The U.S. and Europe: Responding to New Challenges
The United States and Europe have been facing dramatic challenges in recent years. In the realm of security the most serious issues they are addressing stem from deterioration of the European security caused by the conflict in Ukraine, the Middle East crises that generating uncontrolled flows of refugees and migrants to the EU countries and providing fertile ground for Islamist terrorist attacks on the European soil. The outcome of the referendum on Brexit and the profound internal crisis in the European Union manifested by the rise of Euroskeptic trends exacerbate the situation. The essay scrutinizes the impact of the shifts in the global security environment and the U.S. foreign policy priorities on the U.S. strategy towards Europe. Probable implications of the changes in the EUpolitical development and Donald Trump's win in the U.S. presidential election for the transatlantic relationship are considered in the article. The author has attempted to determine to what extent the ongoing trends in these relations are inherent, and in what measure revisiting of the U.S. policy towards Europe could be shaped by circumstantial causes. The U.S. attitude towards the European defense integration has been analyzed with emphasis on the question whether Washington would follow the approach of the previous administrations or prefer to take a new one.