The first major study of Atlantic political relations since World War 2 that uses a comparative perspective to analyze U.S. foreign policy and U.S.-European relations in the context of a Western Europe attempting to speak with one voice. The book examines U.S. policy toward European unity and the evolution of a West European pillar in foreign policy and defence, contrasts U.S. and European approaches toward specific global issues, and considers Atlantic relations in light of the dramatic European upheavals in 1989-90.

This volume examines the evolution of US foreign policy since Donald Trump’s accession to the presidency and the strategic challenges confronting the United States in a changing geopolitical environment. Trump has delivered on his promises to break with past policies and this has, for the most part, revealed a policy of retrenchment that has jeopardized US alliances. The book focuses on the current state and future of transatlantic relations, on Washington’s policy in the Middle East and Africa, on the administration’s use of the economic weapon in international relations, but also on the American response to the return of great power competition in the face of an assertive China and resurgent Russia. The contributions gather the inputs of a transatlantic community of scholars combining academics, think-tank fellows, former policy-makers and administration officials from both sides of the Atlantic.

Using a wide array of recently declassified archival materials in the United States and Western Europe, this collection offers new insights into the changing dynamics of transatlantic relations during the era of détente (1969-1980). Whereas prior studies of this decade have focused on the end of the Vietnam War or U.S.-Soviet relations, this volume reveals why bitter conflicts developed between the U.S. and its European allies, and how, contrary to conventional wisdom, European integration evolved less as a consequence of Washington's support than as a result of America's relative decline and growing U.S.-European discord. Taking into account the developments in various bilateral and multilateral settings, such as the European Community, the Helsinki process, and the G-7 summits, the contributions show that a common alliance strategy has always been a difficult undertaking, often the result of bitter confrontation and painful compromises. With clear overtones to more recent disputes, this collection demonstrates there was never a "golden age" of transatlantic harmony.

At a crucial point in the twentieth century, as Nazi Germany prepared for war, negotiations between Britain, France, and the Soviet Union became the last chance to halt Hitler’s aggression. Incredibly, the French and British governments dallied, talks failed, and in August 1939 the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Germany. Michael Carley’s gripping account of these negotiations is not a pretty story. It is about the failures of appeasement and collective security in Europe. It is about moral depravity and blindness, about villains and cowards, and about heroes who stood against the intellectual and popular tides of their time. Some died for their beliefs, others labored in obscurity and have been nearly forgotten. In 1939 they sought to make the Grand Alliance that never was between France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. This story of their efforts is background to the wartime alliance created in 1941 without France but with the United States in order to defeat a demonic enemy. 1939 is based upon Mr. Carley’s longtime research on the period, including work in French, British, and newly opened Soviet archives. He challenges prevailing interpretations of the origins of World War II by situating 1939 at the end of the early cold war between the Soviet Union, France, and Britain, and by showing how anti-communism was the major cause of the failure to form an alliance against Hitler. 1939 was published on September 1, the sixtieth anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland and the start of the war.