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This article analyses the similarities and differences of the latest American and European security strategies under President Obama in order to make inferences about the degree of compatibility of their deep-seated and shared norms, beliefs and ideas regarding the means and ends of national security, and to better understand the normative continuity/discontinuity of those norms of the Obama vs. Bush administration. Building upon constructivist work on strategic cultures, the article concentrates on a qualitative analysis of elite security discourses and disaggregates them into their normative and ideational components. By studying strategic cultures empirically and comparatively, the study fills a known void in the literature on strategic cultures. It finds that American and European norms, beliefs and ideas about the means and ends of national security policy are compatible with regards to challenges and threats as well as preferred modes of international cooperation; they are incompatible with regards to commonly held beliefs about the international system and how to address threats, which is worry some politically. Moreover, the article finds that there is a continuity in the US security strategies from President Bush to Obama. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The European defence integration represents today a fact assumed by European governments both at the level of policies and strategies (the Common Security and Def ence Policy, the European Security Strategy), and by conducting concrete activities on the field (the military operations of the European Union). Ever since the beginning of military integration, the strong partnership between the United States and Europe has had a positive influence. Starting on this premise, the paper analyses the way in which the United States has supported the European's efforts in guarantying their own security; furthermore, we discuss the capabilities gap between the two sides of the Atlantic and what opportunities it has to offer, and also what should Europeans do along with the Americans' pivot to Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]