In Search of a New Relationship

Markus Kaim and Ursula Lehmkuhl During the years 2002 and 2003, transatlantic relations witnessed severe prob­ lems. The Bush administration had decided to intervene in Iraq unilaterally and preemptively as part of the strategy to combat international terrorism. Neither Germany nor Canada became members of the war coalition. Both countries had to rethink their relations to the United States. The conference that took place on May, 15 and 16,2003, organized by the German Council on Foreign Relations, the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Free University of Berlin and the Chair of Foreign Policy and International Relations of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena on "Challenges and Options for the Transatlantic Partnership at the Begin­ ning of the 21st Century: Canada, Germany, and their Relations to the United States" was part of this process. Experts from Canada, Germany, and the United States discussed the most pressing and perhaps most controversial aspects of the trilateral and the respective bilateral relationships with a special focus on Can­ ada, the "peaceable kingdom.