Troubled Partnership: What’s Next for the United States and Europe?

A key challenge for the Bush administration in its second term is to rebuild relations with European allies in the wake of the breakdown over Iraq. How much damage has been done? Is it reversible? What kind of accommodation will it take on each side of the Atlantic to get the relation back on track? Finally, is the problem essentially one of personalities and policy choices—or does the emerging divide reflect a long-term strategic divergence which will continue to complicate transatlantic relations for the foreseeable future?

The Brookings Institution and Stanford University’s Hoover Institution will convene four foreign policy experts who have contributed to a new volume, Beyond Paradise and Power: Europe, America and the Future of a Troubled Partnership (Routledge, 2004) to discuss the prospects for transatlantic relations in the wake of the U.S. presidential election. Panelists will take questions from the audience.