Petar Petrov, Leonard Schuette, and Sophie Vanhoonacker (2020)
Policy Brief No. 3/2020
Disagreements among the transatlantic allies abound. In the run up to the NATO summit in London on 3-4 December 2019, for instance, French President Macron’s diagnosis of NATO’s braindeath prompted harsh criticisms from his American, Turkish, and some European counterparts. Citing the lack of strategic consultation in Syria, Macron renewed his calls for a strategically more autonomous EU that has both the will and means to act independently of the US in particular. The timing of Macron’s remarks was of course not coincidental. The post-Cold War hopes for an interconnected and peaceful world have been disappointed. Amid the wider power shifts from west to east, NATO allies have not seen eye to eye on crises in the Middle East, the growing challenge to Western predominance from China, and to lesser extent Russian aggressions in Ukraine and beyond.
