During The Bush Administration The Changes Of Us-european Security Relations

Great changes have taken place during the Bush administration, with differences and rifts building up. The Iraq war put the transatlantic alliance on the verge of breaking up. The aim of this dissertation is to find out whether the change in transatlantic security relation is structural .The change in transatlantic security relation is embodied in the following areas : the U.S. , against objections from its European allies, is determined to deploy the National Missile Defense system; EU insists on building its own defense and security capability independent from the control of the U.S.; the U.S.makes use of an expanded anti-terrorism war to pursue its ambition of a unipolar world while the European believe that multilateral means like negotiation and compromise can better solve the problem of terrorism. The reason behind these changes can be studied in two aspects. One is the conflict between the U.S.' aim of a unipolar world and the EU's aim of a multilateral world. The other is the two sides' differences in their perception of security and threats and the measures to defend security. After studying the specific forms of the change in the transatlantic security relation and the reasons for its emergence, my conclusion is that although the American and the European both make efforts to repair the transatlantic relation, structural change has taken place during the Bush administration with EU growing more and more into an equal partner of the U.S. and determined to become one of the powers in a multilateral world while the U.S. is pursuing its' aim of a unipolar world .