Transatlantic Politics After the 2008 Election

The fundamental realities on which the Atlantic relationship rests remain in place and are highly unlikely to disappear at any time in the foreseeable future.

Whoever the American voters choose in the 2008 presidential election, Europe is likely to experience a political honeymoon with the new President and feel relieved at the departure of the Bush Administration. However, it is important to avoid the misconception that has all too frequently distorted discussion of this subject during the past eight years: that the largely harmonious relations between the US and its European partners were rudely interrupted by the coming to power of the Bush Administration with what are said to be its unilateral, aggressive and warlike habits. Issues such as Iran, the Middle East, terrorism and international trade will ensure that there will not be the kind of easy harmony and seamless multilateralism that some observers have explicitly or implicitly ascribed to the pre-George W. Bush years and assumed would re-emerge in the post-Bush era. On the other hand, the fundamental realities on which the Atlantic relationship rests remain in place and are highly unlikely to disappear at any time in the foreseeable future.