Atlantic Unity Restoring: The European Policy of the Obama Administration According to the Development of the ESDP / CSDP (2009–2011)

Abstract

The subject of the article is the European policy direction of the Obama administration. Obama’s European policy was aimed at leveling the foreign policy consequences of the unilateral actions of the previous Bush administration (2001–2009).
 The author examines the transformation of the ESDP into the CSDP of the EU from the position of the United States in the context of developing a common strategy for cooperation in Afghanistan. The global financial crisis of the 2008–
 2009s turned out to be one of the most powerful factors of rapprochement between the EU and NATO. The crisis has started the process of assigning responsibilities
 in the general security system. The chronological framework is determined by a new stage in relations between the US and the EU on issues of collective security caused by the election of Democrat B. Obama as US President and the Lisbon Treaty (2009) entring into force. This stage ends in 2011 with the beginning of
 the Arab Spring and the formation of several coalitions within NATO and the EU on the Libyan and Syrian issues, as well as the signing of the Framework Agreement on participation of the United States in CSDP missions (2011).
 The author concludes that the change in Washington’s perception of the CSDP development process has objective prerequisites. It is like an exchange of positions with the EU. The purpose of the exchange was the desire of the United States to maintain global American leadership. These events were of great polit-
 ical importance for transatlantic relations, as for the first time they openly indicated the inability of the United States to abandon its interest in preserving and strengthening NATO.