The Atlantic Alliance After Iraq

History suggests that once alliances have successfully accomplished their objectives, they quickly come to an end. The peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, did not lead in parallel fashion to the rapid demise of the anti-Soviet transatlantic alliance. The subject of this paper is whether the political institutions that once undergirded the anti-Soviet alliance-in particular, the institutions of the Atlantic community-can long endure after the demise of the common rival. Focusing on the effects of structural change on the grand strategy of the United States and especially on US relations with France and Germany, this paper reviews the implicit bargain upon which the post-World War Two Atlantic alliance rested and the transformation that both the Atlantic bargain and alliance have undergone since the end of the Cold War. Building upon this analysis, the article examines the effects of the terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001 as well as the Iraq war on the transatlantic alliance. The paper concludes by assessing the prospects for a new transatlantic bargain upon which the alliance can endure.NATO; international relations