As much as ever, strong transatlantic relations matter. Cooperation between Europe and the United States is vital not only to manage day-to-day business and economic and security crises, but also to build a new global order to augment the increasingly fragile and ineffective structures built after World War II. Central to that strong transatlantic bond is the relationship between Germany and the United States. These two countries have been steadfast allies for 60 years, but their bilateral ties would benefit from a reassessment of what binds them and why continued strong cooperation benefits both sides. The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) assembled an interdisciplinary group of experts and stakeholders for a weekend in Germany to reassess the fundamentals of the German-American relationship and make recommendations to renew and strengthen bilateral ties.

German-American relations have become interesting again. U.S. President Donald Trump’s lukewarm policy toward Europe has ensured that the relationship between Berlin and Washington is once again regarded as an important field of scholarship within global politics. And yet it was only a few years ago that German-American relations seemed to take second place to transatlantic relations in general, and the European Union (EU)–USA relationship in particular. The advent of Donald Trump as US President in January 2017 has made all the difference. Trump’s difficult personal relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and his denigration of everything the Western world – including the USA itself – has stood for since 1949, have given a new significance to German-American relations in practice and theory. This volume offers an empirical and conceptual analysis of German-American relations in the 21st century and highlights the serious and perhaps unprecedented challenges the two countries face at present. The authors discuss a number of aspects of the current, much more fragile state of German-American relations from different perspectives. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal German Politics.

Germany and the United States entered the post-9/11 era as allies, but they will leave it as partners of convenience—or even possibly as rivals. The first comprehensive examination of the German-American relationship written since the invasion of Iraq, Parting Ways is indispensable for those seeking to chart the future course of the transatlantic alliance. In early 2003, it became apparent that many nations, including close allies of the United States, would not participate in the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq. Despite the high-profile tension between the United States and France, some of the most bitter opposition came from Germany, marking the end not only of the German-American "special relationship," but also of the broader transatlantic relationship's preeminence in Western strategic thought. Drawing on extensive research and personal interviews with decisionmakers and informed observers in both the United States and Germany, Stephen F. Szabo frames the clash between Gerhard Schröder and George W. Bush over U.S. policy in Iraq in the context of the larger changes shaping the relationship between the two countries. Szabo considers such longer-term factors as the decreasing strategic importance of the U.S.-German relationship for each nation in the post-cold war era, the emergence of a new German identity within Germany itself, and a U.S. foreign policy led by what is arguably the most ideological administration of the post-World War II era.

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - Region: Western Europe, grade: Gut, School of Advanced Internatl. Studies (School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)), course: Europe after the Cold War, language: English, abstract: Most of the second half of the 20th century was marked by a strong German-American relationship whose primary roots were the United States’ military contributions in the fight against Nazi-Germany during World War II and its generous Marshall Plan to help rebuild a moribund German post-war economy. After the outbreak of the Cold War, deepening the transatlantic relations was a strategic necessity for both sides of the Atlantic, given the imminent geopolitical threat from the communist Soviet Union. In the decades to follow, ameliorating the partnership with the United States was, besides fostering European integration, the major goal of German foreign policy. However, the transatlantic relationship changed significantly after the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 the German-American relationship was put to a particularly hard test. Although the Schröder administration’s first reaction was unlimited solidarity and support for the invocation of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, Germany did not support the United States’ decision to go to war in Iraq, which implied serious tensions with the Bush administration. This paper’s purpose is to show how the relationship between Germany and the United States has evolved during the last five years. In the first part, I would like to illustrate the evolution of Germany’s foreign policy towards the United States in the aftermath of September 11 until the outbreak of the Iraq war. I will describe the primary factors leading to the drastic deterioration of transatlantic relations, such as chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s opportunistic exploitation of the Iraq issue in his election campaign. But the leaders’ personalities alone do not suffice to explain the whole picture. Thus the paper’s second part will elaborate on the German public mood, characterized by anti-Americanism, pacifism, and emancipation from the United States. The third part will be dedicated to the question why Bush and Schröder’s successor Angela Merkel get along so well – given their different backgrounds and taking into account that the Grand Coalition has not significantly changed policy on issues of division with Bush. An outlook in the future of the German-American partnership will conclude the paper in the fourth and last part.