Trans Atlantic Partners

The end of the Cold War and the advent of the European Union (EU) as an emerging political actor have fundamentally changed Canada's approach to its relations with Western Europe. Trans-Atlantic Partners traces the Canadian Government's reassessment of its traditional Atlanticist foreign policy orientation by looking at the rising importance of the EU as a key "pillar" in Canada's post-World War II trans-Atlantic relations.

The end of the Cold War and the advent of the European Union (EU) as an emerging political actor have fundamentally changed Canada's approach to its relations with Western Europe. Trans-Atlantic Partners traces the Canadian Government's reassessment of its traditional Atlanticist foreign policy orientation by looking at the rising importance of the EU as a key "pillar" in Canada's post-World War II trans-Atlantic relations.

This edited volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the transformations in Turkey's transatlantic connection including political, economic, and security relations. The book concentrates on the question of how these transformations in conjuction with several other factors are reflected over Turkey's foreign policy behavior and new alignment preferences. Contributors especially delve into regional affairs of Turkey seeking to show how the transatlantic frame alternatively impact Turkey's policies in different neighborhoods, arguing that Turkish foreign policy cannot be understood without careful analysis of multiple international pressures and changing dynamics at the domestic political scenery.

Now available online: The Transatlantic Colossus: Global Contributions to Broaden the Debate on the EU-US Free Trade Agreement (2014), a publication from the Berlin Forum on Global Politics (BFoGP) in collaboration with the Internet & Society Collaboratory and FutureChallenges.org of the Bertelsmann Stiftung. The free trade agreement (TAFTA | TTIP) currently being negotiated between the United States and the European Union has the potential to significantly impact the lives of people on both sides of the Atlantic and across the world. Because it is crucial to broaden the debate on this topic of global importance, the Berlin Forum on Global Politics decided to send out an international call for papers in order to collect a strong plurality of views on TAFTA | TTIP as part of the Collaboratory's Initiative on "Globalization and the Internet". The result is an open knowledge publication, freely accessible under its Creative Commons (BY) license, which includes 22 articles written by a multitude of well-informed global stakeholders, members of civil society, academia, think tanks, consumer and activist groups, and business organizations.

Since the end of the Cold War, and especially following the US decision to invade Iraq, the once strong partnership between the US, Canada, and the European allies has faced the serious possibility of significant change, or even dissolution. At the very least, fundamental differences have emerged in the ways that many of the partners, perceive the issues that are most important to them—from perceptions of the threat of terrorism and attitudes to the use of force, to expectation about the future nature of the NATO Alliance—and in the ways in which those perceptions have become translated into policy decisions. In this book, experts from both sides of the Atlantic seek to explain why there has been so much divergence in the approach the various countries have taken. And it seeks to raise questions about what those divergent paths might mean for the future of transatlantic relations.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was a pivotal moment deeply impacting the post-World War II order, with American nuclear might standing sentinel for the preservation of the liberal democratic values of the trans-Atlantic community. The end of the ideological struggle freed the forces shaping the postmodern world. The end of the security trade-off, American nuclear protection against critical but loyal European support, meant that a new partnership based on equality, mutual respect, and legitimate self-interest was needed and that stability and peace on the Eurasian landmass was the overriding goal. Neither the United States nor Europe, the two constituent communities of the Western world, grasped the opportunity to bring about the needed change. Both remained prisoners of their past instead of innovators of the common future. American exceptionalism and Russophobia was the maze that entrapped the first; introvert preoccupation and divisiveness of purpose lamed the other. The book traces the formative forces of the geopolitical environment during the Cold War and the decades beyond and places these in the context of the emerging postmodern world order: where regional and global project-driven functional cooperation is gradually replacing the Westphalian state, where the provision of physical security and the material well-being for the individual replaces ideology as the driving force for political action, and where the rule of law prevails over the rule of power. The penultimate section enumerates some of the most significant issues facing the trans-Atlantic partnership and formulates policy suggestions on how to deal with them. Acknowledging the significant differences within the partnership, the two main themes are: first, that these differences are more tactical than fundamental and can and must be overcome; and second, that the partnership is essential for the preservation of the values and beliefs of Western civilization.