Author name:
الياس طاهر محمد امين
Supervisor name:
منعم صاحي حسين العمار
Abstract:
The Future of American - European Strategic RelationThe International regional conversions the world exposed to since the nineties of the past century, the significant International conversion, the removal of the bipolar, the emergence of unipolar and what this reality results in negative and positive reflections in margining the UN, weakening the International legitimacy and the increase of internal wars in the countries as negative phenomena, have formed important steps to achieve democracy and respect human rights, even though they sometimes seem to be just calls which make studying the International relations of high complexity. These conversions also have changed the International system and relations into confusion, International gap, non continuation of a certain criteria and measures to define the pattern of International relations which make necessary to talk about finding an International power or powers to fill this gap, return these relations to their multi - nature, respect the national sovereignty and work in accordance with the International legitimacy. The most nominee power to occupy this position is the European Union for its economic and social weight, the trial to transform this weight into an exterior political weight, the formation of a military power for emergencies to get rid of the American subordination , therefore; due to the growing of the European Union power (politically, economically, militarily, socially… etc.) and its approach towards being an actual International power on one hand, and USA non desire of the appearance of any International power by its side sharing its control over International issues and its revenues and interests, especially when this power is Europe with its importance in the American International strategy on the other hand, all of which lead to the emergence of confusions in the American - European relations with historical origin making these relations unclear neither in the present nor in the future. Hence, the visions differ about the future of the International system in general and the American - European relations in specific. One says that USA will remain at the top of the International pyramid, other says that the American era will finish, and another International power will emerge, in advance is the European Union until ending with the ones saying that USA will remain as an International power beside other International powers, i.e. multi - polar leading to the ambiguity of the future of this system and the American European relations too. The study consists of an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter, entitled “American - European Strategic Relation”, includes three sections. Section one presents a historical summary of the American - European relations for its importance to understand the topic. Section two deals with the main potentialities controlling the American - European relation like (strategic, security, economic, political and cultural) potentialities as well as several other sub ones affecting the relation despite some disputes like the strategic dispute over the NATO pact and its leadership, the continual change in the European political geography, the weakness of the American economy and the emergence of several trends calling for the European Union independence from USA. Section three illustrates three performance strategies. Concerning this relation put for discussion, the first strategy represents the partnership, the second represents the competition and the third and last represents both of them together in finding a moderate solution between the two previous options. The second chapter treats the most effective variables on American - European relations and talks about building the regional system of the European Union since till now it represents not only one actual party, but also a group of countries with differences sometimes. The chapter is divided into three sections. Section one covers building the regional system of the European Union with a historical brief and its important institutions : European Council, European Union Council, the Cabinet Council, European Commissariat, European Parliament, European Central Bank and European Economic and Social Committee, in addition to some less important institutions. It also mentions the fundamental obstacles standing in the way of completing the European unity represented by the National sovereignty, vision variance and some other problems. Section two addressed the most important interior variables affecting the relations, the study topic, such as political (the parties and pressure groups), economic, social (the public opinion) and cultural variables (religion, culture, nationality… etc.) and the influence of each on these relations. Section three completes those variables dealing with the exterior variables of the relation divided into regional and International variables. Concerning the regional variables, we take the vision variance of American - European relation (France, Germany, Britain) multi - institutional variable in the European Union the most important of which is (West European Union, Organization of Security and Cooperation of Europe, Balkan variable with its ethnic and racial wars an political problems, then variables like the weakness of functioning the regional construction, the non existence of a European performance strategy far away from the NATO and also the Russian - Turkish Variable the near neighbors the most effective on the Union). The International variables are represented by the change of realizations, (governmental and non governmental) American institutions, the NATO variable, the retreat of American power, the emergence of other International powers other than US and European Union like China and Japan, the effect of regional crises (the Middle East, Africa and Southern East Asia) and finally terrorism as an important International variable recently. The third chapter explains the most important inputs and outputs of the American - European relation in two sections. Section one discusses the inputs forming the path of this relation including : (military, security “the NATO”, economic “Marshal Project in the beginning and followed economic projects” and political “vision exchange”) inputs, as well as the trial towards achieving democracy, securing human right and search for energy sources and then terrorism. Section two treats the outputs affecting the American - European relations by dividing them into variables on the European level and variables of treating regional issues and terrorism. The outputs on the European level consists of the political (trials to unify the European foreign policy), the economic (world economic problems), security military inputs, and variance and difference on the new International system. Whereas the outputs in treating the regional issues are Iraq, Palestine, energy problem issues and the last output is terrorism. The fourth and last chapter in this study is the future chapter exposing three future options for the American - European relation through three sections. Section one studies the continuity state of these relations as one of future scenes and the factors leading to that in order to clarify weakness and strength points of each side. Section two studies the change state in the American - European relations towards the increase of European Union power and capacity day by day against the retreat of USA in some of its powerful aspects negatively. Section three, the last, treats the future scene by being in the middle of the two antecedent scenes by both continuity and change together in the American - European relations on the basis that the factors that might lead the two parties into increasing the European Union power (politically, economically, militarily, …etc.) have not reached the degree to rely on in changing the relations with USA, nor the latter shows weakness factors to the degree that it can not at least defend its International position. Therefore; subsequently and due to European progress in many aspects and the relative poor retreat of American power, it is improbable to change the relations and continue without change. In the conclusion, the results for all four chapters are summarized with looking forward towards the future of the International relations, especially the American - European relations
