The US-EU Security Regime In The Post Cold War Era

It is important to understand the developments of contemporary international relations from the perspective of Times. The era of the Cold War is a special stage in the history of international relations, in which the key to explain international affairs is Power Politics. The end of the Cold War results in the international system changing dramatically on various dimensions of international relations, which marked a new era approaching. As an important mechanism of transatlantic alliance in Cold War, the US-EU security regime changed in the Post Cold War era, mainly in the following three aspects: the strategic adjustment of NATO as a traditional US-EU security regime; the increasing role of EU in security and its institutional coordination with NATO; the establishment of US-EU security regime in the field of Non-traditional security. This paper will analyze the changes of US-EU security regime from above and further explore the impact on the development of US-EU relations, the evolution of international configuration and the international relations as a whole in the Post Cold War era.Drawing on the previous studies, chapter one is mainly to analyze the meaning of Post Cold War era, explain why to choose US-EU security regime as the research subject and establish the main structure of this paper. Chapter two highlights the changes of US-EU security regime in the Post Cold War era and discusses the logical relation between the transformation of Times and the development of US-EU security regime on the basis of quite explicit definitions of the Post Cold War era and the US-EU security regime.Chapter three mainly describes the adjustment of NATO as a traditional US-EU security regime from the view of organizational strategy and practice, specially illustrates that NATO has transformed from a transatlantic military alliance into a global political and security organization which is undergoing profound changes in its nature, function and operational mechanism. The adjustment of NATO is the result of compromise between the U.S. and EU. Now the America maintains domination of the changing NATO, but the status and role of European members are also rising. Both the U.S. and the EU pay great attention on this mechanism and NATO still occupies a fundamental position in contemporary transatlantic security field.Chapter four mainly illustrates the increasing role of EU as a new European security regime and its institutional coordination with NATO. It highlights the institutional coordination and results caused by the overlap of two organizations in function, power and activity. The paper takes these institutional coordination as important part of US-EU security regime and concludes that the rules embodied form these institutional coordination would direct the development of US-EU security regime in the Post Cold War era.In chapter five, it mainly discusses the establishment of US-EU security regime in the field of Non-traditional security, exemplified by the regime construction on anti-terrorism, global environment and energy security. The paper points that Non-traditional problems will take up the agenda of transatlantic security in the Post Cold War era and the regime on this field would be more important than before. The contemporary US-EU security regime in the field of Non-traditional security has changed and the core rule would depend on the balance of power on specific problem area, which reflects and foreshadows the new direction of US-EU relation.The main conclusion of this paper is that the US-EU security regime gets more complex and systematical and its role to guarantee the bilateral security also appears gradually in the meantime. The importance of such changes is not reflected on agenda, subject and procedure but on the meaning for contemporary world. The changes have transformed the nature of US-EU security regime, reflected and conformed with the trend of globalization in the Post Cold War era, accordingly highlighting the profound and complex changes of international system and also foreshadowing the orientation of international configuration in the Post Cold War era.