Friendly Fire: The Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance

Foreword

vii Foreword This is the fifth monograph in the European Union Studies Association ’s U.S.-EU Relations Project series, and it comes at a time of continuing crisis. Elizabeth Pond began this book during the buildup to the war in Iraq. She presented the first draft at a roundtable at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., on January 24, 2003, a moment when relations between the United States and France and Germany had taken a particularly bad turn. Around the table were discussants from all of the major European embassies, as well as from the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, other government agencies, academe , and think tanks. On the basis of the rich and revealing discussion at this meeting, Pond reworked her material and presented it at the EUSA Eighth Biennial International Conference in Nashville, which took place at the height of the war, in March 2003. The finished volume appears at a time when transatlantic relations are clearly in need of reconstruction. Therefore, the importance of this work has grown during the period between its conception and its publication. Elizabeth Pond is ideally placed as an analyst of transatlantic relations. An American who has lived for many years in Europe, she has been a journalist, a teacher, and a scholar. Both she and EUSA owe a considerable debt to those who have made EUSA’s fifth U.S.-EU Relations Project possible . The idea originated with discussions among my colleagues on the 2001–03 EUSA Executive Committee: Karen Alter, Jeffrey Anderson, George Bermann, Donald Hancock, Mark Pollack, and George Ross. Simon Serfaty, director of the Europe Program, Center for Strategic and 00-7153-3 frontmatter 11/18/03 1:22 PM Page vii International Studies, generously hosted the Washington, D.C., workshop. The German Marshall Fund of the United States gave important financial support for this workshop and the roundtable at the EUSA conference in Nashville. The membership of the European Union Studies Association helped underwrite the publication of the monograph through their membership dues, and they receive a complimentary copy as a benefit of membership. Robert Faherty, director of Brookings Institution Press, deserves credit for his continued interest in the U.S.-EU Relations Project monographs. Finally, the project would not have been possible without the hands-on direction of Valerie Staats, executive director of EUSA. Martin A. Schain Chair, European Union Studies Association, 2001–03 Foreword viii 00-7153-3 frontmatter 11/18/03 1:22 PM Page viii ...