A Thorn in Transatlantic Relations American and European Perceptions of Threat and Security

Americans and Europeans perceive threat differently. Americans remain more religious than Europeans and generally still believe their nation is providentially blessed. American security culture is relatively stable and includes the deeply held belief that existential threat in the world emanates from the work of evil-doers. The US must therefore sometimes intervene militarily against evil. The European Union (EU) security culture model differs from traditional European iterations and from the American variant. The concept of threat as evil lost salience as Western Europe became more secularist. Threats became problems to manage and resolve. The upsurge in anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiment in the midst of economic crisis undermines this model.

Mary N. Hampton is a political scientist and Associate Dean for Academics, Air Command and Staff College (ACSC). She has written extensively on trans-Atlantic relations, especially concerning German and American foreign relations, as reflected in The Wilsonian Impulse: U.S. Foreign Policy, the Alliance, and German Unification, and recent works, Living in a World of Dangers and Strangers: Changing EU and German Perceptions of Threat, and Between Euroland and Abendland: Opportunities and Challenges for German Foreign Policy Since Unification.

1. Introduction
2. 'God Has Favored Our Undertaking': Explaining American Security and Strategic Culture
3. Oasis or Mirage? EU European Security and Strategic Culture
4. Combating Communism 'From the Abodes of Righteousness'
6. Naming Terror: US and European Counter-Terrorism Strategies Since the 1970s
6. Conclusion: Trans-Atlantic Security Cultures in Transition