong sense of national
pride and respect for authority) in one society can lead to a growing reliance on the
use of military force, while growing prominence of secular values (i.e. weak sense of
national pride and weaker respect for authority) could produce public support for
diplomacy.
33

International Relations scholars, who have studied the transatlantic relations
fealty to their belief that balance-of-power politics is the main determinant of

33
On the role of traditional and secular values see Inglehart, Basañez and Moreno, Human Values and
Beliefs.

228
international relations as well as those who followed their core belief in the power of
values, should also analyze the interactions or praxis of the U.S. and Europe and
acknowledge the complexity of the West. However, this must be an analysis that
recognizes the evolving nature of the relations. Transatlantic relations have never
being static but are being constantly shaped and reshaped by values, identities and
social practices.

229
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Asset Metadata

Creator Simoni, Serena (author)

Core Title Beyond paradise and power. Contending arguments on the future of transatlantic relations and the West (1991-2001)

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program International Relations

Publication Date 05/01/2008

Defense Date 03/25/2008

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,transatlantic relations

Place Name Europe (continents), USA (countries)

Language English

Advisor English, Robert (committee chair), Lamy, Steven (committee member), Ross, Steven J. (committee member)

Creator Email simoni@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1215

Unique identifier UC160588

Identifier etd-Simoni-20080501 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-75071 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1215 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Simoni-20080501.pdf

Dmrecord 75071

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Simoni, Serena

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email uscdl@usc.edu

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This thesis argues that disagreements and/or agreements between transatlantic partners will continue depending on the issue at stake. Both the United States and Europe will manage their relations on a ' pick and choose' basis. This is a process that started in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War and has continued notwithstanding the rise of a new and perceived common threat (i.e. Islamic terrorism). We need to conceptualize the transatlantic relations and the West as part of a dynamic process that started with the collapse of the USSR and that is constantly constructed and re-constructed by European and American values, identities and social practices which ultimately determine their policies. Understanding Euro-American contemporary and future partnerships, and the forces that regulate them, requires being aware of the evolution in the praxis of their relations. This entails challenging the limitedness of " transatlantic relations" and "West " as identifiers of the relationship. We need to set limits and redefine these words (i.e. transatlantic relations and the West), which have become over determined by their usage during the Cold War. By continuing to use these terms to indicate common political, security and economic interests, we are missing how Euro-American divergent policies emerged.