1st Edition
The Transatlantic Era (1989–2020) in Documents and Speeches
This accessible textbook uses key documents embedded in a clear narrative to chart the post-Cold War rise and decline of transatlantic relations. It provides a novel interpretive framework by proposing that the three decades between 1989 and 2020 represent a distinct ‘transatlantic era’.
Providing a unique new look at the recent history and politics of transatlantic relations, the book argues that three key phases can be identified:
- 1989–1999: victory?
- 2000–2010: divergence?
- 2011–2020: disarray?
Each period defines a particular set of political, economic, and security dynamics, with the trend being a gradual undermining of the strengths on which transatlantic unity once relied. These three decades therefore represent both the high point of the transatlantic region’s power and potential, and its gradual decline in a global context. Presenting students with a critical perspective of US and European transatlantic policies through annotated key documents covering central aspects of security, political, economic, and cultural affairs, it will be essential reading on all International Relations courses as well as of great interest to scholars and students of US and European Studies, Foreign Policy, and Security Studies.
Part I 1989-1999: Victory
Document 1 President George H.W. Bush, Remarks to the Citizens in Mainz, Federal Republic of Germany, 31 May 1989
Document 2 Mikhail Gorbachev, Address before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 6 July 1989
Document 3 Charter of Paris for a New Europe, Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), 19-21 November 1990
Document 4 President George H.W. Bush, Address before a Joint Session of Congress on the End of the Gulf War, 6 March 1991
Document 5 NATO Strategic Concept, November 1991
Document 6 Treaty on European Union, 7 February 1992
Document 7 Defense Planning Guidance FY 1994-1999, 16 April 1992
Document 8 Richard Lugar, "NATO: Out of Area or Out of Business; A Call for U.S. Leadership to Revive and Redefine the Alliance," Remarks Delivered to the Open Forum of the U.S. State Department, 2 August 1993
Document 9 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 1 January 1994
Document 10 New Transatlantic Agenda, announced at the US-EU Summit, Madrid, 3 December 1995
Document 11 The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Dayton Accords), 14 December 1995
Document 12 President Clinton, Speech to the People of Detroit, 22 October 1996
Document 13 Summit Meeting between President Bill Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin, Helsinki, Finland, 21 March 1997
Document 14 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 10 December 1997
Document 15 The St. Malo Declaration, signed by Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Jacques Chirac, 4 December 1998
Document 16 Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Statement to the North Atlantic Council, Brussels, Belgium, 8 December 1998
Document 17 Prime Minister Tony Blair, ‘Doctrine of the International Community’, Speech to the Economic Club, Chicago, 24 April 1999
Document 18 Presentation by Ms Sirkka Hämäläinen, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the meeting of the Institut International d'Etudes Bancaires, Helsinki, 21 May 1999
Document 19 Europe: The Third Way/Die Neue Mitte, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder, 19 August 1999
Document 20 Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Transcript of Press Conference, NATO Headquarters, 2 December 1999
Document 21 NATO Strategic Concept, April 1999
References
Part II 2000-2010: Divergence
Document 1 Statement by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, 12 September 2001 (NATO Article 5 invoked)
Document 2 George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 29 January 2002 (‘Axis of Evil’)
Document 3 President Bush, Graduation Speech at West Point, NY, 1 June 2002
Document 4 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1 July 2002
Document 5 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002
Document 6 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Press Briefing, 23 January 2003 (‘Old and New Europe’)
Document 7 Statement by French Foreign Minister Galouzeau de Villepin on the situation between Iraq and Kuwait, UN Security Council, 14 February 2003
Document 8 Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas, ‘A Plea for a Common Foreign Policy’, May 2003
Document 9 Justin Vaïsse, ‘God and Foreign Policy: The Religious Divide Between the U.S. and Europe,’ July 2003
Document 10 Hans van Mierlo, ‘The Vitality of the Nation-State and Europe in the 21st Century,’ De Gids, 166/5 (2003), pp. 329-341
Document 11 Maastricht and the Future of Europe, Speech by Dr. Willem F. Duisenberg, President of the European Central Bank, German Ministry of Finance, 22 October 2003
Document 12 ACLU Testimony at a Hearing on ‘America after 9/11: Freedom Preserved or Freedom Lost?’, Senate Judiciary Committee, submitted by Nadine Strossen, President and Timothy H. Edgar, Legislative Counsel, 18 November 2003
Document 13 A Secure Europe in a Better World (First European Security Strategy), December 2003
Document 14 ‘Technology and its Impact on Globalization,’ World Youth Report, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, October 2005
Document 15 René Cuperus, ‘Why the Dutch Voted No. Anatomy of the New Euroscepticism in ‘Old Europe’,’ Progressive Politics, 4/2 (Summer 2005), pp. 92-101
Document 16 Bucharest Summit Declaration, North Atlantic Council, 3 April 2008
Document 17 Richard Fuld, Testimony to Congress on Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy, House Oversight and Reform Committee, Washington, DC, 6 October 2008
Document 18 President Obama, Speech on Nuclear Weapons, Prague, May 2009
Document 19 The Lisbon Treaty, 2009
Document 20 Remarks by President Obama at the UN Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, 18 December 2009
Document 21 Remarks by President Obama on a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, 27 March 2009
Document 22
Sarah Palin, Keynote Speech at the Inaugural Tea Party Convention, 6 February 2010
References
Part III 2011-2020: Disarray
Document 1‘Libya's Pathway to Peace,’ Joint Op-ed by President Obama, Prime Minister Cameron and President Sarkozy, 14 April 2011
Document 2 Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, ‘Farewell Speech’, 10 June 2011
Document 3 Remarks by the President to the White House Press Corps (Syrian ‘Red Line’), 20 August 2012
Document 4 Establishment of a Committee of Inquiry (regarding Internet and telecommunications surveillance), German Bundestag, 18 March 2014
Document 5 Vladimir Putin, Speech on the Accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation, 18 March 2014
Document 6 Greece: Article IV Consultation, IMF Country Report No. 13/154, 5 June 2013
Document 7 Michael Rühle, NATO Enlargement and Russia: Myths and Realities (NATO Fact Sheet), 1 July 2014
Document 8 Statement by Geert Wilders, Press Conference of the Europe of Nations and Freedom, Milan, 29 January 2016
Document 9 EU-Turkey Agreement on Refugees, 18 March 2016
Document 10 Statement by Prime Minister David Cameron, EU Referendum outcome, 24 June 2016
Document 11 ‘America First’, Inaugural Address by President Trump, 20 January 2017
Document 12 Presidential Memorandum regarding Withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations and Agreement, 23 January 2017
Document 13 Celebrating Four Years of Black Lives Matter, 2017
Document 14 In Spite of it All, America: A Transatlantic Manifesto in Times of Donald Trump, A German Perspective, October 2017
Document 15 Appendix: Memorandum from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Global Britain), March 2018
Document 16 Remarks by President Trump on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, 8 May 2018
Document 17 Remarks by President Trump, Press Conference after NATO Summit, 12 July 2018
Document 18 ‘Being Black in the EU: Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey’, EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, 28 November 2018
Document 19 Angela Merkel, Speech at the Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, Marrakech, 10 December 2018
Document 20 Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen M. Lord and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy David J. Trachtenberg, Press Briefing on US Department of Defense’s Response to Turkey Accepting Delivery of the Russian S-400 Air and Missile Defense System, 17 July 2019
Document 21 Insight into Targets: Fifteen Years of Jihadist Attacks in the West, General Intelligence and Security Service [AIVD], The Netherlands, 29 July 2019
Document 22 Fact Sheet: Nord Stream 2, US Bureau of Energy Resources, 27 December 2019
Document 23 Cybersecurity of 5G Networks: EU Toolbox of Risk Mitigating Measures, European Parliament, January 2020
Document 24 Speech by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Old Naval College, Greenwich, 3 February 2020
Document 25 President Donald J. Trump, ‘Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Certain Additional Persons Who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus’, Proclamation 9993, 11 March 2020
Document 26 EU-China Relations Fact Sheet, 20 June 2020
Document 27 ‘United for a New Era’, Analysis and Recommendations of the Reflection Group Appointed by the Secretary General of NATO, 25 November 2020
References
Biography
Bram Boxhoorn is director of the Netherlands Atlantic Association (The Hague), a non-partisan organization that focuses on transatlantic security issues, such as the role of NATO in the Euro-Atlantic security framework, EU-US relations, and NATO-Russian relations.
Giles Scott-Smith holds the Roosevelt Chair in New Diplomatic History at Leiden University, The Netherlands.
"A fascinating look at three decades’ worth of transatlantic security cooperation. Boxhoorn and Scott-Smith offer insights and thought provoking questions for everyone interested in the changing political fortunes of the West and the prospect of a global power shift."
Sten Rynning, University of Southern Denmark.
"The editors provide useful insights into the changing surroundings and mechanisms that have characterised the transatlantic relationship over the last three decades. One of its major strengths is that it offers a comprehensive base of documents – political, economic and security documents as well as cultural commentary – that makes it a highly valuable contributions to transatlantic understanding and future debate."
Kate Hansen Bundt, the Norwegian Atlantic Committee, Norway.
"The book has been published at the right time. Anxious "disarray"- as the editors define the current period of transatlantic relations - seems to have reached its lowest ebb, which has been recently confirmed by the Afghanistan debacle. This solicitous and up-to-date collection of documents on the last 30 years allows us to look at its developments from a distance. The editors’ scrupulous work enables us not only not to judge the Alliance under the influence of current events, but most of all to better reflect on its future, embracing its immutable goal - caring for world peace and security in front of Russia’s and China’s expected belligerent actions. "
Lukasz Jurczyszyn, Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) Brussels Office, Belgium.
"Bram Boxhoorn and Giles Scott-Smith have done scholars and students of transatlantic relations the world over an incredible favor. The documents they have compiled capture the optimism inherent in the early days of the post-Cold War era and convey the, perhaps inevitable, tragedy in the subsequent decisions that have prompted talk of the end of the transatlantic partnership. The Transatlantic Era is an both an invaluable tool for research and the classroom, and an invitation to ask whether we could have chosen differently."
James M. Lindsay, Council on Foreign Relations, USA.
