A thorn in transatlantic relations: American and European perceptions of threat and security

The manuscript explains why the United States and Europe perceive threats in the world so differently and why those differences often come close to fracturing trans-Atlantic relations. Mary Hampton is the Associate Dean of Academics (DEA) at Air Command and Staff College (ACSC), Maxwell AFB.

"Americans and Europeans perceive threat differently. Americans remain more religious than Europeans and generally still believe their nation is providentially blessed. American security culture is relatively stable and includes the deeply held belief that existential threat in the world emanates from the work of evil-doers. The U.S. must therefore sometimes intervene militarily against evil. The European Union (EU) security culture model differs from traditional European iterations and from the American variant. The concept of threat as evil lost salience as Western Europe became more secularist. Threats became problems to manage and resolve. The upsurge in anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiment in the midst of economic crisis undermines this model"--