Allies at war

by Phillip H. Gordon

"From the 1956 Suez Crisis to the disputes over US military intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, the history of the post-World War II American-European alliance is one of nearly continuous diplomatic crisis. Yet, no matter how deep the divisions or bitter that dispute, in the end, the allies always found ways to rise above their differences and preserve the integrity of an alliance that, by the late 1990s, had become the most successful in world history." "The diplomatic wrangling over the war in Iraq produced the worst transatlantic crisis in nearly fifth years, and for the first time leaders in both the United States and Europe are seriously questioning the viability and, indeed, even the value of the alliance. But is this latest crisis really so different from all those that came before it? Is it, as some contend, the culmination of an inevitable process of dissolution that began with the end of the Cold War and become clear after 9/11? Is the fragile US-European alliance