The war in Iraq demonstrates that the European Union and the United States have limited tools to cope with challenges in a world threatened by ethnic conflict within states, the global AIDS epidemic, and international terrorism. In the 21st century, transnational networks exert global influence as non-state actors. As events in the United Nations Security Council demonstrate, when the diplomatic process fails the larger powers in the system resort to military action.

The question that the institutions and members of the European Union and the United States must pose is a straightforward one. What are the other tools that must be developed to reduce this reliance on a choice between diplomacy, on the one hand, or force, on the other? The war in Iraq brings this question to the fore as the most critical one for the two continents to address with a view not only to humanitarian reconstruction, but, more significantly, to conflict prevention.

Even in the light of a relatively quick military campaign in Iraq, there is much work to be done to mend the transatlantic relationship. The Iraq conflict has not only exposed divisions within the larger Europe, including countries that will soon accept their responsibilities as Union member states. More importantly, the situation in Iraq demonstrates European and American differences in approach to war and peace. These differences create a schism that divides the two Continents in unprecedented ways since the end of World War II and the founding of NATO and the European Communities.

On the elite level, the schism is one in which the leaders of a Continental coalition, France and Germany, take exception to the Bush Administration's actions in Iraq. If we look closer at this coalition, there are some questionable signs in its short-term objectives and long-term purpose. Why? There is a fundamental difference between the French willingness to consider military action when it deems this legitimate, according to a United Nations' mandate, and the Schroeder government's unwillingness to consider the option of force. Iraq provides one example of this difference.

In terms of military budgets, while the French have maintained defense spending, German contributions focus on peacekeeping missions, in Afghanistan, for example. This fact, coupled with budgetary constraints the Federal Republic now faces, the enormous costs of unification and the pressing need for reforms in the German Federal Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, make clear that a logical ally for France in European defense efforts presently is Great Britain.

A strategic perspective on efforts to build a common defense policy for the Union realistically must be an open one. The mini defense summit scheduled for 29 April extends an invitation to other countries to join France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. Recent events in Iraq point to the scenario that Britain, Italy and Spain are more likely to participate with a view to strengthening the transatlantic bridge instead of promoting an independent European defense.

There is a more pivotal issue, however, which speaks to the critical question this article raises. A tool that stands between the diplomatic process so essential to the Europeans and the military action that drives the American response in Iraq is education. What are the implications of the war in Iraq for EU/US relations in this context?
This article highlights three in the current environment. First, in light of the developments in the United Nations Security Council regarding Iraq, it is critical to place more of a focus in education on a historical perspective. For this reason, it is necessary to examine the root causes and potential dynamics of conflict in a broad geographical area. This is the case, in one example, between the Paris settlement of 1919 and the present difficulties we are facing in the Balkans and the Middle East today, including the situations in Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Two books that come to mind in this context are: David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace, Avon Books, 1989 and Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919, Random House, 2001.

Second, traditional education has much to offer countries that must rebuild. For instance, the initiative made by Teachers College, UNICEF and the Afghan Government underlines that government's intention to "build a modern nation-state" on the basis of "curriculum development, teacher training and systematic educational reform." Education is viewed as the "only social institution available in Afghanistan to integrate the entire nation in a single identity and opportunity structure for building a future for its young people," http://www.tc.columbia.edu/newsbureau/INSIDETC/MAR03/0303afghanistan.htm

This initiative has the value-added that its objective aims to reach civil society. It is publics across Europe, the United States and the world that are a common voice against the option that resorts to war when diplomacy fails. Popular sentiment is the cement in the construction of a transatlantic bridge after war in Iraq.

Third, in addition to traditional education, there is a need, as both continents confront the information era, to innovate more in the area of e-Learning. Public education initiatives like TIESWeb and the TCMUSES Transatlantic Internet/Multimedia Seminar Southeastern Europe attest to this fact. Information has the potential to be the best friend of prevention. Together the EU and the US must advance toward the prevention objective. There have been changes in the world as a response to terrorism. The EU and the US face an historic opportunity to rebuild their relationship by providing common answers to a fundamental question. How will terrorism respond to the world?

The consequences of the war in Iraq for EU/US relations are that the continents must discover together how to use public education that relies on communications technologies to make things difficult for terrorists to respond. Specifically, it is necessary through transatlantic dialogue with global outreach to address the hatred and narrow-mindedness on which terrorism relies to sustain a destructive energy.