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U.S.-European Security Partnership

The United States and Europe are at a critical turning point in the definition of their security partnership. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, most Americans assumed that the existing security system could meet any challenges offered, especially since NATO had become the permanent diplomatic conference for the North Atlantic region. There are others, however, including Secretary of State Christopher, who want to replace NATO with a continent-wide security structure and to forge an economic partnership with Europe that transcends the European Community (EC). Until recently, many European did not hold to that opinion. They believed that the ever-changing world situation demanded a new common European identity that went beyond its dependence upon the United States for security. However, the crisis in Yugoslavia has shaken both these beliefs.

The first task will be to rediscover the interrelationship of economic and military security. Much of the debate over European-American security, for example, has cast NATO and the European Community as alternative security systems. In fact, as originally conceived (and as how they functioned for decades) they were actually interdependent institutions within a common security vision. From the outset, Americans and Europeans viewed security as having both military and economic requirements. The direct threats in recent years were seen as Soviet expansion and a German military renewal. However, the most fundamental fear was of a return to the dangers of the 1930s, the lack of economic security eroding political allegiance to democratic values, and the lack of military security allowing a looming totalitarian threat to overwhelm weak national militaries. The European Community and NATO were thus intertwined answers to the same question: how to preserve peace in Europe against internal and external threat.

The biggest challenge facing Europe and the United States is whether, how, ...

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U.S.-European Security Partnership. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 14:03, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690524.html