EU: The Bush administration's policies have plunged US-European relations into crisis and only a new transatlantic dialogue and closer economic co-operation can begin to heal the rift.
That is the message of three dozen leading intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic who sent their thoughts to EU foreign ministers meeting in Greece.
Greek Foreign Minister Mr George Papandreou asked strategic thinkers, politicians and economists to propose remedies for ties severely strained by differences over the Iraq war.
"The transatlantic rift over strategy is here to stay... and will continue to endanger both transatlantic trust and transatlantic institutions," wrote Christoph Bertram, director of the German Political Science Foundation.
Among the sharpest differences were those over how to deal with "rogue states" seeking weapons of mass destruction, when to use force, with what resources and with what international authority, and how to pursue the fight against terrorism.
Disputes over a global climate-change treaty, a world war crimes tribunal and how to approach the Middle East and the Islamic world had also fuelled discord.
Many contributors suggested a need for a new transatlantic dialogue reaching out beyond governments to parliaments, civil society, universities, think-tanks and business leaders.
Some essays suggested the best starting point for repairing transatlantic relations was a new drive for a global deal to liberalise trade and investment, which offered concrete benefits to both sides.
Helen Wallace and David Andrews of the European University Institute in Florence argued that only such "an initiative that represents the creation of substantial new economic value" could reinforce Atlanticists on both sides and prevent the political crisis over Iraq spilling over into economic damage.
Billionaire US financier George Soros said the two sides could work best together on improving international rules governing trade and the financial system, offering incentives for good governance in developing countries and pressing for greater transparency in the revenues from natural resources.
Many contributors said the transatlantic rift had been exacerbated by efforts by US conservatives inside and outside government to divide and play Europeans off against each other.
They cited Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's distinction between anti-war "old" and pro-war "new" Europe and conservative intellectual Robert Kagan's theory that Europeans seek endless negotiations out of weakness while Americans realise the need to use military power in a dangerous world.
Harvard professor Stanley Hoffmann said US global leadership had given way to "a quasi-imperial policy" justified by the notion that since the September 11th, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, the United States was at war.
The problem could not be solved by European "appeasement" of Washington but only by a stronger EU becoming a bigger player in world affairs, he argued.
Like many contributors, he argued that the key to a stronger Europe was reconciling policy differences between Britain and France, the bloc's two major military powers.
Anand Menon and Jonathan Lipkin of Birmingham University said deep divisions on political values between Europe and the US helped shape their relative international power.
They called for an expert group to produce a security strategy for Europe, overcoming the divergent approaches of Britain and France which were paralysing EU foreign policy.
One of the most ambitious proposals was that of former Turkish Economy Minister Kemal Dervis, who said Washington and Brussels should work for a radical overhaul of the United Nations.
A reformed Security Council would have weighted voting according to population and contribution to UN budgets and operations, and Britain and France would give up their permanent seat in favour of a single EU representative.