The Bush Administration and the Development of a European Security Identity by Sophie Vanhoonacker

Author:Sophie Vanhoonacker [Vanhoonacker, Sophie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789067791380
Google: EMCpAAAACAAJ
Goodreads: 15578798
Publisher: European Institute of Public Administration
Published: 1999-01-15T00:27:01+00:00

5 Transatlantic Relations and the Yugoslav Crisis

Introduction

When in June 1991 Secretary of State James Baker paid his second state visit to Berlin,1 the central focus of his speech in the capital of a reunited Germany was on the extension of the transatlantic community and its values to Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union,2 Baker pleaded for a "Europe whole and free" from Vancouver to Vladivostok, where "old nineteenth century nationalisms" would be transcended by universal values of democracy and economic liberty. As in his 1989 speech on the development of a new Atlanticism, the three main institutions to promote such an enlarged Euro-Atlantic community were NATO, the European Community and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).

That the extension of Western values to the whole of the European continent was not going to be an automatic nor an easy process was soon illustrated by events in Yugoslavia. Posing a serious challenge to the stability in the Balkans, the crisis in Yugoslavia became the first major test for the willingness and capability of the United States and Western Europe to defend their values in the other half of Europe.

As the first major post-cold war European crisis, the break-up of Yugoslavia presents an extremely interesting case for the study of the transatlantic security relationship in the new Europe, Although one has to be prudent in drawing general conclusions and it has to be taken into account that the crisis occurred at a moment when both the European and the transatlantic institutions were still in the midst of their adjustment process to the new European security environment, the way in which the United States and the European Community have responded to the Yugoslav imbroglio have undoubtedly provided important indications as to the readiness as well as to the capability of both partners to address the security challenges in a Europe that is no longer threatened by the risk of a communist attack. Furthermore, as the war in Yugoslavia erupted in the immediate aftermath of the end of the cold war, it had an important impact on the shaping of the new European security architecture and the transatlantic relationship.

The break-up of Yugoslavia clearly raised issues going far beyond the crisis in question. It confronted both sides of the Atlantic with the inability of the cold war structures to address the new type of challenges facing the post-1989 Europe and forced them to urgently confront the security vacuum resulting from the collapse of the communist bloc. The conflict brought up the much broader question of the emerging security order in Europe and the respective role of the Europeans and the Americans in guaranteeing the stability of such order.

The importance of the question of a new division of tasks and more particularly of the need for an increased assumption of responsibilities on the European side was well illustrated by the exclamation of the Luxembourg Foreign Minister, Jacques Poos, at the outbreak of the crisis when he stated that "this is the hour of Europe, not the hour of the Americans".

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