Conclusions

Abstract

Throughout these four issue areas, we see a common a pattern in U.S.-EU relations: the United States and the European Union share similar goals with respect to global issues, but are increasingly unable to reach agreement about how to proceed. The cases described in this book demonstrate that the EU consistently supports multilateral agreements to address global issues, while the United States opposes them with equal consistency unless it can ensure that the final agreement will precisely meet U.S. conditions. That is the puzzle from which we began: Why, despite their professed similarity of goals, do the policy preferences of the European Union and United States diverge on so many multilateral issues? This conclusion restates the evidence and then uses the hypotheses deduced in chapter 2 to assess American and European behavior. Overall, we will find that the realist approach is strongly consistent with the behavior of the United States. While the development of European positions is often consistent with liberal institutional expectations, European behavior in the end also tends to be consistent with realist expectations. Finally, we reflect on what these findings mean for the study of international politics and for the future of the U.S.-EU relationship.