Challenge Or Picked Up The Challenge

"Power and Weakness", which was published in June & July 2002 of Policy Review by Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, aroused considerable controversy across the Atlantic. Kagan believed that the gap of power between Europe and America rendered the differences in strategic culture. America, as the power, preferred to exercise power and unilateralism on any question, and Europe, as the weakness, preferred to turn away from power and multilateralism. This paper tried to account for the transatlantic problem on which the gap of power impacted from another perspective. Thanks to anarchy in the international system, in most cases, even in the Atlantic alliance, the asymmetry of power did not embody the logic of Kagan, but lead the power to revise the asymmetry and the weakness to enforce the asymmetry. This paper explained it through the dispute over transatlantic relationship between De Gaulle and Kennedy.There is a basic asymmetry of power in the Atlantic alliance, and the asymmetry is vulnerability with potential. When the change of international situation impresses the Atlantic alliance, Europe appears to be sensitive to asymmetry of power firstly, then the differences of historical experience and geographical location between Europe and America appear too, both could not expects the action mutually, both side is inclined to take unilateral action. Then, the vulnerability of asymmetry is exposed, which causes to the crisis of Atlantic alliance. The power believes the weakness would restrain the freedom of action and lower the capacity and efficiency of solution. However, the...