Öz The aim of this article is to assess the implications of the recent Iraqi crisis for American-European relations, the European Union's evolving Common Foreign and Security Policy/ European Security and Defence Policy and the future prospects for global governance. Accordingly, the first part of the article makes a critical analysis of Robert Kagan's thesis about the growing power and ideological gap accross the two sides of the Atlantic. It argues that European Union's weakness as an international security actor has been mainly due to a lack of ambition and sense of responsibility towards the outside world. After disscussing the implications of Iraqi crisis for an enlarging Union and its foreign and security policy, the article concludes that global stability relies heavily on the establishment of a constructive and cooperative transatlantic partnership