No End to Alliance: The United States and Western Europe: Past, Present and Future 1349269611, 9781349269617

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NO END TO ALLIANCE

No End to Alliance The United States and Western Europe: Past, Present and Future Edited by

Geir Lundestad Director The Norwegian Nobel Institute Oslo Norway

Nobel Symposium 105

palgrave macmillan

First published in Great Britain 1998 by

MACMILLAN PRESS LTD

Houndmills. Basingstoke. Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-26961-7 ISBN 978-1-349-26959-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-26959-4 First published in the United States of America 1998 by

ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,

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ISBN 978-0-312-21761-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nobel Symposium (l05th) No end to alliance: the United States and Western Europe: past. present. and future: Nobel Symposium 105/ edited by Geir Lundestad. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-21761-7 (cloth : alk. paper) I. Europe-Foreign relations-United States. 2. United States-Foreign relations-Europe. 3. Europe-Foreign relations-19454. United States-Foreign relations-20th century. I. Lundestad, Geir. 1945- . II. Title. DI065.U5N63 1998 327.7304-dc21 98-23856 CIP Selection and editorial matter © Geir Lundestad 1998 Text © The Norwegian Nobel Institute 1998 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1998 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced. copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright. Designs and Patents Act 1988. or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. 90 Tottenham Court Road. London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright. Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging. pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99

I 98

Contents Contributors

vii

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ix

Part I Introduction

1

Introduction Geir Lundestad

2

The Transatlantic Partnership: an Alliance for Peace and Progress Hans-Dietrich Genscher

3

13

Part II The Past

3

4

5

6

7

Culture, Emotion, and the Creation of the Atlantic Identity, 1948-1952 Frank Costigliola

21

Atlantic Partnership and European Integration: American-European Policies and the German Problem, 1947-1966

Klaus Schwabe

37

Security and Identity: the Nordic Countries and the United States since 1945 Jussi M. Hanhimiiki

81

The 1toubled Friendship: France and the United States, 1945-1989 Pierre Melandri

112

The USA, Britain, and the Question of Hegemony Alan P. Dobson

134

Part III The Present

8

9

The United States and Western Europe: Dimensions of Cooperation and Competition Werner Link

167

Western Transformation after the Cold War David P. Calleo

184

v

Contents

vi

10

On Friendship: Anglo-American Relations at the Fin de Siecle Alex Danchev

204

Part IV The Future

11

The Future of America's Continental Commitment John 1 Mearsheimer

221

Part V Conclusion

12

Index

American-European Cooperation and Conflict: Past, Present, and Future Geir Lundestad

245 263

Contributors David P. Calleo, Dean Acheson Professor and Director of European Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC. His most recent books are The Bankrupting of America: How the Federal Budget is Impoverishing the Nation (1992) and From the Atlantic to the Urals: National Perspectives on the New Europe, ed. (1992). Frank Costigliola, Professor of History at the University of Connecticut, USA. He has published Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919-1933 (1984) and France and the United States: The Cold Alliance since World War II (1992). Alex Danchev, Professor of International Relations and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Keele University, England. He is the author of a number of works on Anglo-American relations including Jtery Special Relationship (1986), Establishing the Anglo-American Alliance (1990), Oliver Franks (1993), and On Specialness (1998). Alan Dobson, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Wales, Swansea. His most recent publications are Flying in the Face of Competition: the Policies and Diplomacy of Airline Regulatory Reform in Britain, the USA, and the European Community, 1968-1991 (1995), and Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century: Of Friendship, Conflict, and the Rise and Decline of Superpowers (1995). Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former German Foreign Minister (1974-92). Jussi M. Hanhimaki, Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, England. He has published Containing Coexistence: America, Russia, and the 'Finnish Solution' 1945-1956 (1997) and Scandinavia and the United States: An Insecure Friendship (1997). Werner Link, Professor at the Forschungsinstitut fUr politische Wissenschaft und europiiische Fragen, University of Cologne, Germany. His most recent publications are Der Ost-West-Konflikt: die Organisation der internationalen Beziehungen im 20. lahrhundert (1988), and Europe and America: A Return to History (1996) together with Miles Kahler.

vii

viii

Contributors

Geir Lundestad, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, and Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Oslo. His most recent publications are East, West, North, South: Major Developments in International Politics, 1945-1996 (1997), and 'Empire' by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945-1997 (1998). John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, USA. He has published Conventional Deterrence (1983), and Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988). Pierre Melandri, Professor in American History at III Sorbonne University in Paris. His most recent publications are La Politique exterieure des Etats-Unis de 1945 anos jours (1995), and La France et L'Otan 1949-1996, ed. (1996). Klaus Schwabe, Professor of Modern History at Aachen University of Technology, Germany. His most recent publications are Deutschland und der Westen im 19. und 20. lahrhundert, vol 2: Deutschland und Westeuropa (1994), and Quellen sum Friedensschluf3 von Versailles, ed. (1997).

Abbreviations and Acronyms NATO's Northern Force NATO's Southern Force Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory Australia, New Zealand and the United States' Mutual Defense Theaty British Petroleum BP CAP Common Agricultural Policy Christlich-Demokratische Union/Christlich-Soziale Union CDU/CSU Central Treaty Organization CENTO Common Foreign and Security Policy CFSP Chief of Staff, United States Army CSUSA Central Intelligence Agency CIA Combined Joint Thsk Forces CJTF Collocated Operating Bases COB COMBALTAP NATO's Joint Baltic Command Council for Mutual Economic Assistance COMECON Cabinet Papers CP Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe CSCE Deutchmark DM EC European Community European Defence Community EDC European Economic Community EEC European Free 'll"ade Association EFTA Economic and Monetary Union EMU European Political Cooperation EPC ERP European Recovery Program European Union EU EURATOM European Atom Energy Community Franklin D. Roosevelt FDR General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GATT Gross Domestic Product GDP Gross National Product GNP International Institute for Strategic Studies IISS Intergovernmental Conference IGC International Monetary Fund IMF Intermediate Nuclear Forces INF International Trade Organization ITO Lyndon B. Johnson LBJ Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions MBFR

AFNORTH AFSOUTH AMGOT ANZUS

ix

x

MFN MLF MRBM NAFTA NATO NC NLF NORDEK NPT NSC OECD OEEC

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Most Favored Nation Multilateral forces Medium Range Ballistic Missiles North America Free Trade Area North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nordic Council National Liberation Front Nordic Economic Union Nuclear Proliferation Treaty National Security Council Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization for European Economic Cooperation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe oseE Parti Communiste Fran\(ais PCF 'Partnership for Peace' PfP Public Record Office PRO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe SACEUR Strategic Arms Limitation Thlks SALT Scandinavian Airlines System SAS Strategic Defense Initiative SDI South East Asia Treaty Organization SEATO Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutchland SPD United Kingdom UK Tactical Nuclear Weapons TNW United Nations UN UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Forces United States of America US USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Western European Union WEU WTO World Trade Organization Second World War WWII

Part I Introduction

1 Introduction Geir Lundestad

From 9 April to 12 April 1997, the Norwegian Nobel Institute held a Nobel Symposium at Sanner, outside Oslo, under the title 'The United States and Western Europe: Cooperation and Conflict: Past, Present, and Future'. The most recent symposiums of the Norwegian Nobel Institute have all attempted to analyze the past relatively thoroughly, and on that basis to discuss the present - and even to speculate somewhat about the future. These symposiums have included 'New Dimensions in International Relations', l 'The Fall of Great Powers', 2 and 'The Fall of Detente', the latter with particular emphasis on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? In 1997 we then wanted to apply our tripartite analysis of the past, the present and the future to American-Western European relations. The main purpose of the symposium was to strike some sort of balance between cooperation and conflict in American-European relations. What had this balance been in the past, what was it today, and how was it likely to develop in the future? At the symposium we wanted to cover crucial aspects of AmericanEuropean relations. No effort was, however, made to include all important apects. Thus, since the symposium was held in Scandinavia, we wanted to include a discussion of the American-Scandinavian relationship while American-Mediterranean relations were treated in a rather cursory manner.

NATO IN THE LITERATURE AND IN HISTORY The history of American-European relations after the Second World War seems to present itself as an endless series of conflicts. Even after the formation of NATO, when cooperation was supposedly the closest, the crises were almost continuous: the Korean War and West Germany's rearmament in the early 1950s, the latter including the defeat of the European Defence Community (EDC) in 1954; the Suez Crisis in 1956; General de Gaulle's coming to power in France in 1958 and his subsequent rejection of British membership in the European Economic Community (EEC); the signing of the FrancoGerman treaty in January 1963; France's withdrawal from NATO's integrated command structure in 1966; the problems caused by Germany's Ostpolitik in the late 1960s to early 1970s; and the American-European bickering over Kissinger's Year of Europe initiative in 1973-74. In the Carter years there were the feuds over the neutron bomb, the hostages in Iran, and Afghanistan. 3

4

Geir Lundestad

In the Reagan years there were Poland, the Soviet pipeline, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and Libya. Under Bush there were problems involving the end of the Cold War, the unification of Germany, and the search for new missions for NATO. Recently, under Clinton, there have been American-European disputes over Bosnia, over trade (the completion of the Tokyo Round and the setting up of the World Trade Organization, the Helms-Burton and the d' Amato Acts by which Washington is attempting to export its views on trade with Cuba, Iran, and Libya), and over NATO enlargement. And almost always there were American-European quarrels over the Middle East: the creation of Israel, Suez, the Yom Kippur War, relations with the oil states, the attitude to the Palestinians, etc. It is no surprise, then, that the crisis perspective has dominated the literature on American-European relations. A Nobel Institute librarian quickly collected seven full pages of titles focusing on crisis or conflict. 4 Just to take the works of some historians and political scientists in alphabetical order by author: The United States and the NATO Alliance: Managing the Unsolvable by Robert Art,S NATO's Mid-Life Crisis by Richard Betts,6 'The Long-Term Crisis of the Alliance' by Eliot Cohen,7 'The Atlantic Crisis' by Lawrence Freedman,8 Atlantic Community in Crisis by Walter Hahn and Robert Pfaltzgraff, 9 Continuity of Discord: Crises and Responses in the Atlantic Community by Robert Jackson,lO 'European-American Relations: The Enduring Crisis' by Josef Joffe,11 'Die Krise der europiiisch-amerikanischen Beziehungen' by Karl Kaiser, 12 Atlantic Crisis: American Diplomacy Confronts a Resurgent Europe by Robert Kleiman,13 'The Crisis of the Alliance' by Hans Morgenthau,14 Europe without America? The Crisis in Atlantic Relations by John Palmer, IS Allies in Crisis by Elizabeth Sherwood,16 Western Europe and the United States: The Uncertain Alliance by Michael Smith,17 and Ronald Steel's The End of Alliance: America and the Future of Europe, a title which later forced him to write about 'NATO's Afterlife,.18 Politicians and diplomats have frequently written about AmericanEuropean relations in general - and about NATO in particular - in a similar crisis vein, although they tend to combine analysis with exhortations about continued cooperation. Some illustrations might be the following: Henry Kissinger's analysis in The Troubled Partnership and his article 'Something is Deeply Wrong in the Atlantic Alliance',19 Richard Nixon's 'The Time to Save NATO',2° Sam Nunn's NATO: Can the Alliance Be Saved?,21 Jean Fran~ois­ Poncet's 'Europe and the United States: The Lessons of a Crisis',22 Robert Schaetzel's The Unhinged Alliance: America and the European Community,23 and, finally, Paul-Henri Spaak's The Crisis of the Atlantic Alliance. 24 Some historians, political scientists, politicians, and diplomats have of course written about cooperation between the United States and Western Europe. Yet the list of titles stressing American-European cooperation

Introduction

5

comes to two short pages, and that includes ambiguous titles such as Gregory Treverton's Making the Alliance Work: The United States and Western Europe 25 and Beatrice Heuser's Transatlantic Relations: Sharing Ideals and CostS. 26 On the less ambiguous side, we can find Geoffrey Williams's The Permanent Alliance: The European-American Partnership, 1945-1984,27 Thomas RisseKappen's Cooperation among Democracies: The European Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy, 28 and Simon Serfaty's Stay the Course: European Unity and Atlantic Solidarity. 29

Beyond the titles of books and articles, there are of course many who have stressed the important interests the United States and Western Europe have had in common. The idea of a North Atlantic community was spelled out in the 1950s by Karl Deutsch. To Deutsch, the complementarity of common values and the high levels of responsiveness to each other's needs were even more important for the cohesion of the community than was the common security threat. 3D Similar approaches have been adopted by others, most recently by Risse-Kappen in Cooperation among Democracies. Whether one wants to emphasize conflict or cooperation depends in large part on the standard of measurement. If the standard is some expectation of more or less perfect harmony between the United States and Western Europe, then the conflicts are indeed striking. If, on the other hand, the standard is the nature of other alliances in history, one is, I would argue, bound to emphasize the closeness of the American-European cooperation. Thus, the Holy Alliance of 1815-48 was not really an alliance at all, but rather a vague understanding between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The original document drawn up by the three countries' monarchs expressed their sympathies for religious idealism. Even Austrian foreign minister Klemmens Metternich called it 'a loud-sounding nothing'. (Similarly, British foreign secretary Lord Castlereagh described it as 'a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense,.31) As even the name indicates, the triple entente between France, Russia, and Britain was an entente, not an alliance - at least until the outbreak of the First World War when the three parties pledged not to make a separate peace. The entente simply represented a settlement of certain important differences and a very gradual coming together to prevent German domination of the European continent. The triple alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy represented a far stronger commitment for the parties than did the entente. It was originally signed in 1882 and renewed every five years until 1915. However, the triple alliance was in direct contradiction to the league of the German, Austrian-Hungarian, and Russian emperors. The creator of this intricate system, Otto von Bismarck, although appreciating the importance of the alliance with Austria, disliked both the Austrians ('from his days in Frankfurt to his death') and the Italians, and he 'scattered promises so as not to carry

6

Geir Lundestad

them out'?2 The triple alliance was primarily directed against France, but since France was not the aggressor in 1914 the Italians did not even feel themselves bound to support their allies and eventually joined the entente. The Sino-Soviet alliance of 1950 was directed against Japan and states allied with Japan. The treaty was concluded for thirty years, but it only took about ten before the alliance had in reality collapsed due to the increasingly bitter ideological quarrel between the Soviet Union and China. 33 The Warsaw Pact lasted longer, but from its inception in 1955 it was rather obvious that this was a Soviet-dominated treaty that most of the Eastern and Central European members would abandon as soon as the voting publics had any say in the matter. This chance finally came with the revolutions of 1989. The North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 on the other hand has now lasted almost fifty years, longer than any of the other alliances mentioned. Membership is also much broader than in these other alliances. Except for the French departure from the integrated military structure of NATO in 1966, no country has left NATO - while Greece, Thrkey, West Germany, and Spain have joined the organization. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are likely to join in 1999. Most other countries in Central and Eastern Europe are hoping to be admitted in later rounds of expansion, and there is talk about even neutrals Austria, Sweden, and Finland becoming future members. None of the other alliances mentioned even dreamed of consulting the general public. Popular support for NATO on the other hand has been strong in virtually all of the membership countries over the entire 40-50-year period. Thus, the success of NATO would indeed seem remarkable. The success of the Atlantic security system is also striking compared to the American alliance system in Asia. In Asia, nothing like NATO was possible; an elaborate system of alliances and bilateral treaties had to be created instead. Among these alliances, the Baghdad Pact was changed into CENTO after the Iraqi revolution of 1958, but even CENTO had to be dissolved after the 1979 revolution in Iran. SEATO, created in 1954, had to be phased out towards the end of the Vietnam War. In ANZUS, American security obligations towards New Zealand were suspended from 1986 to 1990 because of differences over nuclear policy. 1Wo perspectives from my own research can underline the close nature of American-European relations. The first is the concept of 'empire by invitation', the fact that in the first years after 1945 the concern of most Western European governments was that the United States would once again withdraw from Europe in the way it had done after the First World War. To avoid this, the Europeans 'invited' the Americans to stay. The invitations came in the form of requests first for economic assistance, then for political support and military guarantees, and finally for a strong American military presence in Europe tied to NATO and headed by a prominent American general. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first and the most prominent supreme allied

Introduction

7

commander, who in time of war would lead not only the American but also the European NATO troops. And in a non-military context, there has nearly always been a very strong European interest in many different expressions of American popular culture. 34 My second perspective refers to the difference between the American 'empire' and traditional empires. This difference is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the fact that while the traditional powers all pursued a policy of divide and rule within their empires, the United States promoted the integration of the most important area under its control- Western Europe. 35 As the 'father' of European integration, Jean Monnet, put it, the American insistence on European integration 'is the first time in history that a great power, instead of basing its policy on ruling by dividing, has consistently and resolutely backed the creation of a large Community uniting peoples previously apart'.36

THE CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE PRESENT VOLUME Most, but not all, of the contributors to this volume do indeed stress the cooperative aspect of the American-European relationship. In his introductory chapter, 'The Transatlantic Partnership: an Alliance for Peace and Progress', Hans-Dietrich Genscher, still very much the responsible German statesman even after he stepped down as foreign minister in 1992, leads off by exhorting Europe and the United States to continue working closely together. He argues that the United States should definitely stay in Europe even after the end of the Cold War. 'Never before in history have the chances for realizing the common European-American vision of a peaceful, stable, and democratic world order been so promising as today ... For Europe and America there is no alternative to a close transatlantic partnership, to an alliance for peace and progress.>37 In the first of five contributions dealing with the history of the AmericanEuropean relationship, Frank Costigliola argues in 'Culture, Emotion and the Creation of Atlantic Identity, 1948-1952' that an ~tlantic identity' was created 'from transatlantic contacts by ordinary citizens and transnational coalitions, as well as from the activities and public relations of NATO and the member governments'. He stresses the significance of culture and emotions, objects that are difficult to measure, but still of obvious importance in any relationship. Despite the power imbalance between the United States and Western Europe, NATO has stayed together, in part because of these emotional and cultural ties. 38 Klaus Schwabe in his contribution, ~tlantic Partnership and European Integration: American-European Policies and the German Problem, 19471966', emphasizes the basic complementarity of American and European

8

Geir Lundestad

goals as far as European integration was concerned. United States governments attached real importance to the notion of partnership, 'a notion that implied the principle of equality as well as a certain degree of voluntarism, that is, a measure of freedom of decision granted to every member of the alliance,.39 Pascaline Win and, also a participant in the symposium, has a similar view about the American attitude to European integration and argues that, at least in the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, there was 'a crossfertilization process among the views held by the members of a group that we might call ... the Euro-American intelligentsia for the uniting of Europe.'40 The overarching argument in Jussi M. Hanhimaki's 'Security and Identity: the Nordic Countries and the United States since 1945' is that 'throughout the Cold War there were far more common factors drawing the United States and Scandinavia together than pulling them apart'. He maintains that despite significant differences among the Scandinavian countries, there was basic agreement between them and the United States that the Soviet Union constituted a threat to their interests. With respect to identity, there were occasional years of tension - particularly between American Republicans and Scandinavian Social Democrats - but even here there was 'no major "cultural conflict" '.41 In his contribution, 'The Thoubled Friendship: France and the United States, 1945-1989', Pierre Melandri strikes a somewhat different chord. This was of course to be expected since the American-French relationship was indeed the most problematic of all the American-European ones. Yet, despite repeated French references to 'double threat' and 'twofold imperialism', in times of crisis the French clearly supported the Western side and even the American leadership. As de Gaulle himself told the American Congress, 'France, for its part, has chosen. It has chosen to be on the side of free peoples. It has chosen to be with yoU.'42 Alan P. Dobson in 'The USA, Britain, and the Question of Hegemony' uses a clearly different approach from that of the other contributors. He takes the broad cooperation between the United States and Britain for granted, and instead asks whether the United States played a hegemonic role vis-a.-vis Britain. His answer is clearly no, and in supporting this answer he shows how complex the reasons were for the cooperation and the conflicts between Britain and America. They were in fact much too complex to be fitted into any simple theory of 'hegemony,.43 In 'The United States and Western Europe: Dimensions of Cooperation and Competition', Werner Link discusses not only the present but also the past and the future. He contends that, while the United States has clearly played a dominant role in Western Europe, with the end of the Cold War and the rise of a more integrated Europe the American role should be redefined. Link sees Washington as ambivalent about a more independent role for

Introduction

9

Western Europe, and predicts that the American-European relationship will be one of 'cooperative competition' or a 'cooperative balance of power'. Still, he concludes that a more balanced relationship between the United States and Europe will 'probably foster transatlantic cooperation and partnership,.44 David P. Calleo in 'Western 1fansformation After the Cold War' sees the main line of division running not so much between the United States and Western Europe as between leaders on either side of the Atlantic and their publics. The end of the Cold War has led to dramatic changes. 'The external ambitions and expectations of Western elites have grown inflated,' he argues, 'while Western publics have grown indifferent to foreign policy and often hostile to the exertions it requires.' He contends that in America this inflated ambition led to plans for NATO enlargement, and in Europe to the conception of the Economic and Monetary Union. 45 Also in the analysis of the present, the clearest chord of dissonance is sounded by the British participant, Alex Danchev, in 'On Friendship: Anglo-American Relations at the Fin de Siecle'. A representative of the 'terminal' school of Anglo-American relations, Danchev argues that there is no longer a 'special' relationship between the United States and Britain. The special relationship depended on 'an easily identifiable adversary, a bogey, either individually or ideologically framed'. With the enemy gone, 'the problems of coordination have multiplied. The rules of the game have changed. The game itself has changed .... Special relationships are out.'46 In his provocative prediction for the future, 'The Future of America's Continental Commitment', John J. Mearsheimer concludes that historically the United States has intervened in Europe to counter the hegemony of a hostile power. After the Cold War, since 'there is no threat of a dominating great power on the horizon in Europe ... American troops are likely to leave Europe in the next decade'. This American withdrawal is bound to have serious consequences for the American-European relationship, although it is beyond Mearsheimer's task to specify what these consequences might be. 47 Mearsheimer's conclusions were questioned by virtually all the other participants at the symposium. A rather more positive outlook on both the future of NATO and the American commitment in Europe is presented by the editor in the Conclusion. Still, no one can state with any certainty what will happen in the future. Thus Mearsheimer's contribution represents a most stimulating analysis of what may, after all, come to pass. As I make explicit in the conclusion of this book, I hope that the present volume will be seen not only as a useful summing up of the current state of affairs in the American-Western European relationship, but also as at least a partial attempt to strike a new balance between the elements of cooperation and conflict in this relationship. Despite the seemingly endless series of crises, the striking fact is really the endurance and depth of American-European cooperation.

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Geir Lundestad

SOME WORDS OF THANKS The editor wishes to thank all those who have made this volume possible: the distinguished participants in the Nobel symposium, the Norwegian Nobel Committee under the chairmanship of Francis Sejersted, the Nobel Symposium Committee under Michael Sohlman, and the staff members at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, particularly head librarian Anne Cecilie Kjelling who did most of the proofreading and librarian Bj0ro Helge Feen who compiled a most useful list of relevant literature on American-European relations. I also want to thank Christine Frain for having prepared the index, Lynn Nygaard and Anne Rafique for their editorial assistance, and last, but certainly not least, I want to thank Heidi Storeheier for her excellent cooperation in transforming rather divergent manuscripts into a relatively coherent book.

NOTES 1. Geir Lundestad and Odd Arne Westad, eds, Beyond the Cold War: New Dimensions

in International Relations (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1993). 2. Geir Lundestad, The Fall of Great Powers. Peace, Stability, and Legitimacy (Oslo/ Oxford: Scandinavian University Press/Oxford University Press, 1994). 3. Odd Arne Westad, ed., The Fall of Detente. Soviet-American Relations during the Carter ~ars (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1997). 4. I am very grateful to Bj~m Helge Feen, librarian at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, for compiling the lists of books and articles on American-European conflict and cooperation. 5. Robert Art, 'The United States and the NATO Alliance: Managing the Unsolvable', in The 1980s: Decade of Confrontation? The Eighth National Security Conference 1981. Proceedings (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1981), pp. 157-87. 6. Richard Betts, NATO's Mid-Life Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute,

1989). 7. Eliot Cohen, 'The Long-Term Crisis of the Alliance', Foreign Affairs, 61 :2, 1982, pp. 325-43. 8. Lawrence Freedman, 'The Atlantic Crisis', International Affairs, 58:3, 1983, pp. 395-412. 9. Walter F. Hahn and Robert Pfaltzgraff, eds, Atlantic Community in Crisis: A Redefinition of the Transatlantic Relationship (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979). 10. Robert J. Jackson, Continuity of Discord: Crises and Responses in the Atlantic Community (New York: Praeger, 1985). 11. Josef Joffe, 'European-American Relations: the Enduring Crisis', Foreign Affairs, 59:4, 1980/81, pp. 835-51. 12. Karl Kaiser, 'Die Krise der europiiisch-amerikanischen Beziehungen', EuropaArchiv, 29:12, 1974, pp. 387-98.

Introduction

11

13. Robert Kleiman,Atlantic Crisis: America Confronts a Resurgent Europe (New York: Norton, 1964). 14. Hans Morgenthau, 'The Crisis of the Alliance' in Karl H. Cerny and Henry W. Briefs, eds, NATO in Quest of Cohesion (New York: Praeger, 1965), pp. 125-7. 15. John Palmer, Europe without America? The Crisis in Atlantic Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). 16. Elizabeth D. Sherwood,Allies in Crisis (New Haven, Cann.: Yale University Press, 1990). 17. Michael Smith, Western Europe and the United States: The Uncertain Alliance (London: Allen & Unwin, 1984). 18. Ronald Steel, The End of Alliance: America and the Future of Europe (London: Viking, 1964); Steel, 'NATO's Afterlife', The New Republic, 2 December 1991, pp. 18-19. 19. Henry Kissinger, The Troubled Partnership: A Re-appraisal of the Atlantic Alliance (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965); Kissinger, 'Something is Deeply Wrong in the Atlantic Alliance', The Washington Post, 21 December 1981, A21. 20. Richard M. Nixon, 'The Time to Save NATO', Atlantic Community Quarterly, 6, Winter 1968/69, pp. 479-84. 21. Senate Committee on Armed Services, NATO: Can the Alliance Be Saved?, Report of Senator Sam Nunn, 97th Congress, 2nd Session, 1982. 22. Jean Fran~is-Poncet, 'Europe and the United States: The Lessons of a Crisis', Atlantic Quarterly, 1:2, 1983, pp. 105-15. 23. Robert J. Schaetzel, The Unhinged Alliance: America and the European Community (New York: Harper & Row, 1975). 24. Paul-Henri Spaak, The Crisis of the Atlantic Alliance (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1967). 25. Gregory F. 'Ii'everton, Making the Alliance Work: The United States and Western Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985). 26. Beatrice Heuser, Transatlantic Relations: Sharing Ideals and Costs (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1996). 27. Geoffrey Williams, The Permanent Alliance: The European-American Partnership, 1945-1984 (Leyden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1977). 28. Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation among Democracies: The European Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). 29. Simon Serfaty, Stay the Course: European Unity and Atlantic Solidarity (New York: Praeger, 1997). 30. Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957). 31. The quotations are from A. W. Palmer,A Dictionary of Modem History 1789-1945 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 155. 32. The quotations are from A. J. P. Thylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 18481918 (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 278. Bismarck became a delegate to the assembly of the German Confederation in Frankfurt in 1851. 33. For the Sino-Soviet treaty, see for instance O. Edmund Clubb, China and Russia: The Great Game (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), pp. 383-4. 34. For my early article, see' "Empire" by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945-1952', Journal of Peace Research, 23, September 1986, pp. 263-77. For my later treatment of this, see The American 'Empire' and Other Studies of us Foreign Policy in a Comparative Perspective (Oxford/Oslo: Oxford University Press/ Scandinavian University Press, 1990), pp. 31-115, particularly pp. 54-62.

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Geir Lundestad

35. This is the argument of my forthcoming book 'Empire' by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945-1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 36. The quotation is from Fran~is Duchene, Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence (New York: Norton, 1994), p. 386. 37. See Hans-Dietrich Genscher's contribution in the present collection. 38. See Frank Costigliola's chapter in the present collection. 39. See Klaus Schwabe's chapter in the present collection. 40. Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the United States of Europe (London: Macmillan, 1993), pp. xiv-xv. 41. See Jussi Hanhimiiki's chapter in the present collection. 42. See Pierre Melandri's chapter in the present collection. 43. See Alan Dobson's contribution in the present volume. 44. See Werner Link's chapter in the present volume. 45. See David P. Calleo's chapter in the present volume. 46. See Alex Danchev's contribution in the present volume. For the different schools of interpretation on the question of Anglo-American relations, see John Baylis, Anglo-American Relations since 1939: The Enduring Alliance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), pp. 8-13. Baylis sees three main schools: the 'evangelical', the 'functional' and the 'terminal'. 47. See John J. Mearsheimer's contribution in the present volume.

2 The Transatlantic Partnership: an Alliance for Peace and Progress Hans-Dietrich Genscher

It has become a commonly expressed statement among political analysts after

the end of the Cold War that the transatlantic relationship between the United States and Europe has ceased to be self-evident. In fact, American engagement in Europe has always been anything but self-evident. The American decision in favor of a European engagement in the First World War was only a brief interlude. Mter the end of the First World War, the United States left Europe - with the well-known consequences. Mter the Second World War, however, the United States decided to stay in Europe and participated in the reconstruction of Germany and the rest of Europe. No one had expressed the philosophy behind this decision so clearly as the then American Secretary of State James Byrnes in his famous Stuttgart speech of 6 September 1946, the 50th anniversary of which we celebrated recently: 'We have learned, whether we like it or not, that we live in one world, from which world we cannot isolate ourselves. We have learned that peace and well-being are indivisible and that our peace and well-being cannot be purchased at the price of the peace or the well-being of any other country.' Less than a year later, on 5 June 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall in his famous commencement address at Harvard confirmed America's determination to aid Europe's recovery, restore the world economy, and nurture free institutions in Europe and all over the world. That was the clear signal that the United States had abandoned its traditional policy of isolation. The new American approach towards Europe was not only demonstrated by America's generous assistance to the reconstruction of Germany and the rest of Europe, but also by the founding of NATO as a reaction to the Soviet threat. From its very beginning NATO was more than a military alliance; it was, and is, a community of values based on respect for democracy and human dignity. The transatlantic community of values and the strategy of the alliance - defined in the Harmel Report on the alliance in 1967 as to maintain the alliance's defense capabilities and to offer a comprehensive dialogue with the East - became essential preconditions for peaceful change in Europe after 1989. Without the support of the United States, German unity and the end of the division of Europe would not have been possible.

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Today, now that the military threat from the East has disappeared, many observers on both sides of the Atlantic are questioning the future of the transatlantic partnership. Should the United States leave Europe as it did after the First World War? Or should it stay - as it did after the Second World War? The answer to this question can only be: yes, it should stay. The ideals of democracy and human rights won the Cold War. However, more than seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are still far from a lasting, just and stable peace order for the whole of Europe, as well as far from a cooperative and stable world order. The preparation and implementation of the Dayton peace accord was only the most striking proof that also after the end of the Cold War American engagement is indispensable for security and stability in Europe. Furthermore, new global threats to security and stability have emerged. Organized crime and terrorism, hunger and poverty, uncontrolled mass migration, the proliferation of means of mass destruction, ecological threats - all states are affected by these developments. And no state - not even a superpower like the USA - can deal with these challenges alone. Nor can one state establish on its own a stable world economic system that would safeguard employment and social justice. It would be a fatal mistake to believe that even one of the global challenges could be dealt with by a unilateral course of action. Therefore, the strengthening and deepening of the transatlantic partnership between Europe and the United States is an imperative dictated by political reason. Europe and the United States are natural partners - by history, by culture, by their moral convictions and values, and by their common interests. It is our joint responsibility to build a renewed transatlantic community, in which an undivided and peaceful Europe will be an equal partner. In this spirit, Europe and the United States already in 1990 - immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall - adopted the 'frans-Atlantic Declaration, in which both sides agreed to continue and deepen transatlantic cooperation. The conclusion of the 'New Trans-Atlantic Agenda' and the agreement on a joint action plan in December 1995 in Madrid was the next major step forward on this path. The action plan dictates comprehensive cooperation and more joint action in many important areas. It is my deep conviction, however, that in the long run we have to go beyond declarations. In an increasingly complex international environment, the transatlantic partnership needs a solid foundation. I advocate the conclusion of a transatlantic treaty between the EU, the United States, and Canada. Such a treaty would prepare the ground for a comprehensive alliance for peace and progress. It would have to define common European-American interests and goals, as well as mechanisms of cooperation in the fields of politics, economics and culture. Since its foundation in 1949, the Atlantic alliance was the core of the transatlantic partnership and - together with the EU - the main anchor of

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stability for the whole of Europe. In the future, the alliance will only be able to fulfill this task if it adapts to the new political landscape; the fundamental changes in the political and strategic environment that occurred in 1989 when the Cold War ended have forced NATO to develop new instruments to cope with the new risks to security in Europe. NATO's participation in the implementation of the Dayton agreements was a first important step forward on the way to a new NATO. At the same time, we Europeans have the opportunity to assume a greater responsibility within the framework of NATO. The decisions made by the NATO Councils in Berlin and Brussels in 1996 on the creation of Combined Joint Task Forces, the establishment of a European defense identity within NATO, and an appropriate distribution of tasks between NATO and the WEU are important steps forward in the NATO reform process. Any reform of NATO, however, has to be judged on the basis of whether or not it enhances cohesion within the alliance and its capacity to act. The second main challenge for NATO after the end of the Cold War is to shape its future relationship with the Central, Southeastern, and Eastern European countries in the framework of a just and stable peace order for the whole of Europe - as already required by the Harmel Report of 1967. The main features of such a stability order were already mapped out in the 1990 Paris Charter for a new Europe: democracy, the respect for human rights, market economy and social justice, and undivided security for all countries 'from Vancouver to Vladivostok', including the right of every country in Europe to decide on its membership in a defense alliance. The creation of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1990 and the 'Partnership for Peace' program, which started in 1994, were important steps towards an ever closer cooperation with the countries of the former Warsaw Pact and the establishment of a zone of stability from Vancouver to Vladivostok. Today, three months before the NATO summit in Madrid, the talks on a new security architecture for the whole of Europe including Russia, the Ukraine, and the other successor states of the former Soviet Union have entered a decisive phase. After the Russian-American summit in Helsinki we now have the chance to build a comprehensive partnership with Russia on the basis of a broad, not exclusively military, understanding of security and stability. Lasting security and stability in the area from Vancouver to Vladivostok can only be achieved in cooperation with Russia. Therefore a NATORussia consultation mechanism is required, in which Russia can participate on an equal footing. At the same time, the alliance has to pursue an intensive dialogue with the Ukraine and the other successor states of the former Soviet Union regarding their place in the new European stability order. All states in Europe regardless of their size must participate in the establishment of the new stability order. In a new Euro-Atlantic community there should be neither 'forgotten states' nor bilateral agreements at the expense of

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third countries. I am deeply convinced that if in the coming months we reach an understanding on the basic structures of a security architecture for the whole of Europe, the question of new members in the alliance will become less divisive. With a view to a viable Pan-European stability order, a strengthening of the OSCE is of paramount importance. The OSCE remains the only EuropeanAtlantic institution that includes the successor states of the former Soviet Union as well as the Northern American democracies. Unfortunately, the opportunities offered by the OSCE have not been sufficiently exploited following the revolutionary changes in 1989. The OSCE's institutions and its possibilities for action both need to be strengthened, in particular with regard to crisis prevention and crisis management. After the end of the Cold War, the importance of military factors have decreased significantly. It would thus be a mistake to limit a common EuroAtlantic 'Ostpolitik' to security policy issues. Stability in Europe requires above all stable democracies and prospering market economies in Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe. Both Europeans and Americans should together tackle the challenge of contributing to the difficult transformation process in these countries. But we Europeans have a particular responsibility for the peaceful unification of our continent, one which only we can assume. Europe has to play its role. In this spirit, the European Union has concluded agreements on association with the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe, opening the prospect of full membership to these countries. Now the status of these countries needs to be clarified; the EU should in particular agree on a date for starting negotiations on accession with all associated countries by 1 January 1998. It would be a grievous error to believe that the EU could further delay its expansion while the opening of NATO is progressing rapidly. At the same time, the EU should deepen cooperation with Russia, the Ukraine and the other successor states of the former Soviet Union based on existing agreements on partnership and cooperation. This cooperation should include a comprehensive political dialogue and an ever closer economic cooperation, as well as the prospect of a pan-European free-trade zone. A close partnership with Russia, the Ukraine, and the other successor states of the Soviet Union also requires the full-fledged membership of Russia in the G7, which should become the G8. The more Russia, the Ukraine, and the other successor states of the former Soviet Union are integrated into a panEuropean infrastructure, the easier their integration into the world economy will be. The immense project of a pan-European infrastructure in the areas of energy, communication, and transportation represents a challenge that can only be met by joint efforts on the part of both the United States and the European Union.

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The famous German industrialist and foreign minister of the Weimar Republic, Walter Rathenau, once pointed out that 'the economy is our fate'. Indeed, the world of the twenty-first century and future transatlantic relations will be determined to an ever greater extent by the development of economy and technology - and less and less by military factors. Today, Europe and the USA do most of their trade with one another: 60 percent of all EU foreign investment is made in the United States. About 50 percent of US foreign investment goes into the EU. However, the potential of this transatlantic economic area is still far from being fully exploited. A real transatlantic market, including EU and NAFfA, would offer tremendous opportunities for all participants. On both sides of the Atlantic we need to further reduce tariffs and remove obstacles to trade and investment such as production standards and market access regulations. In the long run, the establishment of a transatlantic free-trade association will be necessary. The further deepening of transatlantic economic relations should not, however, lead to new forms of protectionism. In an era of globalization, any attempt to erect a 'fortress Europe' or a 'fortress America' would be doomed to failure. Therefore, the EU and the USA have to assume responsibility for the establishment of a just, non-protectionist world trade system. The transatlantic economic area must become a model for an open regionalism; it must be the driving force for a further liberalization of world trade. Finally, greater European-American cooperation is required with regard to regional conflicts and new global challenges. The United States is the last remaining superpower; on the other hand, it is not in a position to singlehandedly solve any of the great problems lying ahead of us. In all global issues, Europe and America have common interests that exceed those they share with other partners. The United States and the EU will be able to assume their joint responsibility for a peaceful and stable world order only through more cooperation. Maintaining the transatlantic partnership will also in the future require continual efforts from both sides of the Atlantic. After the end of the Cold War, the younger generations on both sides of the Atlantic are less aware of the vital importance of the transatlantic relationship. We therefore need a broader and deeper dialogue at all levels between both sides of the Atlantic, a dialogue that includes parliamentarians, representatives of the business communities, scientists, artists, and students. Never before in history have the chances for realizing the common European-American vision of a peaceful, stable, and democratic world order been so promising as today. On the threshold of the twenty-first century, Europe and the United States are not at the 'end of history'. On the contrary, Europeans and Americans are facing new challenges to which we have to find truly innovative answers. For Europe and America there is no alternative to a close transatlantic partnership, to an alliance for peace and progress.

Part II The Past

3 Culture, Emotion, and the Creation of the Atlantic Identity, 1948-1952 Frank Costigliola

In the past half century, ties of culture and emotion have bolstered the Western alliance by fostering among individuals and governments in the member states a conceptualization of the alliance as moral, necessary, and natural. Culture is here defined as a shared model of national or transnational identity. By emotion, I mean a range of feelings: more important than the sentimentality of 'hands across the sea', there were feelings of fellowship produced by participation in NATO councils and military maneuvers, fear of the Soviets that was channeled into fervor for the alliance, and emotions that were usually not acknowledged as such, that is, the conventionally masculine feelings associated with bravery and resolve and expressed in 'tough' talk and actions. Just as NATO's troops and tanks created a military organization, so too did the language, ceremony, and fellowship of the alliance create an organization of identity in an otherwise confusing world. At the same time that NATO helped institutionalize the estrangement between East and West, the alliance also encouraged individuals and governments to identify themselves as participants in a vigorous and virtuous Atlantic union. The Western alliance and the Cold War enabled ordinary people and governmental officials to feel linked to a larger order that added serious meaning to events and to their lives and that offered a clear, though often difficult, direction for governmental policies. THE CREATION OF AN ATLANTIC IDENTITY The Western alliance, with NATO as its institutional foundation, helped create an Atlantic identity, an identity that arose from transatlantic contacts by ordinary citizens and transnational coalitions, as well as from the activities and public relations of NATO and the member governments. By identity, I mean the images - often symbolic and inflected with emotion - through which individuals, groups, or nations see themselves and want others to see them. These images are constituted in large part by norms, which are collective expectations about the appropriate behavior of a given identity.1 A shift in norms, such as that which NATO helped bring about in the first years of the

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alliance, can change how individuals and governments conceptualize their respective nations' interests. Therefore, although conceptions of national interest and national identity involve rational evaluation of political, economic, and military considerations, these conceptions are also conditioned by emotional symbols, memories, and personal experiences. This essay focuses on the critical juncture of 1948-52, when Western leaders took advantage of war scares and the Korean War to militarize their responses to the Cold War and to institutionalize the Western alliance. In this time of crisis, emotional rhetoric and ceremony helped shape an Atlantic identity among Americans and Europeans and helped infuse that identity with moral certitude. By portraying the Soviet Union as a 'monstrous machine' with which the West could not negotiate, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin helped mobilize emotional support for a Western alliance. Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) Dwight D. Eisenhower used emotion to emphasize common values and common identity, seeking to blur the alliance's political difficulties, particularly American resentment of insufficient European effort and European fear of American hegemony. Although I refer to 'Atlantic identity', I do not suggest that almost everyone in every NATO country held the same conceptions about transatlantic relations. Nor do I mean that the different manifestations of Atlantic identity replaced pre-existing national identities. Rather, for people in the member nations, various forms of Atlantic identity supplemented - and sometimes conflicted with - other identities based on their citizenship, class, occupation, gender, political party, and religion. Although conceptions of Atlantic identity differed, they centered on an exaggerated sense of sameness - in particular a democratic heritage ostensibly common to Portugal and Thrkey as well as to Britain and France - and a magnified sense of difference from the Soviet bloc. One of the most significant achievements of NATO was that, for most people, the alliance became an aspect of ordinary, 'domestic' existence. The alliance furnished feelings of security: familiar friends and everyday insurance against the Soviets; an assuring ritual of regular meetings, military maneuvers, and other earnest activities; and ceremony and ideology that generated feelings of allegiance and belonging to a quasi-national collectivity. In effect, NATO became a kind of nation. Nationalism, much like religion, inspires intense allegiance in part because it appeals to the mortal individual's yearning for meaning and continuity in life. After European nationalism had led to ruin in the Second World War, many Western Europeans found an appealing alternative in the transnational political authority of NATO (and of uniting Europe). Aside from Gaullist France and Iceland for a short while, member nations found the question of participation in the alliance becoming a nonissue in mainstream politics, just as national identity is for most citizens a given rather than a conscious decision. Working within NATO became the norm, the appropriate behavior of member states.

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Within the NATO organization, Atlantic identity was formed primarily through meaningful communication. While the alliance never fought against the Soviet Union, its members talked and wrote about 'Western unity', about 'common values', and about the 'Soviet threat'. Even much of the daily work that bonded Americans and Europeans together amounted to linguistic, symbolic action: setting and measuring military force goals, choosing weapons, planning maneuvers, advancing public awareness, theorizing the latest nuclear strategy, assessing the newest version of the 'Soviet threat', forever 'improving' consultation, sharing the details of all these matters, and staging impressive meetings. NATO's fixed cycle of foreign minister and summit meetings should be understood as ceremonial as well as political. The meetings have constituted a ritual reaffirmation of the fundamental moral superiority and political and military importance of the alliance. The speeches, reports, and personal conversations have furnished an opportunity to reinforce norms of behavior in the alliance, to coordinate policy, and to agree on how to update the meaning of the alliance in keeping with changing military technology and other global developments. At a personal level, NATO meetings have offered emotional uplift through fellowship and through the ritual of joining together against the reaffirmed Soviet threat. Such cultural activity strengthened Atlantic identity. Part of the appeal of Atlantic identity has come from the alliance's status as a voluntary club, a form of organization very different from that of the Soviet bloc. There have also been the positive connotations associated with 'the allies', a phrase that invokes memories of the morally unambiguous war against Nazism and that suggests democratic teamwork among nations with diverse security perspectives. Although membership in NATO has largely been voluntary and sparked by fear of the Soviets, the cohesion of the alliance has also resulted from political acculturation. We can see this process of political acculturation at work in Iceland, where even advocates of NATO membership worried about losing their nation's political and cultural autonomy. In 1952, Edward Lawson, the US minister to Reykjavik, reported that Bjarni Benediktsson, the 'usually unemotional, expressionless and quiet-spoken' foreign minister, had just returned from the NATO meeting at Lisbon full of 'enthusiasm'. Lawson noted that 'with every meeting [the foreign minister] is becoming more and more conscious of the aims of NATO and [of] Iceland's responsibilities'. Benediktsson himself related the process by which participation in NATO became the norm: 'Each time [I] take with [me] to a [NATO] conference another member of the Cabinet, that member becomes somewhat more embued [sic] with the spirit and purpose of NATO.' Participating in the NATO club could be a heady experience, particularly for officials from small nations, who thereby gained an opportunity to associate on a nominally equal basis with some of the most

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powerful leaders in the world. Benediktsson pointed out the linkage between emotional bonding and political persuasion when he declared, in front of the British minister, that 'Secretary Acheson was the greatest statesman of the day ... whose manner was so convincing that all who heard him felt that "what he said was absolutely right and the thing to do".' Other foreign ministers shared this assessment, he added, especially Halvard Lange of Norway? Acheson's status as what Benediktsson called 'always the acknowledged leader' at NATO meetings stemmed from more than Acheson's personality and his nation's material superiority. From the late 1940s to at least the mid1960s, the United States exercised in Europe, in addition to its other powers, authoritative knowledge. The Americans commanded the panoramic view of the Soviet threat in Berlin, Cuba, and elsewhere, as well as the latest expertise in weapons technology and deterrence theory. On the basis of such authority, Americans usually could avoid obtrusive dominance and yet still set the terms by which issues confronting the alliance were conceived, framed, and debated - and thereby often, but not always, predetermine the broad outcome of NATO's councils. 'These [NATO] meetings', Dwight Eisenhower observed to the US secretary of defense, offered a 'means by which our ideas and our leadership can be exerted among other nations'? European officials who participated in such meetings were later able to weigh into their respective domestic debates armed with authority as to what were the ostensibly responsible and modern policies for that particular stage of the Cold War. Benediktsson's mention of the 'spirit of NATO' indicates another cultural component of the alliance. The recurring references by officials and scholars to 'the NATO spirit', the 'NATO family', 'the club', 'the NATO method' of decision making, and to 'NATO theology' stem from a sense that what has held the alliance together amounts to more than shared political beliefs and a fear of the Soviet Union. There have also developed emotional bonds involving kinship, friendship, and association with things sacred. The term 'NATO theology', however, also hints at irony and selfparody. Ambivalence about NATO and ambiguity about its status have always warred with efforts to strengthen and re-consecrate the alliance. In the eyes of NATO's supporters and analysts, the alliance continually appears to be in crisis, in disarray, about to 'unravel', and in need of renewed commitment. The very articulation of such concerns, however, has also provided authoritative commentators the opportunity to reaffirm the indispensability of the alliance in the minds of the public. Although NATO is forever falling short of its goals for force levels or for unity, this very deficiency gives the alliance a continuing claim to resources and attention.

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In creating the Western alliance as a meaningful, necessary transnational authority, such leaders as Ernest Bevin, Dean Acheson, and Dwight Eisenhower exaggerated the Soviet threat in order to overcome the ambivalence, fear, and narrow nationalism of member nations. Even as these leaders created a military structure for NATO, they also built up an emotional structure of 'spirit' and 'morale'. Although such concepts as spirit and morale are slippery to grasp, they need to be examined in order to understand the role of emotion in the formation of Atlantic identity. To illustrate how emotion underlay many ostensibly rational arguments of policy, my analysis focuses on the war scares of March 1948 and of 1950-52. At both times, key leaders tried to mobilize fear of Soviet attack into sentiment for Atlantic identity and political-military unity. Although foreign policy almost always involves some emotionality, stressing spirit and morale meant infusing more emotion into rational decision making. For Eisenhower, emphasizing what he called 'the heart' offered a way to get around the barriers of business-as-usual, national politics while furthering long-term Atlantic identity. Similarly, by stressing 'spirit', Eisenhower in 1951 and Bevin in 1948 tried to exalt the coming together of the West and thereby transcend political and economic barriers. They both promoted the belief that there was an unbridgeable difference between the Soviet Union and the West and a fundamental sameness among the Western nations. Although this difference from the Soviet Union and this sameness among Western nations were real and were important, they were also exaggerated into near absolutes by advocates of NATO. The belief about such difference and sameness was promoted by top officials in the Truman administration and in the Attlee government, who had concluded that forging a transatlantic alliance was a safer and more attractive prospect than working out a possible deal with the Soviets. With growing American influence in Western Europe, the Soviets consolidated their control in Czechoslovakia in February 1948. Similarly, Stalin's approval of the North Korean invasion of South Korea stemmed in part from concern about the prospect of long-term US influence in Japan. Neither the move in Czechoslovakia nor that in Korea was the first stage in a Soviet military assault on the West. Yet top American and British officials, who soon understood the limited nature of these communist advances, emphasized a broad threat, largely because they wanted to use the resulting fears as leverage - in 1948 to pass the Marshall Plan and establish the Western Union, and in 1950-52 to implement NSC 68 and rearm Western Europe including West Germany. During these war scares, as in other Cold War crises, emotion-laden language, often in the form of 'tough talk' or 'realism', proved useful in dehumanizing the enemy, oversimplifying complex events, and applying the impetus and motivation arising from an exaggerated communist threat to the task of building up the Western alliance.

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LANGUAGE AND ATLANTIC IDENTITY

Language is neither value-free nor transparent. Language is not just a vehicle through which pre-existing 'ideas' 'get across'. How we express things matters: there is a difference, for example, between talking about a policy of 'remaining uninvolved in the Cold War' and describing that policy, to quote a top Marshall Plan administrator, as 'spineless and morally bankrupt "neutrality",.4 The language of the alliance helped establish Atlantic identity with an interpretive framework that sanctified 'Western unity' and that delegitimized most Soviet overtures as ruses to undermine that unity. The language with which we characterize a concept or a policy shapes our understanding and feelings about that concept or policy, often without our being completely cognizant of the process. This argument does not advocate a linguistic determinism in that it does not maintain that language is the sole cause of an attitude or event. Rather, I am noting that figures of speech clarify - and thereby often oversimplify - the meanings of relationships and events that are otherwise complex, contradictory, and confusing.5 In a series of Cabinet Papers written in 1948, Bevin inflected his political analysis with emotion-provoking hyperbole. 6 He described the communist threat with tropes that played on general fears of being washed away, of losing control, solidity, and vitality. He warned of 'the further encroachment of the Soviet tide', of being 'swamped', lost in 'this quickly moving stream of events', and succumbing to 'economic chaos' or 'decay'? Along with this fear of being swept away was anxiety about losing the ability to move and act: the Soviets' 'main objective was to demobilise or immobilise the rest of the world,.8 In arguing for what would become the Brussels Pact, Bevin tried to close off other options: 'there is only one conclusion to draw.'9 He asserted that the British government had tried 'appeasement' - an emotion-provoking word that meant Britain had already tried too much. He portrayed the Soviet government as insatiable: ... actively preparing to extend its hold over the remaining part of continental Europe, and, subsequently, over the Middle East and no doubt the bulk of the Far East as well. In other words, physical control of the Eurasian land mass and eventual control of the whole World Island is what the Politburo is aiming at - not less a thing than that. lO Bevin's use of the amplifiers 'no doubt' and 'not less a thing than that' indicate that he may have felt that such a horrifying scenario indeed needed some rhetorical boosts to be convincing. He continued to exaggerate and dehumanize the threat of communism and the Soviet Union. Referring to upcoming elections in Italy, he warned that

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unless positive and vigorous steps are shortly taken it may well be that within the next few months or even weeks the Soviet Union will gain political and strategical advantages which will set the great Communist machine in action leading either to the establishment of a World Dictatorship or (more probably) to the collapse of organised society over great stretches of the globe. l l In this last sentence, Bevin expanded the danger from a communist victory in the Italian elections to a global Soviet threat, and then to a menace by a mechanical force: a 'great', non-human 'machine' with which one could not even hope to negotiate. How could the British, the Western allies, or any humans stop such a machine? Bevin heightened the menacing imagery of the threat with the phrase 'World Dictatorship', the capital letters signaling that this non-human machine could indeed produce a political state. The final phrase in Bevin's horror fantasy - 'the collapse of organised society over great stretches of the globe' - demonstrated on one level a break or strain in Bevin's logic: how could the 'great communist machine' produce such a collapse? Perhaps communist election victories or Soviet pressures could trigger civil wars, but that was not what Bevin wrote. If we shift our focus, however, from considering the communist threat per se to considering the problem of building the Western alliance, a logic does emerge from the bogey of a communist machine capable of producing either a suffocating world order or the collapse of all order. What Bevin wanted to promote was the moderate national order of parliamentary democracies, such as Britain, and the moderate international order of like-minded states banding together. What Bevin saw as threatening was not just Soviet-style communist parties, but also what he and other Western leaders saw as a collapse in confidence and direction in their own postwar societies - an apparent collapse of national focus and discipline. Such anxiety about losing control may account for Bevin's metaphors about drift, flood, and paralysis. With the hindsight of a half-century, we can see that perhaps the anxiety was misplaced. In giving a Cold War orientation to Western Europe, Bevin, Georges Bidault, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, and other architects of the Western alliance closed off other options that might have enabled the development of a more multi-focused Europe, less dominated by military-oriented hierarchies, more hospitable to economic and social experimentation, and more able to reach an acceptable, non-humiliating accommodation with the Soviet Union. After painting this frightening image of the communist threat, Bevin set it aside - still visible as an impetus to action, but no longer the main focus of his attention, which was promoting a Western alliance. Bevin now emphasized that it was completely within the power of the Western nations to avoid war and to put the communist threat - what he had earlier magnified into 'the

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great Communist machine' - 'on to the defensive ... for many years'P This achievement required two conditions: 'if the upholders of true democracy and opponents of dictatorship can present a really united front and if the necessary economic means are made available.' After stating these requirements, Bevin repeated that 'the only danger of war arises from the non-fulfilment of these two conditions'. Making the point yet again, he stated: 'on these two "ifs", however, everything depends.'13 Having exaggerated the Soviet threat so as to mobilize action for building up the alliance, Bevin thrice signaled readers as to his crucial shift in rhetoric and political agenda. Although the 'economic means' condition depended on the proposed Marshall Plan, the requirement of 'a really united front ... depends very largely on ourselves', Bevin asserted. While working to build an alliance based on democratic governance, Bevin warned that too much democracy and discussion in Britain could 'have terrible results'. He posited a psychological and political domino effect. If Britain pursued multiple policies, approached the Cold War more cautiously, or maintained pluralistic opinions - options that he dismissed as 'irresolution and divided counsels' - continental Europe would lose its 'will to resist'.14 By this point in Bevin's argument, the chief danger had shifted from communist aggression to Western inaction or division. Although Bevin in his listed 'recommendations' to the Cabinet easily outlined the first item on his agenda - securing what would become the Brussels treaty - he found more difficulty in specifying a plan of action for achieving his second goal: the general 'defence of western civilisation'. While Bevin could state his plan for getting the Brussels pact in a straightforward sentence in the active voice, he had to resort to a convoluted sentence in the passive voice to express his second recommendation: 'the whole problem of the coordination of efforts for the cultural, social, economic and financial revival and development of the west and for the defence of western civilisation ... should be proceeded with at once.' How to proceed with this 'whole problem' he could not detail, except again to acknowledge that the issue 'is not so much that of Communism' but rather that of promoting parliamentary government. IS In terms of political and economic considerations, 'consolidating' the West was a thorny proposition, particularly given Britain's opposition to the kind of integration that many Americans hoped to achieve through the Marshall Plan. However, Bevin believed that emotional appeals to a common morality and identity in the form of his call for 'spiritual union of the West' and uniting 'ethical and spiritual forces' against evil communism could promote unity while still preserving British autonomy. In this mode of discourse, Bevin could even entertain the fancy that Labourite Britain, opposed to both communism and 'the inefficiency, social injustice and moral weakness' of American-style capitalism, could become an ideological 'Third Force ... [with] London the

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Mecca for Social Democrats,.16 Such ambitions did not get far, however, especially with Bevin's addendum that 'we must not attack or appear to be attacking ... the United States'. While Bevin's appeal for 'spiritual union' helped mobilize emotions and emphasize the importance of a common Western culture and identity, the actual realization of Western or at least Atlantic unity had to await the creation of NATO. NATO was constructed not only with men and equipment, but also with emotion and cultural identification. Americans conceptualized an integrated military force as the means to further Atlantic identity and to provide 'meaning and order and a feeling of security to the life of every citizen' among the alliesP Eisenhower and others building the alliance used emotional appeals to heighten the stakes involved by portraying the enemy as an inhuman foe. Eisenhower employed emotional language to create a sense of common Atlantic identity to help blur the disparities in the allies' military strength and in their commitment to NATO.

EISENHOWER, LANGUAGE, AND ATLANTIC IDENTITY Leaving Washington on 6 January 1951, the newly appointed SACEUR embarked on a 20-day inspection and morale-boosting tour of every NATO capital. After reporting to President Harry S. Truman and to the US Congress, he returned to Europe and served as SACEUR until 1 June 1952. 18 Eisenhower invested the SACEUR position with his personal prestige as a liberator of Western Europe and as a likely president of the United States. Hoping to utilize this aura, US officials tried to manage publicity in Europe 'so that maximum psychological impact is obtained,.19 While arranging this publicity blitz, US officials also tried - in a pattern that would recur throughout NATO's history - to deflect accusations that they were, in fact, masterminding affairs. Washington warned officials in charge of the publicity to try to 'stress [the] NATO concept as against sole American management'.20 Eisenhower became SACEUR with a sense of near apocalypse, confiding to a close friend that building up NATO was 'the last remaining chance for the survival of Western civilization'.21 Himself motivated by an emotional commitment to NATO, Eisenhower helped employ emotion - as well as rational argument - to motivate others. Emphasizing to Truman and the Cabinet the importance of delivering military equipment to the allies, Eisenhower asserted that 'the difference here is whether our civilization goes up or down'.z2 Such repeated references to Western civilization had the effect of linking the new transnational authority of NATO to hallowed values supposedly shared by all members. Considering Western civilization to be at risk imparted extraordinary importance to Eisenhower's task. Believing that the stakes were high, Eisenhower acted with a fervor that fit his conceptualization of SACEUR as a salesman/preacher, a venerable American type. 'Our

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problem', he explained 'is one of selling and inspiring.'23 Eisenhower approached the Cold War, and the consequent necessity for NATO, with a clarifying logic based on rigid faith. His first premise, he told Harry Thuman, was that the Cold War would persist until either one side was destroyed or the communists gave up their attempt 'to conquer the free world'. Such abandoning of world conquest, he emphasized, 'they will never do except to gain time,.24 When Eisenhower wanted to argue that there was no alternative to building up the Western alliance, he, like Bevin in the 1948 Cabinet Papers, portrayed the Soviet threat as an inhuman force that lacked a human agent with whom one could negotiate: We, as Americans, face a deadly danger for a very simple reason. Communism, both ruthless in purpose and insidious as to method, is using the traditional Imperialistic designs of Russia and the present physical strength of Asia and Eastern Europe to promote the Communistic objective of world revolution and subsequent domination of all the earth by the Communist Party, centering in MoSCOW. 25 This emotion-provoking warning escalated the danger from that of specific countries and their ideologies to an unlimited, spectral horror. When Eisenhower, however, after his quick tour of the NATO capitals, wanted to reassure Truman and the Cabinet that the relatively small military forces planned for NATO were adequate because the Soviets did not intend a war against nuclear-armed America - a central belief for him - he used language that described recognizable human beings: 'I personally think those guys in the Kremlin like their jobs. They can't see their way through to winning a war now and I don't think they'll start one. They know they'll lose their jobs, or their necks, if they start something they can't win.'26 When portrayed as human beings, 'those guys in the Kremlin' represented a challenge that was, on the level of gender, a competition among men. Eisenhower raised the emotionality attached to the Cold War and the Western alliance by using language that evoked questions of sufficient or deficient masculinity. He found Western Europe no longer 'healthy, strong, and virile'.27 Associating neutralism with mental, moral, and physical depletion, he worried about a 'bewildered, defeated, neutralistic attitude' among the Europeans. 28 Privately critical of Truman's leadership, Eisenhower concluded that 'unworthy men' held or were fighting for leadership in 'London, Washington, and Paris,?9 Eisenhower expressed his conceptual linkage between vitality, virility, morality, and rearmament in a 'desperate wish that there could be now established ... in the free world new, young, & virile civil and military leaders devoted only to their respective countries, to decency and to security'?O The fervent tone of this 'wish' suggests how the force of emotion could forge links between personal and political concerns.

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Representing the buildup of NATO in terms of revitalization and remasculinization helped emotionalize these political issues. Significantly, the increase of NATO forces after 1950 involved actions and emotions that did tend to reinforce conventional masculine pride: continuous, focused steps that mobilized bravery, resolve, and sacrifice and that valorized rigorous training and hard steel. Eisenhower invested his extraordinary prestige - that is, his charismatic authority - in mobilizing emotions in the buildup of NATO. Eisenhower became SACEUR as the representative of the superior power, including atomic power, of the United States. He was the successful general who had liberated the West from the previous totalitarian threat; he was the 'peace' general who served as president of a major university; and he was the man who would likely become the next leader of the world's most powerful nation. As the Luxembourger Wort put it, even before becoming SACEUR, Eisenhower had become 'a legendary figure,.31 The Icelandic prime minister pronounced Eisenhower 'the ideal man' for SACEUR; the foreign minister declared that Eisenhower's 'spirit burned with a clear flame'; the Norwegian prime minister found him 'gifted in every respect,.32 Although the rhetoric bestowed upon visiting dignitaries is often exaggerated, the particular metaphors used to describe Eisenhower are instructive. He appeared as a mythic figure, associated with light. 'He is first of all a radiant personality', Le Soir reported. 33 The attitude of Europeans toward Eisenhower 'amounted to worship', one observer noted. 34 Truman also made metaphoric reference to the more-than-human when discussing Eisenhower's 'herculean mission' and his battling 'problems [that] began with the Creation,.35 Eisenhower's show of personal modesty and openness enhanced his appeal. La Nation Beige praised this 'vanquisher of our fears .... an accessible, smiling and open man' - and contrasted him to Stalin, 'a mysterious man, uncommunicative ... of whom we know nothing'. 36 NATO authorities tried to exalt other alliance functions as well. The three experts making recommendations for improving the alliance's organization were dubbed the 'Wise Men'. Picking up on the religious connotation, Eisenhower thought that the Wise Men should launch a 'crusade' to raise morale?7 But the effort to elevate the alliance could descend easily to self-parody. Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower noted that 'we are hurling the adjective "Supreme" around rather carelessly these days ... Soon we'll have to use "Colossal Supreme".'38 A strong believer in the value of psychological warfare, Eisenhower employed psychological persuasion to launch an alliance that has always been a psychological construct as well as a military force. In a private letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, Eisenhower 'simply had to say that NATO needs an eloquent and inspired Moses as much as it needs planes, tanks, guns and ships. He must be civilian and he must be legion - he must

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speak to each of the countries, every day of every year - he must be the product of American leadership.'39 On one level, Eisenhower was referring to the importance of an American SACEUR. Yet this 'Moses' was also a mythic figure: 'legion' and able to speak everywhere, every day. In effect, Eisenhower was stressing the need for transatlantic, charismatic leadership. Such leadership would inspire Western Europeans to assume responsibility for their defense, and it would further Atlantic identity by encouraging populations to 'understand how important NATO is to all of US'.40 Eisenhower argued that the building of NATO required, above all, morale. He saw his function as infusing Europeans with enough morale so that even with reduced US support they would continue to invest in their economies and military structures, oppose domestic communists and the Soviet Union, develop Atlantic identity, and cooperate with the United States and with each other. With sufficient morale, the Western alliance would in effect become a machine that would run by itself, and in that sense become a viable transnational political authority. Eisenhower drew an analogy between morale and 'the highest possible head of steam', that is, an impetus that could be channeled without being impeded by thought or hesitation. 41 He defined morale as a combination of 'imagination, faith and energy,.42 In other words, morale involved the creation, through 'imagination', of new or reinvigorated political meaning, meaning that was effective because it was believed through 'faith' and with the 'energy' of political will. In addition to these positive forces, morale also involved the 'hates' and 'prejudices' directed against communism. 43 With sufficient morale - in other words, with enough focused emotionality - Eisenhower and other NATO advocates believed they could overcome narrow nationalism, neutralism, and indifference. Eisenhower saw nationalism as a manipulable concept. In effect, he envisioned the Western alliance as an imagined community that could be created with sufficient talk, troops, and equipment. 44 Eisenhower often used emotion to get around or gloss over the basic contradictions in the alliance. His emphasis on the power of 'heart' and 'spirit' enabled him to argue that, although the Soviet threat was serious, a relatively small force of soldiers, backed by US nuclear forces, was nevertheless sufficient. While NATO claimed to be based on sameness among the allies and on equal partnership, there were vast differences in the power of the various members and in their commitment. To some members, and particularly to the US Congress, which was suspicious that many European nations were not trying hard enough to build up defenses, Eisenhower stressed that the 'question of effort is really [a] question of heart ... of having the right spirit. Each nation must strive to out-do others.'45 Emphasizing 'spirit' had the advantage of minimizing potentially divisive, specific comparisons of troops trained or money allocated. To the Norwegians, however, Eisenhower acknowledged that 'perhaps it is fortunate that we are now

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33

unable to measure ... spirit,.46 In Iceland, whose strategic territory NATO prized, but where many people opposed the alliance, Eisenhower declared that 'the real defenses of the free world are in the hearts of free people. Small countries can make just as great a contribution as large countries in courage ... Iceland could well make a leading contribution of the spirit and of the heart.'47 Although the Icelanders might have discounted much of this rhetoric, Eisenhower struck a chord when he said that when it came to the 'real defenses' of the heart and spirit, they could equal larger nations. Even the leader of the opposition Social Democratic party declared himself 'particularly glad' that Eisenhower and his staff were in 'direct contact' with the Icelandic government. 48 Although the extensive 'direct contact' of subsequent decades among officials, soldiers, and citizens of the NATO nations helped develop Atlantic identity, the equalization of power and responsibility in the alliance did not keep pace with the acculturation. In other words, the transnational authority of NATO has been an authority that, with some exceptions, has more closely fit the ideas, requirements, and predilections of the Americans than of the often divided Europeans. It is ironic that Eisenhower, who talked more than most Americans about devolution of responsibility in NATO, himself helped set a pattern that hampered that devolution. The first SACEUR wrestled with the challenge of how to encourage self-sufficiency among the Europeans without in the process making them more dependent or dangerously independent. Eisenhower thought that in the long run the United States could not infuse morale and spirit into Europe. He also assumed, however, that in the short run skilled American leadership could inspire morale and spirit among

Europeans. He expressed both beliefs in a single letter to an old friend: 'Europe must ... provide in the long run for its own defense.' But meanwhile, 'American leadership must be exerted every minute of the day, every day, to make sure that we are securing from these ... countries their maximum of accomplishment'. He explained that as he traveled around to NATO countries he 'never let up for one single instant on pounding home ... that each country must provide the heart and soul of its own defense ... Morale cannot be imported.' Nevertheless, 'where any nation fails ... our leadership has been partially ineffective'. 49 NATO - THEN AND NOW The problem Eisenhower could not solve - a problem that NATO still faces is, when does the short term end and the long term begin? When, if ever, can the United States trust the Europeans to act both on their own initiative and in ways that the Americans consider proper? As president, Eisenhower regarded any serious devolution of authority in NATO as a threat to US

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interests, even though he talked about making the Europeans assume more of the burdens of NATO. For the past half century, the United States has tried to encourage enough European self-reliance so that the Europeans would shoulder more of the costs of world leadership, yet not so much independence that the Europeans would go off on their own or seriously restrict US prerogatives. Despite the power imbalance, the alliance has stayed together, in part because of emotional and cultural ties. Culture and emotion are slippery, sometimes evanescent objects of study. We cannot quantify the emotional or cultural aspects of the alliance as we can the number of tanks or troops deployed. Nevertheless, study of these less tangible elements illuminates how the alliance created in the Atlantic arena a security of meaning as well as a military security. Emotional and cultural bonding would seem to be essential if NATO is to succeed in integrating the projected new members. Yet it is necessary to sound a note of caution. We should not forget how Bevin and Eisenhower, among others, resorted to exaggeration of the Soviet threat as a means to generate emotional support for the Western alliance. A key question for the future is whether NATO can achieve such expanded cohesion without also creating - in the minds of member nations and in the realm of international relations - another clear enemy.

NOTES 1. For an introduction, see Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzenstein, 'Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security', in Peter 1. Katzen-

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

stein, ed., The Culture of National Security. Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 33-75. See also Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation Among Democracies. The European Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). Edward B. Lawson to Department of State, 7 March 1952, 740.5/3-752, Record Group 59, National Archives, Washington, DC. Letter to Robert Lovett, 25 September 1951, in Louis Galambos et al., eds, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), vol. 12, p. 567. 'How Far Can the ERP Achieve the Objectives of United States Policy in Western Europe?', 26 April 1950, enclosed in Richard M. Bissell to Philip C. Jessup, 1 May 1950, box 2, Philip C. Jessup papers, lot53D 211, Record Group 59,NationaIArchives. Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Ernest Bevin, 'The First Aim of British Foreign Policy', 4 January 1948, CP (48) 6; Bevin, 'Future Foreign Publicity Policy', 4 January 1948, CP (48) 8; Bevin, 'Review

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35

of Soviet Policy', 5 January 1948, CP (48) 7; Bevin, 'Western Union', 10 February 1948, CP (48) 46; Bevin, 'The Threat to Western Civilisation', 3 March 1948, C. P. (48) 72; Bevin, 'North Atlantic Treaty and Western Union', C. P. (48) 249, all in Public Record Office, Kew (hereafter PRO). 7. Bevin, 'The First Aim of British Foreign Policy'; Bevin, 'The Threat to Western Civilisation' . 8. Bevin, 'Review of Soviet Policy'. He also saw the French as suffering 'creeping paralysis'. Bevin, 'North Atlantic Theaty and Western Union'. 9. Bevin, 'The Threat to Western Civilisation'. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Bevin, 'Future Foreign Publicity Policy'. 17. 'How Far Can the ERP Achieve the Objectives of United States Policy in Western Europe?', 26 April 1950, enclosed in Richard M. Bissell to Philip C. Jessup, 1 May 1950, box 2, Philip C. Jessup papers, National Archives. 18. Stephen E. Ambrose with Morris Honick, 'Eisenhower. Rekindling the Spirit of the West', in Robert S. Jordan, ed., Generals in International Politics. NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (Lexington, K: University of Kentucky Press, 1987), pp. 8-30. 19. Alfred Gruenther to US Embassies in Paris, London, Brussels and High Commissioner in Frankfurt, 20 December 1950, box 201, Pre-Presidential Papers, 191Cr-52, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas (hereafter DDEL). 20. Chief of Staff, United States Army (CSUSA), Washington, DC to Lowry for General Eisenhower, 23 December 1950, ibid. 21. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower (New York: Simon & Schuster 1983) vol. 1, p.496. 22. FRUS 1951 (Washington: Government Printing Office 1977-85), vol. 3, p. 457. 23. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 505. 24. Galambos, Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), vol. 11, p.1488. 25. Galambos, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 12, p. 75 (emphasis in original). 26. FRUS 1951, vol. 3, p. 456. 27. Galambos, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 12, p. 75. 28. Ibid., p. 393. 29. Ibid., p. 245. 30. Ibid. 31. Cited in John B. Ketcham to Department of State, 30 April 1952, 740.5/4-3052, Record Group 59, National Archives. 32. 'Memorandum of Conversation with the Icelandic Cabinet', 25 January 1951, box 201, Pre-Presidential Papers, DDEL; 'Norwegian Prime Minister Gerhardsen's Opening Remarks to General Eisenhower at Oslo on Friday, January 12, 1952', ibid. 33. Le Soir (Belgium), 17 April 1952. 34. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 509. 35. Galambos, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 12, p. 129. 36. La Nation Beige, 16 April 1952. 37. Galambos, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vo!' 12, p. 629.

36 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

Frank Costigliola

Ibid., p. 119. Galambos, Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 12, p. 568. Ibid., p. 567. Ibid., p. 629. Ibid., p. 545. Ibid., p. 566. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 1991). FRUS 1951, vol. 3, p. 424. 'Memorandum of Conversation with Norwegian Government and Defense Officials', 15 January 1951, box 201, Pre-Presidential Papers, DDEL. Eisenhower was publicly critical of the Dutch, however, for their reluctance to increase their armed forces and period of required military service. See Ine Megens, American Aid to NATO Allies in the 1950s: The Dutch Case (Amsterdam: Thesis Publishers, 1994), pp.109-11. 47. 'Memorandum of Conversation with the Icelandic Cabinet, 25 January 1951', box 201, Pre-Presidential Papers, DDEL. 48. Ibid. 49. Galambos, Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 12, p. 369.

4 Atlantic Partnership and European Integration: American-European Policies and the German Problem, 1947-1969 Klaus Schwabe

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS AND BASIC ARGUMENTS The destruction of Hitler's empire in 1945 confronted the United States with a novel situation: the continent of Europe had been wiped out as an independent entity in international relations. It is true that F. D. Roosevelt had anticipated this situation in developing his idea of the exclusive responsibility of the superpowers - his 'four policemen' - for keeping the peace, each in its sphere of influence. But when the United States actually faced this void in Europe, it had no alternative but to resort to continued bilateral cooperation with the Soviet Union within the framework of a future world organization. 1 The attempt to build up a Soviet-American condominium over Europe failed before it was ever really established. American and Soviet ideas about how liberated Europe was to be were too far apart to provide the ground for a common policy. As Europe split along the Iron Curtain, a similar division seemed more and more probable in defeated Germany. American policy-makers found it hard to resign themselves to these realities, but resign themselves they had to, as growing Soviet power in Eastern Europe became more and more impervious to American influence. What alarmed Washington even more was the progress communism seemed to make also in the countries of 'free Europe', where the communist parties had gained strength among the voters. Western Europe, an increasingly powerless void, seemed only to wait to be filled by communism, as was happening in China at about the same time. Such a development in Europe would again present a threat to the United States, no less than Hitler's New Order had been, and would force the United States to embark on a costly policy of rearmament and military preparedness. 2 This was the background of the Marshall Plan; America's European policy became to maintain 'situations of strength' in non-communist parts of the 37

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world. 3 American policy-makers were aware of the two alternatives that this concept involved: either bringing those parts of Europe under more or less direct American control, or strengthening the Western European nations individually so that they themselves would become strongholds of American influence in Europe. These alternatives presented the United States with unpleasant choices. Bringing Western Europe under direct American control entailed vast expense, a taste of which America had had in administering and feeding its zone of occupation in Western Germany. Moreover, direct American control would once and for all discredit the United States in the eyes of the entire European Left - not only its communist wing - and confirm their deep-rooted resentment of American imperialism. If, however, Washington chose to rebuild the various European nations, who could predict whether or not these nations, once they had regained economic and political strength, would not begin to act independently? Who was to guarantee that they would pursue a policy that was in harmony with American interests? In harmony, above all, with America's goal to create bonds of solidarity between the nations on both sides of the Atlantic, and to politically contain the Soviet Union or, better still, to win the Cold War? Furthermore, the alternative of building up independent nations in a free Europe implied the re-establishment of some German state in the Western occupied zones of that country, a step liable to create deep misgivings among Germany's neighbors, who had not forgotten what they had gone through under German rule during the Second World War. The inevitable question came up as to whether or not this former enemy, once rehabilitated, would not try to abuse its newly gained strength to the detriment of the West. Not properly handled, setting up a new Germany could create the danger of antagonizing free Europe against the United States and disrupt the incipient Atlantic solidarity. Sure, for the time being, economic distress as well as the Soviet threat could be expected to unite all Western European nations behind America's policies. But what if, once rebuilt, they chose to embark on a neutralist policy, attempting to steer an independent middle course between the Western and the Eastern superpowers? Thus, through the Marshall Plan, the United States devised the one alternative that responded to this potential challenge: European integration. An integrated Europe would attain a degree of strength of its own, which would make it capable of replacing, at least in part, America's commitment to the Old World. The premise of that policy was that an integrated Europe would shun a parochial nationalism and thereby become more able to correspond with American interests; European integration would advance Atlantic solidarity or even partnership. And likewise an Atlantic partnership that relied on American support and America's influence as a balancer between the individual European countries was seen as an instrument to encourage

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European integration. In other words, as seen from the American perspective, an interrelationship existed between the goal of Atlantic partnership and European integration: the two relationships, as it was hoped, would become mutually sustaining. Based on the background described above, this chapter sets out to: • look at the interplay of the notions of Atlantic partnership and European integration during the first two decades after the Second World War, both from American and European perspectives; and • find out what kind of role the German question played in both motivating that interplay and translating it into reality. This chapter also addresses two more questions: • To what degree did the United States pursue European integration as an instrument to achieve an ~tlantic partnership' and to what degree was European integration sought as an aim in its own right? • To what extent were US policy-makers aware of a potential contradiction between the desire to create a self-sufficient, integrated Europe and the aim of paving the way for an Atlantic partnership under American auspices? These questions will be addressed by taking a chronological look at the events occurring after the Second World War. The first part of this discussion covers the period from the Marshall to the Schuman Plan; the second part deals with the phase from the launching of the EDC up to the Paris Treaties; the third part looks at the transitional period up to the conclusion of the 1teaties of Rome; and the fourth part turns to the 'Gaullist' period. Finally, a brief survey will sketch developments afterwards. THE UNITED STATES, EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, AND GERMANY, 1947-50 When, on 5 June 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall publicly announced the American offer to assist European reconstruction, European integration as an aim was no newcomer in the deliberations of the US State Department. In line with earlier ideas that had been developed in the State Department, he demanded that the European nations themselves agree on an intra-European organization that would be in charge of administering the American aid program - a 'continuing organization' that the State Department internally came to regard as a first step towards some closer form of European integration. During the Second World War such closer, possibly political, European integration had been advocated by John R Dulles and some members of the

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State Department. President Roosevelt, however, had maintained an ambivalent attitude toward such schemes, and when in early 1943 Churchill presented him with the project of a European regional organization in which the United States would be represented, he balked partly because he did not want to commit the United States to an 'independent regional body', and partly because he feared that such an organization would grow to have an exclusively anti-Soviet focus. Roosevelt thus seems to have been vaguely aware of the possibility that Europe as a political entity might one day undercut his vision of universal East-West (not yet Atlantic) partnership based on big power predominance. 4 Roosevelt's doubts notwithstanding, members of the State Department remained committed to the idea of some form of European integration. In fact, what alone really distinguished their earlier plans from the later Marshall Plan was their insistence on a UN roof under which European integrative efforts would be subordinated. The same can be said for the State Department's proposal of a four-power guarantee for European security should Germany again try to become a military power - a proposal the Soviets refused to consider. The Marshall Plan was a new departure, inasmuch as it was deliberately conceived as a program that in all likelihood would be implemented only in non-communist Europe. The public appeal to all European nations, including the Soviet Union, to join the common European-American effort to reconstruct the old continent must be viewed as a tactical device to shift the onus of dividing Europe over to the Soviet Union, which was expected to reject the American plan for rebuilding Europe. These hopes were promptly realized when the Soviets walked out of the Paris Conference (27 June - 2 July 1947), declaring America's terms for the Marshall Plan unacceptable. From then on, American aid focused on cooperation between the nations roughly adjacent to the Atlantic shores. It was this shift in orientation of US foreign policy away from a universalist toward a Western framework, along with the breach from earlier ideas of Soviet-American cooperation, that lay at the origins of what later was called 'Atlantic partnership'. To be sure, in 1947 this was a one-sided affair, since cooperation for the Western European partners was limited to their receiving economic support from the United States. But it must be noted that the US government hoped from the outset that this unsatisfactory situation would soon be remedied, and that as the European recipients of US aid combined forces and gained strength, they would become economically self-sufficient which would pave the way to a more balanced relationship between America and its Atlantic partners. To speed up the process of European recovery, America's offer of aid was made on the conditions of West European self-help and, more importantly, of West European coordinated efforts to implement the Marshall Plan. In the

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41

eyes of American policy-makers, Atlantic partnership and the idea of European integration came to be closely interrelated - the extent and efficiency of the American assistance depending on the progress of European integration. This notwithstanding, the State Department shied away from supporting moves in the US Congress to establish a direct link between American aid and some specific progress in creating a United States of Europe. s The State Department withstood this congressional pressure because it felt that pushing the Europeans in that way would go against the psychological rationale underlying the Marshall Plan: 6 that American aid to Western Europe was primarily designed to restore political and social confidence among the noncommunist Europeans and thus not only materially but also psychologically prepare the way for Europe's comeback as an economic and ultimately a political power - a power that some planners in the State Department were even prepared to welcome as a Third Force between the two superpowers.7 Thus, no dangers to Atlantic cooperation were foreseen if Europe as a unit got back on its feet and became a power center of its own. In 1947, when the Marshall Plan was launched, such a possibility seemed remote; at that time, non-communist Europe seemed so demoralized and despondent that imbuing it with a higher degree of self-respect took top priority, and all potential adverse effects of that policy were relegated to the background. George F. Kennan's well-known memoranda that helped to prepare the Marshall Plan show that such psychological - or, if you will, ideological - considerations seemed particularly appropriate in the case of Germany, which, more than the other European nations, was experiencing a spiritual void that made it vulnerable to radical influences coming both from the left and the right. 8 As it turned out during the following months, American hopes to create a common European pillar for the administration of the Marshall Plan were by and large disappointed, and the OEEC that was negotiated in the spring of 1948 certainly did not represent the strong, let alone the supranational, European organization some advisers of the State Department had hoped for. In early 1948, a British initiative seemed to point to a way out of that difficulty. The idea of a 'Western Union', first expressed by Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, seemed to aim at creating an Atlantic community encompassing economic, political and military matters. Characteristically, the US government reacted in the same way it had when the Marshall Plan was launched: it demanded that the European countries interested in the proposed Western Union first form some unit of their own, and that only afterwards could American support be discussed. Again, Atlantic partnership was made dependent on intra-European cooperation. In spite of its political and cultural wrappings, the Brussels Treaty, which Great Britain and France concluded with the Benelux countries in March 1948, was essentially a defensive military alliance along traditional lines. It paved the way for the negotiations between

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the Western European members of the Brussels Pact and the United States plus Canada, negotiations that led to the founding of the NATO alliance in April 1949. In this way, the Atlantic 'partnership' was formalized in a military sense. The American negotiators realized that NATO was indispensable not only in helping to consolidate the political effects of the Marshall Plan - that is, in restoring political confidence and launching a counter-offensive against communist influences in Europe9 - but also in gaining French support for the formation of a republic in the western half of Germany (the French demanded military guarantees against a resurgence of German nationalism and militarism).l0 Whether this militarily restored confidence would help to speed up European integration was, however, open to question. Acheson optimistically seized the opportunity of the signing of the NATO treaty to urge the West Europeans to achieve 'greater European economic and political unification',ll but there were other voices - such as Kennan's - which criticized the lack of resolution on the part of the American negotiators to establish a linkage between American military assistance to Europe and the acceleration of the European integration process. The United States, these critics pointed out, had obliged with the European states' demand for an American military commitment to their defense, but it had failed to get a European commitment to speeding up European integration in exchange. The conclusion of the NATO treaty thus had obliterated the crucial incentive for the Europeans to form a closer union among themselves; an Atlantic partnership between national states was created, but only in a military sense and without a European 'profile,.12 Was this confirmation of European dependence on the United States likely to create the spirit of self-confidence Europe so badly needed? What could be done to counteract the waves of pessimism that swept through Europe during the winter of 1949-50 when efforts to strengthen the political and economic ties between the members of the free West seemed to stagnate - a weakness the Soviet propaganda was sure to exploit?13 There was yet another reason why this kind of criticism gradually gained ground within the US government: the German problem. The Federal Republic was established four weeks after NATO was founded. But this new Germany remained not only outside NATO as a matter of course; it was also generally excluded from the various organizations for European cooperation - such as the OEEC and the Council of Europe. The danger of an isolated Germany loomed large - the very thing American policy-makers wanted to avoid in their efforts to not repeat the mistakes made after the First World War. At that time, Germany's isolation - so it would appear from hindsight - had prompted it to play out the Soviet card and to steer a shifting middle course between East and West. Given the fact that after 1945 Germany was divided and that in the last analysis the Soviet Union alone could

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offer reunification of the country, the temptation for German leaders to steer a neutralist course independent of the West was expected to grow even stronger than it had been after 1919. Certainly for the time being, West Germany was subject to tight Western allied controls, but these controls, as the US government expected, were only temporary and soon due to be abandoned if self-government succeeded in West Germany. Then the critical point would have been reached in that the West would face an emancipated and possibly an increasingly nationalist West Germany with no formal bonds tying it to the members of the Western alliance. 14 For that reason the State Department insisted that West Germany's resurgent economic power and foreseeable military potential be 'harnessed' as firmly to the West as possible. The newly created European organizations, not to mention NATO, seemed too loose to accomplish that. What was needed was a supranational European framework to which West Germany could be anchored. This framework, it was hoped, would ultimately transform West Germany into a trustworthy member of the Atlantic partnership. This is why during the course of 1949 the United States considerably stepped up its pressure on the West Europeans to create a genuinely supranational European organization. It made little headway, as Great Britain could not be won over to the role of a European federator. When this became clear in the summer of 1949, the United States concentrated its efforts on persuading France to assume the leadership in European integration, even if this meant Britain's temporary exclusion from an integrated Europe. This new approach also had the benefit of providing the most direct route to close cooperation and, ultimately, a reconciliation between Germany and France - an aim that always had been held dear by US policymakers. This new stance had first been envisioned by Kennan and was increasingly favored by the new American secretary of state, Dean Acheson. However, it remained not only highly controversial in the American State Department, but it also seemed to leave the French generally unimpressed. 15 Confronted with an unresponsive France, the State Department groped for other organizational alternatives that would 'harness' West Germany and thereby strengthen Atlantic cooperation without having to resort to a European framework. Under the influence of Averell Harriman, the US representative for the administration of the Marshall Plan in Europe, the State Department considered a proposal endorsed by Great Britain and France: the idea of extending NATO functions into the economic and the political spheres. Such a step promised several advantages. Since the United States would be a full member of this broadened organization, the continental powers of Europe - France in particular - would be reassured by this American commitment. Moreover, Great Britain would be encouraged to cooperate unreservedly in an organization that enjoyed the full membership of the United States and where it would be an equal of the United States. This

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would eliminate both half-hearted British participation in Western integration and an overpowering Germany in Europe. 16 Above all, the West German Federal Republic could join the political organization of NATO without raising the awkward problem of its rearmament, which at that point the Truman administration still refused to considerY But this proposal also had its drawbacks, especially as seen from the American perspective. Policy-makers in the State Department were aware of the probability that an enhanced NATO would increase America's commitments to Western Europe and would thus further restrain its own free hand vis-it-vis Europe. The possibility that the United States might, in the long run, even have to submit to majority decisions of a supranational NATO organization appeared on the horizon. 18 This possibility had to be viewed in conjunction with the ongoing discussion among the American public as to the merits of an Atlantic union along federal lines. In early 1950, the US Senate discussed a resolution that would call an international convention to work out a federal constitution for the members of the Atlantic Union. Internally, the State Department expressed its reservations immediately. Committing the United States to the formation of a supranational organization, it was argued, would raise complicated constitutional issues - not to mention the fact that the American people were totally unprepared for the transfer of sovereign rights to some supranational body and for the acceptance of majority decisions contrary to American interests. The department instead favored a step-by-step functional approach that promised to promote closer cooperation within the Western world. 19 It is impossible to tell whether the US government, confronted with continued stagnation in the European integration process, was simply feeling forced to consider ways of strengthening its commitment to NATO, which ultimately might have reduced its role as hegemon of the West. As it turned out, the United States was spared such choices for two reasons. First, France developed second thoughts about the advisability of an enhanced NATO that would include West Germany and refused to pursue that proposal any further. Second, and more importantly, on 9 May 1950 the French foreign minister Robert Schuman announced Jean Monnet's famous plan of a European Community for Coal and Steel. Unofficially, similar concepts had come up in international discussions at various occasions before. 2o In the preceding February, the State Department had also gotten an inkling of what was to happen when it was informed that France would continue its more liberal policy vis-it-vis West Germany, a policy it had pursued since the founding of the Federal Republic. 21 And yet, in its definitive and official version, the Schuman Plan came as a surprise to the State Department. It created a feeling of profound relief, as it held the promise of finally providing a supranational European framework that would harness West Germany without affecting America's independent position in the

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Atlantic alliance. Apart from its concerns about the German problem, the US government probably responded to the Schuman proposal with so much enthusiasm because progress in European integration obviated the need for an Atlantic partnership that would force the United States to accept a position of equal footing with the other members of the Western alliance. 22 Of course, the immediate US response to the announcement of the Schuman Plan was to ensure that this project would not establish a huge protectionist cartel, but rather would fit into the framework of global liberal trade policies in accordance with GAIT. The few public comments that diverged from this general applause for the Schuman Plan pointed out that hopes of making Europe a neutralist Third Force might have inspired the plan. In this respect, the public climate in America had changed somewhat since the initiation of the Marshall Plan. 23 EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND GERMAN REARMAMENT, 1950-54 American satisfaction with progress in European integration lasted only a few weeks. The outbreak of the Korean War and the ensuing war scare in Europe (especially in West Germany) upset US plans. The issue that had so far been skirted by Western political leaders appeared on the agenda: to what extent would West Germany contribute to NATO defense? From the point of view of the State Department, the natural solution would be West Germany's accession to an integrated defense organization of NATO. Acheson had already hinted at that possibility at the signing of the NATO treaty.24 Only a few weeks after the North Korean attack on South Korea, State Department officials proposed the creation of a 'European Defense Force' comprising American, UK, and European continental military formations, as well as 'those from Germany, under a Supreme Command (American) ... supported by an international General Staff' with the mid-term prospect of full German membership in NATO. Once again it looked as if the United States would become an integral part of a set-up that would be endowed with some supranational traits. The Pentagon, however, vetoed this idea, introducing an argument subsequently used by French opponents to the European Defence Community. It argued that an international military organization was unthinkable without an international political base. German participation in NATO, it was felt, had to be sought henceforth in the framework of a traditional military alliance. 25 Such an arrangement, of course, foreshadowed the possibility of West Germany's early admission to NATO as a basically equal partner. This prospect raised doubts within the State Department, which feared that an independent German contribution to Western defense

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would again lead to an all-powerful Germany and ultimately to the disruption of the Western alliance?6 The French parliament and public were not prepared to even consider this option. At the first NATO conference that discussed a German contribution to NATO defense (New York, 12-19 September 1950), the French foreign minister Schuman declared any German rearmament unacceptable to France. The United States countered French intransigence by stepping up pressure on France to link American military assistance to Europe to French acceptance of an early German contribution to NATO defense. About four weeks later, the French government, responding to American pressure, proposed the Pleven Plan for a European Defence Community (EDC) as an organization to control German rearmament. This project was designed by Jean Monnet, creator of the Schuman Plan, and it copied the Schuman Plan's organizational structure and supranational features. For the US government, this scheme for a military integration of Western Europe immediately posed several problems. For one thing, there seemed to lurk the general danger that the proposed European Defence Community in some not too distant future would likely challenge American control of Western defense through NATO. In addition, there was the immediate concern that it threatened to hinder an equal military partnership among the members of NATO. The principle of equality mattered to West Germany, and the French plan seemed to offer West Germany only a second-rate status?7 The equality principle also affected France's claim to military leadership in Europe through the EDC. The United States was not prepared to accept such leadership, as it created obvious military problems and was resented by many European NATO members - not least by the Germans who denounced the proposed EDC as a replica of the French Foreign Legion. Thus the EDC project, if not carefully handled, threatened to sow discord within NATO and make a German defense contribution more difficult. Although promising to obviate the danger of a German military predominance in Europe, it also conjured up the danger of disruption within NATO.28 For the first time, European integration (as proposed by France) and Atlantic partnership (as conceived of by the United States) appeared as two aims that were at least potentially at cross purposes with each other. 29 American military experts became aware of these problems as soon as they became familiar with the Pleven Plan. 3o Apart from some very practical objections - for example, the prospect of endless negotiations needed to work out the details of the proposed EDC - it was the danger that the EDC would question the principle of the unity of command in NATO that led the American military to reject the French scheme out of hand. 31 The US government continued to put pressure on France to yield to a form of a German rearmament that was more compatible with NATO?2 America's most potent threat was to defer both the appointment of a US supreme

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commander of NATO and the deployment of reinforcements for the American troops in Europe. Because France strongly wanted both and the American negotiators could point out that the new US defense commitment in Europe had become highly controversial in the United States itself, the US government enjoyed a strong position in relation to France. Still, it took several months of negotiations before the EDC as a project was transformed to make it politically acceptable to the 1luman administration and the military were never reconciled with it. In June 1951, the US government - yielding to continuous French insistence - decided to go along with the EDC project. John McCloy (the US High Commissioner in Germany), Jean Monnet, and Eisenhower were among those who were instrumental in finding a way out of the Franco-American impasse. They acted out of primarily political reasons, as they had realized that continued American opposition to an integration of European defense would jeopardize both the precarious beginnings of Franco-German reconciliation and Western partnership in the NATO framework?3 In exchange for American forbearance, France had to concede to US and West German terms for a German contribution to NATO. It had to give ironclad assurances that the EDC would remain subordinate to NATO and its American commander, NATO alone would continue to control strategic planning for the alliance, and in event of war it would command all NATO troops, including the EDC formations. Members of the EDC could withdraw troops for overseas duties only with the consent of NATO. German divisions could be merged with non-EDC troops (most likely British or American). Western Europe was not permitted to be split into areas of NATO or EDC troop deployment. Politically, EDC troops were not allowed to be used for the attainment of national goals (this could apply to French colonial wars as well as to German unification). In addition, common meetings between the NATO Council and the EDC Council of Ministers were provided for to make at least an indirect German participation in NATO decisions possible. Finally, all the three Western allies accepted the view of the Bonn government that, as a condition of a West German defense contribution, the Federal Republic had to be relieved of all restrictions dating back to the period of its occupation. 34 Thoroughly revamped, the EDC treaty - along with a treaty establishing West German quasi-sovereignty - was signed in May 1952. These compromises not only guaranteed full control of the EDC by NATO, they also transformed the Pleven Plan into an organization that sharply curtailed national control of EDC troops. From the American point of view, European integration had been promoted and was again made compatible with Atlantic partnership under unquestioned US leadership. Equally important, the German demand for equality in return for a contribution to Western defense had been met without antagonizing France - at least so it seemed.

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Actually, soon after the signing of the EDC treaty it turned out that the very aspects that made the revamped EDC scheme attractive to Bonn and Washington created increasing reservations in Paris. The new EDC could potentially hamper French efforts to regain control of Indochina. If France obtained EDC agreement for the deployment of larger forces in that colony, the German contribution to European defense would in all likelihood ultimately outnumber the French forces incorporated into the EDe. Could France count on British and American readiness to act as balancers in that eventuality? Moreover, would the EDC close the road to ultimate full German membership of NATO? This was the fear on which the French rightwing opposition, especially Gaullist, was based. What frightened them was the prospect that the effort to militarily integrate Europe would not serve its original purpose - that is, keeping Germany out of NATO - but rather would introduce West Germany to full Atlantic partnership. French suspicions were justified: the US military continued to insist on full German membership in NATO, and political advisers to the Eisenhower administration at least considered this option should the EDC fail to be ratified by the European parliaments. But in their eyes this continued to be a worst-case scenario. Actually, the US government under Eisenhower became even more committed to the EDC project than had been the case with its predecessor. In particular, it felt bound to the principle of supranationality as a guarantee that the EDC would become a tightly knit, homogeneous organization capable of serving a dual purpose: offering a firm European roof under which to house Germany, and, one day, providing the means to replace American troops stationed in Europe by European forces. The EDC, in other words, was to ensure at low cost and with a potentially decreasing American involvement the double containment for which NATO had been created: both the immediate Soviet danger and the potential threat represented by some future Germany?5 It was for that reason that the US government also lent its full support to the efforts to politically unite Europe in a supranational organization. 36 The problem for the Eisenhower administration was what leverage it had to make the European legislatures ratify the EDC treaty. In the case of the Federal Republic, this was less of a problem because the granting of quasisovereignty to West Germany was linked to Bonn's acceptance of the EDC treaty. France was quite a different case. Impatient with French procrastination, the Eisenhower administration resorted to the threat of renouncing the Atlantic partnership with France if the French government continued to postpone ratification of the EDe. This way, the US government remained faithful to the policy it had first adopted under the Marshall Plan: partnership and cooperation in the Atlantic framework would be conditional on European willingness to integrate. Still, to French policy-makers that was largely an empty threat because they feared that setting up the EDC would ultimately

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lead to the withdrawal of American troops from the European continent in any case. In spite of increasingly dim prospects for the ratification of the EDC treaty by the French parliament, the Eisenhower administration publicly refused to even consider alternatives to the EDC. Its desperate effort to save the EDC was guided by three motives: to prevent Germany from drifting away from the West, and the loss of the Cold War as a result; to support those European political leaders, like Adenauer and de Gasperi, who had staked their political future on the success of the EDC; and not to compromise the principle of supranationality, which seemed the only viable step towards a lasting FrancoGerman reconciliation. In this context, it is significant that the American envoys - in response to last-minute French efforts to dilute the supranational structure of the EDC and thus prevent the defeat of the EDC in the French parliament - recommended the rejection of these French proposals, even if this meant further reducing the chances of the EDC being ratified?7 In sum, like the Truman administration, advisers of President Eisenhower clung to the concept of the EDC because they considered NATO too weak a bond to anchor West Germany to the West, and because they did not want to jeopardize Franco-German reconciliation by insisting on the NATO framework as the only instrument for harnessing the Federal Republic. WEST GERMANY IN NATO, 1954-55 In the end, all American efforts to rescue the EDC turned out to be of no avail. The French parliament's rejection of the EDC treaty on 30 August 1954 triggered the most serious crisis that America's policy of strengthening the Atlantic partnership through European integration had so far encountered. In fact, the principle of supranationality had to be given up for the time being since it was imperative to have Great Britain's support to overcome the crisis, and Britain had already rejected supranationality at the beginning of the Schuman Plan negotiations. By insisting on a special defense relationship with the United States, it had contributed to bringing security within NATO somewhat out of step with security for the European continent. Not surprisingly then, the arrangement the British government proposed after the defeat of the EDC adhered to the intergovernmental approach. The arrangement would offer Germany full NATO membership, but at the same time use the Brussels Pact of 1948 (renamed the Western European Union) as a mechanism to control West Germany's rearmament. The conferences held in London and Paris (September/October 1954) accepted this 'compromise' and simultaneously granted 'sovereignty' to the Federal Republic. Both privileges - NATO membership and sovereignty - were qualified: the Western allies reserved their rights pertaining to Berlin and a peace treaty to be

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concluded with a future united Germany. German NATO membership was combined with membership in the Western European Union as an additional means of control. The Eisenhower administration, however, knew these devices to maintain a degree of supervision over West Germany's military potential were little more than a face-saving smokescreen for West Germany's unrestricted membership in NATO. Even after - or rather because of - this accomplishment, the German problem as such remained a standing issue for the Atlantic alliance. Only if these measures were not all too openly violated could Germany's full and unreserved cooperation with the Atlantic community and thus Atlantic partnership at large be guaranteed. Actually, addressing the German problem required a dual strategy. First, whenever another opportunity arose in Europe for setting up some other supranational organization, the United States was prepared to offer its support because it continued to consider it vital to create a European anchor for West Germany. The same applied to German unification, which was the second strategic aim resulting from the Allied-German agreements concluded in the autumn of 1954. In exchange for West Germany's restricted international status, the Western allies - and in reality this meant NATO - pledged 'to cooperate to achieve, by peaceful means, their common aim of a reunified Germany enjoying a liberal-democratic constitution, like that of the Federal Republic, and integrated within the European Community'. Thus, European integration as well as German unification continued to be major policy aims to which the Western powers had publicly committed themselves as a result of the London/Paris conferences?8 In this way, the issue of German unification was introduced to the NATO agenda, even though the question of how to actually contain a future united Germany within Western Europe had been left open. But it did not seem to be a pressing issue since everyone at the time was convinced (correctly, as we know today) that German unification would not come up in the immediate future. There was also a third strategic aim that resulted from the LondonlParis agreements, as the United States saw it: Eisenhower kept hoping that Europe, despite the numerous setbacks, would keep striving towards integration and finally develop into a third power or another pillar in NATO. This would reduce America's responsibilities. In the president's view, European integration offered the opportunity of Atlantic partnership with a higher degree of equality among its members. 39 THE EEC AND EURATOM, 1955-57 For all these reasons it cannot be a surprise that Monnet's next initiative - the Euratom project - received full American endorsement, despite the palpable

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economic disadvantages for the United States. The same was true with regard to the simultaneous efforts to establish a common market for the six members of the Schuman Plan. Basically for political reasons, the US Secretary of State J. F. Dulles left no doubts as to the firm resolution of his government to contribute to the success of the negotiations for a European Economic Community, provided the organization proved truly supranational. Dulles was fully aware of the danger that the European common market might turn out to be an obstacle to free trade and American export to Europe. He actually tried to discourage such tendencies when they appeared during the negotiations, but in the last analysis he was prepared to accept certain disadvantages for American trade if, in exchange, European integration really progressed.40 This was brought home to the British government, which had counted on American support for its own plans for a European free trade area to be established in close cooperation with the OEEC and thus, so it seemed, in the spirit of Atlantic solidarity. To the surprise of the British government, however, Washington remained largely unimpressed by such arguments and continued to demonstrate its preference for a common European market of the Six.41 Apparently, the United States was far from viewing this new effort at European integration as a challenge to a continued close Atlantic partnership, be it in trade or in other matters, but rather continued to regard continental European integration as an essential element in strengthening the Atlantic community of nations. The signing of the Treaties of Rome in March 1957 could thus be regarded by the United States as the capstone of its efforts to promote Atlantic partnership and European integration as mutually sustaining political developments. Paul Henri Spaak's initiative to revive the earlier idea of an Atlantic community that shared not only military strategy, but also general foreign policy goals, could be viewed as a reflection of such hopes. 42 EISENHOWER, ADENAUER, AND DE GAULLE However, by the time the Treaties of Rome were signed, such an optimistic assessment had already become obsolete. European confidence in the efficiency of American leadership had begun to erode, and European integration gradually began to be viewed as a long-term alternative to Europe's exclusive reliance on NATO. A new factor had made itself felt that was more and more to overshadow the discussion about the relationship between NATO partnership and European integration: the question of nuclear armaments. This was injected into all discussions about the future of NATO to a degree that, seen from today's perspective, can only be called astounding, if not a trifle ridiculous.

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This change in the political climate can be most clearly observed in the foreign policy orientation of the German chancellor. Up to that moment, Adenauer had tended to view European integration not only as a means to come to better terms with France, but also as a vehicle to gain long-term American support for West Germany's foreign policy. In the summer of 1956 this changed. Adenauer's public statements show that European integration as a goal became increasingly an end in itself, and he spoke of a European community of interest (Great Britain included) that should make its weight felt within NATO.43 What brought about this change was one of the most fateful press leaks that occurred during the Eisenhower administration. On 13 July 1956, the New J0rk Times printed a story on the Radford Plan, which allegedly provided for a large-scale replacement of conventional American forces in Europe by nuclear weapons. That 'leak' had its origins in a NATO resolution that, in December 1954 with enthusiastic French backing, reflected a strategy of an immediate nuclear counters trike if hostilities should break out between the Soviet Union and NATO - even if such hostilities were only of a more local nature. In the event of an emergency, the NATO supreme command was to have the authority to order that counterstrike. From the point of view of the Eisenhower administration, this decision was not perceived as a way to cement American nuclear supremacy, but rather as a means to initiate a process that would lead to nuclear sharing between the United States and the other NATO members - a strategy that would amount to the joint use of tactical atomic weapons. This was in line with Eisenhower's perception of NATO as a militarily integrated security organization of member-nations that, notwithstanding US leadership, in principle enjoyed the status of equals. 44 For this policy to be implemented, the American legislation that provided for keeping military nuclear knowledge secret had to be changed. Preliminary steps taken by the administration in early 1959 to prepare Congress for such a step, however, failed because congressional policy-makers felt committed to a policy of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. 45 Still, by 1960 Eisenhower believed he had succeeded in placing tactical nuclear weapons at least de facto under NATO contro1. 46 Meanwhile, the damage had been done. Both the German and the French governments were shocked by the apparent implications of what was later to be called the 'new look strategy of massive retaliation'. To them, it meant either that the European continent would automatically become the theater of a nuclear war regardless of the extent of Soviet hostilities (for example, around Berlin), or that if the United States was confronted with the threat of an all-out war that seemed likely to hit the American mainland as well, it would back down and let the European continent be overrun by the Red Army.47 The credibility of the United States as leader of the Atlantic community thus was at stake.

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In German eyes, this raised the additional question as to whether the United States, if push came to shove, would still stand by its commitment to promote German unification. From the French government's perspective, this widened the gap between its own military and political interests and the objectives of NATO - as narrowly as they were defined by the Eisenhower administration. France had already experienced the painful ramifications of that gap before the end of its war in Indochina, and that experience was repeated during the Suez Crisis in October-November 1956. The fact that the United States refused to view French and American interests as globally identical, and thus was not prepared to use its nuclear arsenal to protect the whole of France's sphere of influence, lay at the root of the French decision to follow the British example and build up a nuclear force of its own. This basic decision, finalized in late 1956 as a result of the Suez Crisis, clearly preceded de Gaulle's rise to power in the French government in 1958. 48 The German government arrived at the same conclusion in December 1956. It seemed to be an impossible situation that a country the size of the Federal Republic, exposed as it was by its position along the Iron Curtain, remained totally dependent on other powers when it came to the life-anddeath matter of nuclear decisions. The Federal Republic, so ran the conclusion, needed to produce its own nuclear arsenal. 49 This brought the Federal Republic into conflict with the terms of the Paris Treaty of 1954, that is, abstinence from the production of ABC weapons. Unlike France, Germany could not act on its own, let alone in secrecy. In this situation, nuclear collaboration with France and possibly Italy under the auspices of Euratom offered an attractive option. Unbeknown to the German government, similar ideas of a European nuclear defense force under British direction had been discussed (and finally rejected) in the British cabinet. Negotiations between France, West Germany, and Italy, however, were begun and resulted in a tripartite agreement on cooperation in military nuclear matters that was signed by the three respective ministers of defense on 7 April 1958. The State Department was kept up to date with these developments. In the presence of the German foreign minister Heinrich von Brentano, Dulles called the production of nuclear weapons by individual nations 'very wasteful'.5o This should come as no surprise since the United States was confronted not only with the German attempt to circumvent the Paris Treaty provisions, but also with a general tendency to call the nuclear monopoly of NATO into question. On the other hand, he admitted that there should not be 'first and second class powers in NATO', and that 'there must be confidence that the [nuclear] weapons would be available for our NATO Allies in time of War'. But these were only harbingers of things to come. The issue of tripartite European nuclear cooperation was quickly disposed of by General de Gaulle who, much to the disappointment of the German

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government, rescinded the tripartite agreement as soon as he came into office. De Gaulle's rise to power turned out to give an entirely new dimension to the relationship between Atlantic partnership and European integration. As will be shown, it was his influence that finally severed the link between the two objectives. To understand the reasons behind this momentous change, a look at the international situation in the late 1950s and early 1960s is in order. Relations within the Western alliance were at that time overshadowed by two crises: one affecting France, the other related to Germany. France fought an anti-guerrilla war against Arab nationalists in Algeria, which it continued to regard as part of France itself. Moreover, as it had done in Indochina, it claimed that by fighting in North Africa it was helping to defend the West against the communist menace. Thus it seemed incomprehensible to de Gaulle that the United States should refuse to identify with France's cause in Algeria. At the same time, the Federal Republic was facing strongly intensified Soviet pressure. The Khrushchev ultimatum of 27 November 1958 had triggered the second Berlin crisis, which seemed to bring the world to the brink of a Third World War. In an equally ominous way, it threatened to discredit Adenauer's policy of German unification and generally questioned the validity of America's nuclear guarantee in the defense of the Federal Republic and its vital interests, especially reunification. Under these circumstances, it was in the Federal Republic's best interests that all the three major Western powers not yield to Soviet pressure and maintain a credibly deterrent posture. But what if one of them did not meet these expectations? De Gaulle was only partly influenced by the Algerian crisis when he conceived a new French policy vis-a-vis its Western allies and the United States in particular. What motivated him much more than Algeria was his desire to re-establish France as a largely independent world power - endowed with a nuclear arsenal. In part, this was nothing more than the continuation of policies the Fourth Republic had already pursued, at least as far as aims were concerned. In order to regain a world-power status for France, the general issued four demands: the extension of the geographic scope of NATO's responsibility (Algeria); the abandonment of military integration in NATO; a French share in the control of atomic weapons; and, most importantly, the creation of an institutionalized three-power directorate at the top of NATO consisting of the United States, Britain, and France. 51 In other words, de Gaulle wanted to replace the more or less flat structure of NAT0 52 with an expressly hierarchical set-up, while at the same time claiming parity with the United States. Within the Eisenhower administration, all four demands raised serious doubts. It is true that the administration did not contest - and was, in fact, basically sympathetic with - France's wish to build up a nuclear force of its

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own (although Eisenhower was deeply offended by the public justification the general chose for the proposed force de frappe - that is, the assertion that when the chips were down, the two atomic superpowers would pursue their own interests at the expense of the rest of the world).53 Nor was the Eisenhower administration originally averse to considering a French request for the sharing of nuclear secrets, once France itself had become a nuclear power. But its position became more rigid when de Gaulle presented a package that linked his assent to the stockpiling of US-built nuclear warheads on French territory to an American agreement on nuclear sharing and the working out of a joint global strategy for the proposed directorate. 54 De Gaulle's demand to undo the integration of NATO met with sharp American rebuke partly because of military requirements, and partly because of the need to uphold an organizational framework for the stationing of US troops in Europe.55 In line with America's anti-colonial tradition, Eisenhower also refused to identify the United States with the French cause in Algeria. 56 As for de Gaulle's proposal for a three-power directorate to run NATO probably the idea dearest to his heart - it met with a rather qualified American approval. Eisenhower initially held no objections to regular informal and secret meetings of representatives of the three leading NATO powers. The negotiations revolving around this issue stalled, however, when the French president continued to insist on a directorate that would be both institutionalized and open to public scrutiny. Eisenhower felt that to yield to these demands would antagonize the other allies (especially Italy and the Federal Republic), drag the United States into the Algerian War and, above all, give France a virtual veto power on US efforts to meet its global responsibilities and interests, and on its use of nuclear weapons. 57 The latter touches upon the special position of the United States as a global power in NATO, whereas the former expresses the basic dilemma the United States was confronted with in dealing with de Gaulle and the other European members of NATO. In view of France's key position for NATO defense, the Eisenhower administration knew perfectly well that it could not afford to totally rebuff de Gaulle's initiatives. On the other hand, US relations with the rest of the NATO members were at stake. Thus, they rejected the directorate idea unanimously. Adenauer, who had a long record of pleading for German 'equality' (Gleichberechtigung) and was accordingly status conscious, saw his fears of German isolation from the combined victors - his 'Potsdam complex' - revived by de Gaulle's proposal and was accordingly taken aback.58 Thus, for the United States, meeting de Gaulle's demands meant running the risk of straining relations with the Federal Republic. This in turn reawakened not only the ever-present specter of German neutralism, but also threatened to weaken Bonn's resolve to maintain its pro-integrationist stance vis-a-vis the Common Market and, more importantly in view of de Gaulle's attitude, vis-a-vis NATO as well. By antagonizing West Germany, the United States thus would deprive

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itself of an influential voice that seemed able to dissuade de Gaulle from still further disassociating himself from the Atlantic partnership.59 At the end of the Eisenhower administration, an agreement on de Gaulle's demands for a 'reform' of NATO was still pending. In one of his last letters to the general, the president resorted to the threat of withdrawing from Europe if the American people should get the impression that the European allies no longer shared the 'common desire' to 'ensure the effective defense of the Atlantic area'. He also refused to consider the proposal of a directorate, as this would be found unacceptable by the other NATO allies - not least by the Adenauer government. 60 The only conclusion de Gaulle could draw from this message was that his attempts to win the Eisenhower administration over to a new hierarchical structure and a shared leadership for NATO had failed. No wonder then that in face of this set-back the general looked for other allies to support his conception of Atlantic 'partnership'. A Franco-German combination seemed the most obvious alternative. This appeared all the more promising because relations between the Adenauer government and de Gaulle had considerably deepened under the impact of the Berlin crisis. In conspicuous contrast to the United States (not to mention Great Britain), de Gaulle was adamant in protecting Adenauer's position toward Berlin against Soviet pretensions. Indeed, the ~glo-Saxons' seemed inclined to settle their controversy with Soviet Russia over Berlin by freezing the status quo in Central Europe. They seemed to tacitly accept the division of Germany as more or less definite and be willing to meet the Soviet view to such an extent that Adenauer felt obliged to remind them of their commitment under the LondonlParis treaties of 1954 to promote German unification. In sharp contrast, de Gaulle insisted on an uncompromising stand vis-a-vis Soviet Russia and thus demonstrated his sympathies with Adenauer's position. The German chancellor reciprocated by defending France's policy in Algeria, not least against American criticism. 61 Beyond that, de Gaulle hoped that he could count on Adenauer's solidarity in urging a reform of NATO, once he swept the touchy issue of a three-power directorate under the carpet (which he most effectively did). De Gaulle offered yet more bait to gain the chancellor's support for his objectives regarding NATO: a closer general cooperation between France and Germany in all questions of common interest, including arms production and possibly someday even nuclear armaments. He also proposed a new initiative to form a European Political Community (the Fouchet Plan), which would become a confederation with institutionalized mechanisms for regular consultations in all questions of foreign policy and security.62 By doing so, de Gaulle confronted West Germany's foreign policy with a real and important choice that was bound to leave its imprint on the future of NATO: the choice between either a new continental European combination, a 'Europe of fatherlands', as de Gaulle called it, both cooperating with and

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largely independent of NATO, or the continuation of the NATO alliance plus European integration under American auspices. Characteristically, the German chancellor endorsed de Gaulle's initiative for a new European Community that would cast off some of the cumbersome supranational paraphernelia that had proliferated in it. Adenauer also agreed to most of the general's other suggestions, except one: he refused to engage in a policy that would question America's nuclear guarantee for Western Europe or risk an American withdrawal from Europe. 63 Struggling with the Berlin crisis, the chancellor was aware of West Germany's dependence on the United States, which possessed the only credible nuclear deterrent vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. As much as the German chancellor shared de Gaulle's concern about the ultimate control of nuclear weapons deployed on their national territories, he was convinced of the indispensability of the American nuclear umbrella. In his resistance to such suggestions, Adenauer felt encouraged by his knowledge of a plan that SACEUR Lauris Norstad had submitted in September 1960 and that promised to resolve the touchy issue of nuclear consultation and decision sharing. The plan provided for sea-based Polaris missiles that would be placed at the disposal of the NATO Council - the seed of the later MLF scheme for a multinational nuclear force. 64 KENNEDY AND DE GAULLE All in all, de Gaulle's efforts to enlist West German support for his initiatives

were only partially successful. The further course of the European-Atlantic relationship would largely depend on the new US president, John F. Kennedy. Would he be more forthcoming than his predecessor in the question of nuclear sharing and NATO 'reform'? Would he endorse de Gaulle's plans for European 'integration', which the outgoing administration had pronounced as a failure since no European country seemed willing to accept French hegemony?65 At the time Kennedy assumed office, a new dimension of the EuropeanAtlantic relationship became prominent: economics. By putting a new emphasis on the economic aspects, Kennedy distinguished himself from his predecessor. Since the establishment of the Common Market, the Eisenhower administration had left no doubt that it supported this new venture for political reasons as a step towards a united Europe - even if this meant temporary disadvantages for American exports - and when the 'outer seven' responded to the Common Market by establishing a European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the US government refused to support their efforts to overcome the split between two European trade areas by concluding trade agreements between them. 66 On the contrary, it approved the acceleration in

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the process of completing the Common Market - a process that made an agreement between the EEC and EFTA even more difficult. 67 Apart from strictly economic considerations, there is no doubt that it was America's consistent support of the EEC and the fact that the Anglo-American controversy over the merits of European integration continued to cast a shadow over the Anglo-American 'special relationship' that prompted the Macmillan government to apply for membership in the EEC. 68 One of the first foreign policy steps taken by the Kennedy administration was to encourage Britain to join the EEC and to promise eventual American support, provided the British government 'fully accepted' 'the political and institutional obligations of the Rome Treaties', that is, submitted to the supranational structure of the Common Market. 69 The ground for this move had been prepared during the last months of the Eisenhower administration. The president had commissioned a paper on the long-term prospects of NATO. A pronounced advocate of European integration in the State Department since the launching of the Schuman Plan, Robert Bowie was charged with that task. In his summary he admitted that Europe after its recovery was justified in claiming a larger role in NATO. But this, he felt, should be made conditional on Europe's integration, since the European nations individually were too weak to aspire to equality with the United States. Significantly, the 'most radical' way out of this dilemma, Bowie intimated, was an Atlantic confederation. As this seemed premature to him, however, he came out in favor of a Europe as 'an effective entity' that would include Great Britain as a full member?O This was the conclusion George Ball arrived at during the first weeks after President Kennedy assumed office. Ball himself was an old hand in European affairs after having advised Monnet in the 1950s. He was now to playa key role in conceiving and implementing the European policies of the incoming administration. It was also Ball who redefined the notion of an Atlantic partnership in the sense that Americans 'had much to gain by encouraging Europeans to develop their own European identity and institutions. Europe as a collectivity could share world responsibility as our "equal partner" '. In preparing the ground for the British application, Ball made it clear that the United States expected the United Kingdom as a future member of the EEC to actively support a political federation of Europe. It was under these premises that the British prime minister decided 'to go into Europe ,.71 At first sight, political considerations appeared to be prevalent in determining the US reaction to Great Britain's application. One was the expectation that British membership of the EEC would be 'promising' for the Atlantic partnership; another was the perceived need to strengthen links between West Germany and the West, especially because the Federal Republic would soon be under a new chancellor. 72

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But this time this was only one aspect of America's encouragement of European integration. Another appeared for the first time: economic considerations. When Kennedy assumed office, the American economy was passing through a difficult phase. It was struggling with deficits in its trade and payments balances, slow economic growth, and even some unemployment. This was partly the result of the military commitments the United States had made to NATO, and its concomitant financial obligations. A widened European market, it was believed, would help the United States to overcome these difficulties by providing an outlet for American exports and generally strengthening Europe, which then would be in a better position to share America's burdens. Moreover, Britain as an EEC member was likely to counteract protectionist tendencies in the Common Market. If Britain succeeded, the American 1tade Expansion Act of 1 October 1962, which was designed to foster a global lowering of tariffs, would have a better chance of becoming really effective. 73 This partly political, partly economic rationale continued to prevail in the months following Kennedy's coming into office and was in the background of the United States' discreet support of Britain's candidacy for the Common Market once it was announced on 31 July 1961. This event, at first, by no means precluded guarded American approval of the French Fouchet Plan, which would establish a European confederation with closer ties also in the field of defense, although the State Department was aware that this project was based on the preservation of national sovereignty and was opposed by influential Europeans, including NATO Secretary Paul Henri Spaak. But again, the common French and American interest in 'containing' Germany seemed to make it advisable to encourage any initiative that might preserve some momentum in the process of European integration?4 So in the spring and summer of 1962, the US government refrained from taking any stand in the heated debates among the Europeans on a political union. Instead, it limited its activities to working behind the scenes - 'from the prompter's box rather than from the middle of the stage,75 - in order to ensure the successful conclusion of the negotiations for Britain's accession to the Common Market and greater political and defense cohesion among the Six.76 At that point, de Gaulle still let it be known that the Fouchet Plan might ultimately lead to 'a kind of Federal System', although it was possible that Britain as a member might halt that development. 77 It is significant that, probably out of distrust of de Gaulle, the United States continued to endorse the British candidacy for the Common Market, ignoring the argument put forward both by French and German spokespersons that Britain might become a stumbling block on the road to a supranational Federation. 78 What mattered more in American eyes was the expectation that Britain, as a member of the EEC, would guarantee a pro-Atlanticist orientation of the Common Market and frustrate any French or German 'eccentricities' that

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might decouple Europe from the United States. Great Britain, the State Department hoped, would Europeanize its special relationship with America?9 It was in this spirit that President Kennedy gave public expression to the ideal of an Atlantic partnership based on European integration. This was in a speech he delivered on 4 July 1962 at Independence Hall, Philadelphia - one of the shrines of American history. His address had its origins in ideas that had been developed by Jean Monnet and his American friends. 8o What was soon called Kennedy's 'Grand Design' put into a precise language what had been the guiding principle for America's attitude towards the Atlantic community of nations and European integration all along: 'We do not regard a strong and united Europe as a rival but as a partner. To aid its progress has been the basic object of our foreign policy for 17 years.' America, the president continued, expected a greater European contribution in questions of defense, aid to the Third World, and free trade: 'We see in such a Europe a partner with whom we can deal on a basis of full equality.' But there was a proviso: 'The first order of business is for our European friends to go forward in forming a more perfect union which will some day make this partnership possible.'81 In other words, European integration was a prerequisite for that future equal partnership, which, to be sure, implied both rights and duties especially burden sharing. Kennedy's speech is in many ways significant. In the first place, it showed that in American eyes European integration was not an aim in itself, but was rather instrumental for and subordinate to the aim of strengthening the Atlantic partnership. It was a warning to both de Gaulle and Adenauer to refrain from interpreting European integration and Atlantic partnership as two distinct and autonomous developments. 82 Moreover, Kennedy's 'Declaration of Interdependence' reasserted America's claim for leadership in NATO for the foreseeable future and thus implied the rejection of all suggestions for a NATO directorate. It did not exclude the possibility of an increased European share in the decision-making process of NATO.83 In addition, Kennedy reminded his European audience that partnership was intended to mean increased European financial responsibilities ('burden sharing'). Finally, Kennedy ruled out the transformation of NATO into an Atlantic Union for which the American public seemed not yet prepared. This was the very same argument that was used in the Truman period. 84 The question remained as to what Kennedy precisely meant by a 'strong' and a 'more perfect union' of the European nations. For Kennedy's Grand Design to succeed, it became vital for it to be brought as much as possible into harmony with the ideas de Gaulle had developed on the European and global roles of France. At this point, a contradiction in Kennedy'S Grand Design became apparent. Much more than the Eisenhower administration, Kennedy

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was resolved to in no way encourage, let alone assist, de Gaulle's build-up of his nuclear force de frappe. He refused to sell France nuclear technology,85 he strongly urged the British government not to cooperate with France in nuclear matters, and he publicly confirmed this policy on 17 May 1962.86 At this point, there was a clear limit in the equality Kennedy was prepared to grant the Europeans, regardless of the progress of their integration. Kennedy remained adamant in this matter for two reasons. First, there was his new strategic doctrine of a 'flexible response', developed for the event of a military confrontation with Soviet Russia. In contrast to Eisenhower's 'massive retaliation', this new doctrine provided for a well-calibrated reaction to any Soviet provocation that might have led to nuclear retaliation in response to a local military incident (which at that time always seemed imminent in Berlin). Of course, this sophisticated military policy implied an exclusive American control of strategic decisions. Second, for Kennedy, the aim of having the world sanction the principle of non-proliferation as a first step towards East-West detente was a first priority - and non-proliferation in the early 1960s primarily meant preventing West Germany from becoming a nuclear power, disassociating itself from the West, and disrupting NATO. Precisely because the United States could not very well proclaim parity among the members of NATO and at the same time allow France to build up a national nuclear defense force, it seemed impossible to accede to de Gaulle's wishes. 87 Kennedy's position did not fail to affect Franco-American relations. De Gaulle deeply resented that the United States refused to grant France what they had granted Great Britain: support for the development of a national nuclear deterrent. 88 De Gaulle's resentment was heightened by the new doctrine of a flexible response, which in his eyes reduced the reliability of the American nuclear deterrent vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Still suffering from the trauma of 1940 - when France, at a time of dire need, had been deserted by Britain - de Gaulle regarded an independent French nuclear deterrent as all the more necessary if France did not want to risk being overrun by Soviet troops in the event of war. The German chancellor and his military advisers shared the French suspicions and the conclusions de Gaulle drew from them. They served as an additional argument for the German government to close ranks with Gaullist France - certainly not as a substitute for the American nuclear umbrella, but as an indispensable supplement or, one might say, an insurance policy. 89 For de Gaulle, this was but one aspect of the controversy that developed between him and the Kennedy administration. The French president obviously had ideas of his own with regard to the role that Europe, confederated in accordance with his plan, had to play. At times he was quite blunt in expressing what he meant. The most striking quote comes from one of his closest advisers, Alain Peyrefitte. According to Peyrefitte, the general used

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the following terms to describe what he regarded as the global role of a European confederation: Europe - what is it good for? Being dominated by the Americans or the Russians is no help to us. Once there are six of us, we should manage to achieve parity with each of the two superpowers. And if France succeeds in becoming the first of the Six - a goal that can be attained - then it will be able to handle the lever of Archimedes. It will be able to pull along the other five partners. Then France will again be what it has ceased to be since Waterloo: number one in the world. 9o Assuming that this was the essence of what de Gaulle was aiming at, his 'Grand Dessein' envisaged a strong and independent Europe. But this design left no room for a direct relationship between the Atlantic sphere and the individual states on the European continent. France would represent them in the councils of the world, in the first instance in the Western directorate. De Gaulle's vision also left entirely open to what extent his European partners would have a say in determining Europe's global role. One thing was clear: American influences standing in the way of the status that de Gaulle had reserved for France had to be reduced, although the general did want to uphold the alliance with the Western superpower, as he demonstrated during the Cuban missile crisis. Resisting American influences also meant distancing France from Great Britain, which the French president tended more and more to regard as an American satellite. 91 How did Kennedy assess the challenge that de Gaulle represented to his own idea of Atlantic partnership through integration? How did he try to meet it? By the spring of 1962, Kennedy had convinced himself that France wanted America to keep carrying the burden of Europe's defense without being able to 'affect events' there. More and more, he considered de Gaulle to be an altogether disruptive element in NATO.92 In the face of de Gaulle's attempts to subvert the European integration process, his insistence on a NATO directorate, and his 'nationalist' proposals for reorganizing NATO, the Kennedy administration felt justified in its refusal to consider any kind of nuclear cooperation with France. 93 Moreover, Kennedy himself repeated the threat his predecessor had already resorted to - American withdrawal from Europe - only to be reminded that this was really an empty gesture, as the United States had primarily committed itself in Europe in its own interests, that is, to contain the Soviet Union. 94 The fundamental inability of Kennedy to understand de Gaulle's position and to assess the possible consequences of France continuing to be ignored by the 'Anglo-Saxons' became visible at the occasion of the British-American summit conference at Nassau on the Bahamas (18-21 December 1962). It confirmed the exclusive bilateral cooperation between Great Britain and the United States in questions of nuclear and missile armaments dating back to

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the Second World War. This special relationship had been renewed in 1958 by legislation of Congress - the type of legislation that had been denied to France. To a number of pro-integrationists in the State Department among them Secretary of State Dean Rusk - this had been a mistake. Kennedy himself was doubtful as well at timesYs Kennedy's decision at the Nassau Conference to continue this Anglo-Saxon cooperation compounded this previous error. In fact, the president had been warned of possible reactions by de Gaulle and of general threats to his Grand Design that would arise if he continued to discriminate in favor of Great Britain in questions of missile-borne nuclear deterrents. 96 What was specifically under discussion at Nassau was the sale of American Polaris missiles to Great Britain as a substitute for the Skybolt missiles that the United States more than a year earlier had promised to deliver to the London government but could not when the Kennedy administration canceled the Skybolt program. The decision to cancel had been made mainly for budgetary reasons, but also because Europeanists in the administration had questioned the advisability of American support for an independent nuclear deterrent for Britain, as this would create problems with both France and Germany. Disregarding this advice, Kennedy at Nassau committed his administration to provide Polaris missiles as compensation for the abandoned Skybolt program - with the proviso, however, that these Polaris missiles would become the nucleus of a multilateral NATO nuclear force (MLF). This represented a victory for the Europeanists in Kennedy's entourage. Macmillan accepted, but managed to negotiate an escape clause which permitted Great Britain to use the Polaris missiles under national authority in the event that 'supreme national interests' were at stake.97 This was an important qualification of what Kennedy and his 'Europeanist' advisers had intended. Macmillan had fought for it because Britain needed it 'in order to remain something in the world'. 98 Kennedy yielded because he wished to support the prime minister in the forthcoming British elections. 99 This compromise left the American delegation with some uneasy feelings about de Gaulle's reaction. It was therefore decided to extend the same offer of Polaris missiles to France, thereby finally recognizing France as a nuclear power. IOO To the Germans, the multilateral aspects of the Nassau compromise were emphasized. WI But these efforts could not undo the damage that had already been done. De Gaulle regarded the Anglo-American deal, which so blatantly ignored his demand for a three-power directorate, as a slight. Moreover, he rightly saw that it spelled the end of his hopes to bring about some independent Anglo-French nuclear cooperation. In sum, the Nassau decisions provided him with the ultimate proof that Great Britain was indeed an American satellite and thus an alien element in Europe (if not a 'frojan horse). The 'Grand Dessein' he had pursued since his assumption of office had been an Anglo-French-American directorate at the top of NATO, with

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France leading and representing the West European continent. Nassau proved to him that Britain would not function as a third independent power, and as a member of the Common Market it would challenge his leadership on the European continent. The conclusion he drew was that Britain was not welcome in the Common Market. At his famous press conference on 14 January 1963, he expressed his veto of Britain's entry into the EEe. On that occasion he specifically denounced the Nassau agreement as a violation of the French principle to keep the French deterrent under French control (in other words, he dismissed Macmillan's escape clause as irrelevant and the agreement as an invitation to its signatories to join the multilateral nuclear defense force of NATO). On presumably technical grounds, he refused the acquisition of American Polaris missiles. 102 . This seemed to spell the end of Kennedy's Grand Design. The effort to integrate France into the Atlantic partnership, to 'contain' Gaullist France, had failed. French-dominated European integration would progress independently of the requirements, if not contrary to the idea, of an Atlantic partnership. US officials had some hopes that Adenauer would be able to use his influence on de Gaulle to modify the latter's veto. Adenauer declined to mediate. Even worse, a week after the French president had pronounced his veto, the bilateral Elysee 1Teaty between France and the Federal Republic was signed - surely more a declaration of intent to provide for regular consultations between France and Germany in all fields of common interest (including NATO) than a concrete agreement, but still an event that looked like a German endorsement of de Gaulle's rejection of Kennedy's Grand Design of an Atlantic partnership. At that point, the US government, from Kennedy on down, panicked. The president was particularly worried by a provision in the Elysee Treaty that encouraged a coordination of French and German views in NATO matters. This looked to him like a Franco-German directorate in NATO.103 He also expressed fears of some triangular deal between France, Germany, and the Soviet Union aiming at the neutralization of Central Europe. 104 Kennedy thus shifted American fears from the problem of Germany balancing East and West to the foreign policy ambitions he ascribed to de Gaulle.105 What was to be done? A first instrument to counteract Gaullism in West Germany was Bonn's ratification of the Elysee Treaty. The Kennedy administration decided to bring the strongest possible pressure to bear on the German MPs by impressing on them the US government's extreme disapproval of the special Franco-German deal. This, Washington hoped, would persuade the majority of the German deputies to either repudiate or at least qualify the treaty. Monnet's help was enlisted,106 and the American intervention proved highly successful. On 16 May 1963, while giving their assent to the Elysee 1Teaty, a strong majority of the Bundestag deputies passed a preamble

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that endorsed all Atlanticist policies known to be anathema to de Gaulle: collective defense within an integrated NATO, European integration following the model of the EEC, the desirability of British membership, and free trade in GATT. 107 If it had been de Gaulle's intention to alienate West Germany from NATO and to create a Franco-German identity in European defense, he could not count on the German parliament. With roles reversed, it was a repetition of what had happened when the French parliament disavowed the EDC in 1954. The other suggestion that came up under the negotiations for the Elysee Treaty was to step up negotiations for the multinational nuclear force (MLF), which the Nassau agreement had endorsed and which seemed to meet the Germans' status anxieties and their demand for more influence on NATO decisions, especially regarding nuclear strategy.1OB The MLF, it seemed, was the real blueprint for Atlantic partnership the way the United States understood it. It was a partnership that certainly maintained central American control over nuclear strategy and was thus to strengthen US influence in Europe, as Kennedy observed, but it also provided for an enhanced role of NATO members in nuclear planning and respected the principle of parity among all the other members. 109 It appeared to be the most effective method to reaffirm West Germany's loyalty to NATO. It promised to complement or (if worst came to worst and the Common Market failed) to serve as a substitute for European integration by linking Germany to the West. 110 However, once the crisis atmosphere in Washington in January-February 1963 subsided, the fervor for the MLF concept petered out. Of course it remained important as a means to prevent European (German in particular)

support for the force de frappe. But already at the beginning of February Kennedy cautioned that the United States should avoid giving the impression of selling something to the Europeans that they themselves might not really want. 111 And in mid-June the president was advised to 'switch from pressure to inquiry' when discussing the MLF with the Europeans, among whom - with the single exception of the indefatigable Jean Monnet - there seemed to exist little enthusiasm for this concept. This seemed to be true even for the Federal Republic. 112 A short time later, the president considered alternatives to the MLF - including even a European deterrent, provided the Europeans would find instruments of common political control of such forceY3 The negotiations on an MLF continued into the Johnson administration (partly out of consideration of the pro-Atlanticist Erhard government), albeit at a sluggish pace, until at last they were abandoned. 114 It was de Gaulle who finally killed the project in November 1964 by vetoing further West German participation in the respective talks, which he pronounced as incompatible with the Elysee Treaty.ll5 The final device to combat de Gaulle advocated by the State Department in the aftermath of the Elysee Treaty was to isolate Gaullist France.ll6 From

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early on, the outlook for this tactic was good since the French representative was alone in vetoing the decisive vote taken in Brussels on Britain's membership in the EEC (25 January 1963).117 During the following months, everything depended on the attitude of the Federal Republic. Here, much to the relief of the Kennedy administration, two quite reassuring developments were taking place. First, the Elysee Treaty turned out to be devoid of any palpable consequences, and the climate between Bonn and Paris actually seemed to deteriorate. Adenauer himself did not hesitate to justify the Elysee Treaty by pointing out that it would avoid a repetition of the pre-First World War alliance between France and RussiaYs The second ray of hope consisted of French assurances that France was not considering any nuclear sharing with the Federal Republic, especially if the United States gave up MLF,119 American hysteria with regard to the Elysee Treaty thus proved unfounded. It reflected a gross American misjudgment of the domestic situation in West Germany and overlooked that the German public and the Bonn establishment debated the Elysee Treaty without any ulterior motives. De Gaulle's veto of British membership in the EEC was condemned, as was the coincidence of the veto with the Elysee Treaty. In fact, Adenauer had to threaten to resign in order to get tl).e treaty approved in his cabinet. The argument that convinced the cabinet most was that this treaty would be the crowning event sealing the reconciliation between France and GermanyPO Still, the chancellor's own party split into an Atlanticist and a Gaullist wing. The oppositional SPD discovered its Atlanticism. Harsh words about the aging chancellor, who had so badly mismanaged German-British relations, abounded. 121 The only means for the Adenauer government to silence its critics somewhat was to come out in favor of the US-supported concept of an MLF exactly at the moment it had signed the Elysee 'freaty - an indication that even Adenauer was far from reorienting his policy in security matters. 122 The Bundestag's preamble to the Elysee Treaty reflected this attitude. Finally, Ludwig Erhard, Adenauer's successor in the autumn of 1963, was singlemindedly pro-Atlanticist and harbored deep suspicions of de Gaulle. The question remains as to what was behind the American overreaction to the Franco-German treaty and why the Kennedy administration felt justified in continuing to regard the situation in Europe as a 'mess,.123 The answer to these questions will give a final indication as to what Kennedy meant by his Grand Design, and whether this conception really failed and thus introduced a new phase in America's European policy. As described earlier, once it became foreseeable that de Gaulle would uphold his veto and the West German government would refuse to try to make him reconsider it, Kennedy suspected a Soviet-European deal aimed at expelling the United States from Europe. 124 Such a deal, of course, would not only have upset the balance of power in Europe, as Kennedy stressed, but it would also have deprived NATO of its very meaning of serving as an instrument to tie West Germany to the

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West - that ever-recurring justification of NATO's existence. l25 This in turn would have meant - and this was the clue to America's reaction - that the United States would have lost control over the German problem, and it seemed highly doubtful whether de Gaulle in the long run would be able to maintain this control. Even Franco-German reconciliation seemed jeopardized if the two countries were left to themselves. 126 Yielding to de Gaulle would thus have boiled down to a repudiation of the policy the United States had adhered to since the ltuman administration. As Walt Rostow, another old hand on European matters in the State Department, put it, the question was indeed whether the United States, after having fought two bloody wars over Germany, would politically abandon the German problem to de Gaulle. 127 The specter of a European nuclear force controlled by France, and possibly West Germany, was equally appalling to Kennedy as it seemed to spell the end of all efforts to ensure the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and achieve detente with the Soviet Union. If such American apprehensions had been justified, the panicky reaction of the US government to the Elysee Treaty would indeed have been understandable. As Kennedy saw it, America's Atlantic and European policies were in jeopardy, and it is significant that he feared the most devastating consequences with regard to the further management of the German question. Had, then, his Grand Design utterly failed? If we look at the essence of this concept, which was to maintain Atlantic solidarity, the outcome of the Franco-American tug of war in 1962-63 suggests that the Atlantic partnership indeed had been salvaged; the Federal Republic remained a loyal member both of NATO and the Common Market. Adenauer no longer pursued schemes for a political European union after the fashion of the Fouchet Plan. l28 As far as defense was concerned, the doctrine of a flexible response was as much espoused in West Germany as it remained taboo in France. Some Franco-German military cooperation developed, but only on a lower level. De Gaulle's hopes for a Franco-German strategic community of interest never materialized. The single French move that may have won the Germans over to strategic cooperation with France - a French offer of nuclear sharing with the Federal Republic - never occurred. 129 While, apart from France, the Atlantic partnership thus remained intact, the United States had given up farther-reaching hopes. It had to resign itself to Britain's staying out of the Common Market, and, as a consequence, the link it had hoped to establish between a mutually sustaining NATO and the Common Market proved unattainable. The US government may have succeeded in convincing the Europeans that Atlantic cooperation and European integration were not mutually antithetical, but it could not prevent a trend that resulted in more or less severing the interrelationship that had existed between the two goals. In this more general sense the Grand Design had undoubtedly failed, and the lip service that the Kennedy administration

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continued to pay to the ideal of Atlantic partnership plus European integration began to sound somewhat hollow. Kennedy's hope to coordinate these two developments, a reflection of his overestimation of American power in Europe, had been in vain. European integration thus took a course that the United States was less and less able to influence. With an eye on de Gaulle's broadsides against American imperialism it was not only America's ability to 'steer' European integration that decreased, but also its determination to do so, since American diplomacy did not want to provide grist for the mills of Gaullist (and Soviet) propaganda. The fact that European integration became more and more impervious to American influences also reduced its value as a means to harness Germany to the Western world. It was the NATO link alone that had to serve that purpose. TIlE UNITED STATES AND WESTERN EUROPE, 1963-69 What follows presents some of the barest outlines of this 'separate parallelism' of efforts to improve the Atlantic partnership and the process of European integration on the part of the American administrations after Kennedy. As far as European integration goes, the United States preferred an increasingly low profile, although it never deviated from its support in principle. 13o The rationale that the building up of a united Europe was worth some commercial sacrifices on the American side continued to influence America's European policy, although it lost some of its influence toward the end of the 1960s. But, as far as we know, American diplomacy refrained from intervening in the epic struggles that set the European Communities plus five of its members against Gaullist France in questions like voting rights, the famous empty chair, and the status of the Brussels Commission. It could afford this abstention because, much to the relief of the State Department, Gaullist France remained largely isolated in these battles, and at least the letter of the Rome Treaties remained intact. In part, this outcome was due to Adenauer's successor, Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, who remained fully wedded to an Atlanticist outlook. His successors, Kurt Georg Kiesinger and Willy Brandt, also refused to be drafted into Gaullist European ambitions, although they regarded West Germany as an intermediary between Gaullist aspirations and 'Anglo-Saxon' policies rather than as an outright antagonist of Gaullism. Still, the United States remained a more or less helpless spectator as the momentum of European institutions towards more federalism, denounced by de Gaulle as an American import, came to a halt. The United States, to be sure, continued to sympathize with Britain's candidacy and welcomed London's renewed application of 1967. It also encouraged the endorsement ofthe

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free-trade principle within the EEC and could again rely on the support by some its major members, especially West Germany. The success of the Kennedy round negotiations in GATT reinforced that policy. But the State Department adjusted to de Gaulle's policy of reducing the status of the Brussels Commission to that of a mere technical agency, despite the efforts of Walter Hallstein, European Communities President from 1958 to 1967, to make it appear a quasi-European government. US representatives in Brussels thus played a more and more minor role in the diplomatic exchange between the United States and Europe, as the Johnson and Nixon administrations tended to prefer bilateral dealings. America's reluctance to commit itself to specific policies regarding European integration was certainly increased by the loss of most of its former economic and financial leverage in Europe. Now it was the United States that had to confront the Europeans with demands for financial forbearance and solidarity. There was the eternal problem of German off-set payments for expenses incurred by the United States through its military presence in Europe. After lengthy negotiations, West Germany had to accept what the Johnson administration demanded. A short time later, the United States had to ask for European support in the defense of the Bretton Woods monetary system, which had made the US dollar the global reserve currency. Again it was de Gaulle who challenged this American-dominated system, although it was not so much his attack on the Bretton Woods system that led to its collapse in 1973 as it was the growing disparities that appeared between the deepening stagnation of America's economy and the continuing boom in Western Europe, particularly the Federal Republic. Not surprisingly, given this situation, the United States became less willing to pay an economic price for the sake of European integration and tended to treat the commercial and financial problems that came up on their own merits. This reluctance was exacerbated as it became evident that the European community as such was too weak an instrument to ensure Atlantic partnership. If the United States were to pursue such a partnership, it had to rely on the specifically Atlantic organization already in existence, that is, NATO. In this context, the United States continued to defend the idea of Atlantic partnership most tenaciously, and once more it did so primarily with an eye on Germany. The Johnson administration demonstrated this American priority most forcefully when it learned about de Gaulle's decision to remove France from the military integration of NATO (although not to leave the alliance as such) and to demand the withdrawal of American troops from French soil. After de Gaulle announced this step in a press conference on 21 February 1966, Johnson and his advisers were not so much concerned over what this decision would mean for France as they were about what impact it would have on West Germany.l3l The United States reacted much as it had

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with regard to the Elysee Treaty. This new French move, it seemed, was designed to prevent the military integration of NATO and thus destroy the efficiency of the most important anchor tying the Federal Republic to the West. Moreover, France had set a bad example that Germany one day might be tempted to imitate. Once more the specter of a Germany drifting between East and West and fishing in the troubled waters of the Cold War appeared. This time this concern was more justified, but not so much with respect to West Germany as with respect to France. Abandoning NATO integration and thus publicly disassociating France from the alliance, de Gaulle wanted to pave the way for his 'Ostpolitik', that is, his attempt to arrive at some agreement on a joint Franco-Soviet management of the German question. In the context of the Cold War and the military balance in Europe, this foreshadowed a dangerous set-back for the United States. The US government responded to the new Gaullist challenge with speed and circumspection, rejecting all suggestions for more drastic action and intent on limiting the damage that was feared. As far as Germany was concerned, France's retreat immediately raised the question as to the status of the French troops stationed in the former enemy country. Fortunately, the West German government insisted on clear-cut agreements, especially in the event of a war, that would provide the technical and legal mechanisms for France to rejoin the military ranks of NATO. De Gaulle himself wanted to have his cake and eat it too: he wanted to distance France from NATO but still retain the rights France had acquired as one of the four major victorious powers in Germany, thus maintaining immediate control of the German problem. In the end, France agreed to bring its troops in Germany back under NATO control in the event of a general war, but of course only as a result of its own sovereign decisionP2 Thus France had only partially abandoned NATO integration. But this attempt at damage limitation alone did not seem sufficient. What seemed equally necessary was giving more prominence to the character of NATO as an alliance of equal partners. That way, the value to the Federal Republic of its membership in NATO would be further enhanced and its loyalty to it underpinned. American policy-makers knew that, in German eyes, controlling the use of nuclear weapons deployed in Germany was the most sensitive point in this respect. The German government kept criticizing the composition of the NATO standing group, which was the highest body for strategic planning within NATO and, in fact, represented an Anglo-FrenchAmerican military directorate. 133 As a first step towards meeting de Gaulle's challenge, NATO accepted the American proposal to invite the Federal Republic to join NATO's Nuclear Planning Group, which was in charge of preparing the nuclear strategy of the alliance. Thus Germany's partnership in NATO as an equal member was sealed.134

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Beyond that, the United States had a keen interest in not being outflanked by de Gaulle's efforts at East-West detente. This was why it initiated a process that transformed NATO into an instrument that would relax EastWest tensions. NATO thus retained what according to Dean Acheson had always been its main purpose: the collective handling of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Germany. The Harmel Report of December 1967, which recommended that NATO pursue the two aims of Western security and progress in East-West detente (anticipating the later doubletrack decision about the deployment of medium-range missiles in Europe), was the outgrowth of that initiative.135 De Gaulle's efforts to replace NATO with some Franco-European defense 'identity' had thus failed. As a result of his challenge, NATO succeeded in giving a more precise definition of what it meant by partnership - and not least, partnership and parity with West Germany. SOME CONCLUSIONS Turning back to the questions that were posed at the beginning of this chapter, the answer to the first question becomes obvious: European integration as an aim played an instrumental role in America's foreign policy, although it was subordinate to the aim of establishing a close relationship between the countries of Western Europe and the United States - especially between Germany and the Western world. The fact that the United States somewhat mitigated its fervor for European integration during the 1970s cannot only be explained by the disappointments the Kennedy and Johnson administrations had experienced with de Gaulle, but also by the conviction later administrations apparently gained that the Federal Republic had indeed become a reliable member of the Western world and that fears about its adoption of a nationalist-neutralist position had become obsolete. Given these premises, it should be clear that one idea in American eyes had long become an aim in itself - namely, the necessity of supranational structures for an integrated Europe. The American insistence on such structures was repeatedly explained as a response to its experience in the twentieth century of having to redress the balance in a 'fragmented Europe' .136 It took a long time before the US government began to accept the idea that nationhood as a primary focus for political loyalty in Europe still was not totally outdated and not necessarily disruptive. Britain and France, and in a way also the Federal Republic, provided good lessons in that respect. The second question asked at the beginning of this chapter asked whether the Americans were aware of the contradictions between the notions of Atlantic partnership and European integration, and the answer must be yes. This awareness existed already at the time the Schuman Plan was launched,

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and it was sharpened by the debate on the EDC. The question became complicated at the time of de Gaulle, as the kind of European union the French leader advocated did not really live up to the American concept of European integration and was rejected by the United States on that account. On the other hand, the five non-French members of the EEC quite valiantly defended the originally supranational structure of that organization, which de Gaulle condemned as an American import. So it was not European integration as such that was viewed as the antithesis of Atlantic partnership, but rather the twist de Gaulle put on that concept in order to fit it into his Grand Dessein. In the long run, however, the United States basically did not perceive a contradiction between an enhanced role for a united Europe and continued Atlantic partnership. It welcomed an increased European role as a means to arrive at a devolution of some of its responsibilities. This optimism rested on the belief that the Atlantic community was a partnership based on common values, which precluded fundamental clashes of interest, especially in the sphere of security. Certainly, de Gaulle's aspirations sometimes shook that belief, while West Germany's acceptance of its position in NATO tended to confirm it. In the end, it was this conviction that persuaded US administrations after Kennedy to downplay the controversy between GauIIist France and American-led NATO. Among the values the US governments regarded as the common heritage of the West was the notion of partnership on which NATO was founded - a notion that implied the principle of equality as well as a certain degree of voluntarism, that is, a measure of freedom of decision granted to every member of the alliance. Acting on that principle, the United States accepted France's sovereign decision to abandon military integration of NATO. On the other hand, the fact that neither the Soviet Union nor, for that matter, de Gaulle seemed to respect the principles that underlay the notion of Atlantic partnership justified the American effort to defend NATO in the interests of what it stood for.

NOTES 1. John L. Harper, American VISions of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 77, 80, 96-8. 2. Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press 1992), pp. 163 ff. 3. State Department, Policy Planning Staff, No. 13: Resume of World Situation, 6 November 1947, quoted in Thomas Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis, eds, Containment:

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Documents on American Foreign Policy and Strategy, 1945-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 93,97; George R Kennan, Memoirs 19251950 (London: Hutchinson, 1967), pp. 293-5, 359-{j7. 4. Harper,American VISions, pp. 95ff. (see note 1); Pierre Melandri, Les Etats Unis face a l'unification de l'Europe (Paris: Editions A. Pedone 1980), pp. 15ff., 34. For the following see also Klaus Schwabe, 'The United States and European Integration', in Clemens Wurm, ed., Western Europe and Germany: The Beginnings of European Integration 1945-1969 (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1995), pp. 116ff. 5. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947,3 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1972), pp. 227, 250 (henceforth referred to as FRUS, plus year and number of volume). 6. Melandri, Les Etats Unis, pp. 98-100. 7. Cleveland, Memorandum, 12 June 1947, Truman Library; John L. Gaddis, 'The United States and the Question of a Sphere ofInfluence in Europe, 1945-1949', in Olav Riste, ed., Western Security: The Formative ~ars (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1985), pp. 70ff. 8. Max Beloff, The United States and the Unity of Europe (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1963), pp. 15ff.; Policy Planning Staff Paper No.4, 'Certain Aspects of the European Recovery Problem from the United States Standpoint', 23 July 1947, in Etzold and Gaddis, eds, Containment, p. 114. 9. See the highly revealing remarks by Dean Acheson to European foreign ministers, 'Memorandum of a Conversation', 3 April 1949, quoted in Cees Wiebes and Bert Zeemann, eds, 'Eine Lehrstunde in Machtpolitik', Vierteljahrshefte fUr Zeitgeschichte, vol. 40,1992, pp. 415, 417, 422. 10. K. Schwabe, 'The Origins of the United States' Engagement in Europe', in Francis Heller and John Gillingham, eds, NATO: The Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the Integration of Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), pp. 173-5; also Leffler, Preponderance, pp. 279ff. 11. Wiebes, ed., 'Eine Lehrstunde', p. 421ff (see note 9). 12. Gaddis, 'The United States and the Question of a Sphere of Influence', p. 76 (see note 7); Schwabe, 'The Origins', p. 172. 13. Memorandum of Conversation [with Acheson], 7 March 1950, FRUS, 1950, 3, p.639. 14. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), p. 395. 15. Klaus Schwabe, '''Ein Akt konstruktiver Staatskunst" - die USA und die Anfange des Schuman-Plans', in Schwabe, ed., Die Anfiinge des Schuman-Plans 1950/51 (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1988), pp. 217 ff. The State Department tried to get the idea of the necessary French leadership in European integration across to the French government. Monnet distinctly recalled these American expectations with regard to France during the months preceding the announcement of the Schuman Plan: Jean Monnet, Memoires (Paris: Fayard, 1976) p. 398. 16. Meeting of US Ambassadors at Rome, 22-24 March 1950, FRUS, 1950,3, p. 798. 17. Melandri,Les Etats Unis, pp. 247-50 (see note 4); Schwabe, 'The Origins', pp.172, 176, 179ff. (see note 10, with further references, especially: Acheson to Embassy in France, 21 April 1950, FRUS, 1950,3, pp. 59ff., and Holmes to Hoffman, 10 March 1950, Harriman Papers (Library of Congress». One option that was discussed was to transfer some of the functions of the OEEC to NATO (Alan S. Milward, 'NATO, OEEC, and the Integration of Europe', in Heller and Gillingham, eds, NATO, p. 244. 18. See, for example, Theodor Achilles, Memorandum, 1 March 1950, National Archives, Washington, Diplomatic, legal, and fiscal files, decimal file (henceforth referred to as NA): 'I am increasingly convinced that talking about "European

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integration" is barking up the wrong tree. Our kibitzer role of trying to "push, prod and encourage" the Europeans to take steps which we are not prepared to take ourselves has produced negligible results despite the pressure of ECA funds.' The memorandum continues by advocating an economic Atlantic union. 19. Theodor Achilles, Memorandum, 25 January 1950, NA, decimal file. 20. Klaus Schwabe, '''Ein Akt"', pp. 223ff. 21. Meeting of US Ambassadors at Rome, 22-24 March 1950, FRUS, 19503, p. 819; Nelson D. Lankford, The Last American Aristocrat: The Biography of Ambassador David K. E. Bruce (Boston: Little, Brown 1996), p. 221. 22. Schwabe, '''Ein Akt konstruktiver Staatskunst"', p. 225. 23. Melandri, Les Etats Unis, pp. 283ff. (see note 4). 24. Memorandum of Conversation, 3 April 1949, in Wiebes and Zeeman, eds, 'Lehrstunde', p. 418. 25. H. Freeman Mathews, Memorandum, 16 August 1950, FRUS, 1950, 3, pp. 212-15; Klaus Maier, 'Die EVG in der Au,6en-und Sicherheitspolitik der 1hImanAdministration', in Hans-Erich Volkmann and Werner Schwengler, eds, Die Europiiische Verteidigungsgemeinschaft. Stand und Probleme der Forschung (Boppard: Boldt Verlag, 1985), pp. 34-7; Walter Schwengler, 'Der doppelte Anspruch: Souveranitat und Sicherheit. Zur Entwicklung des volkerrechtlichen Status der Bundesrepublik', in Werner Aberlshauser and Walter Schwengler, eds, Wirtschaft und Rustung. Souveriinitiit und Sicherheit (= Anfiinge westdeutscher Sicherheitspolitik 1945-1956, vol. 4), p. 373. A similar proposal but without mention of a German contribution had been suggested by France (Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 436 - see note 14). 26. Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 437. 27. FRUS, 1950, 3, pp. 411ff. 28. FRUS, 1950, 3, pp. 410-13, esp. p. 411; Acheson to Bruce, 3 November 1950, . FRUS, 1950, 3, pp. 426-30. 29. Klaus A. Maier, 'Die internationalen Auseinandersetzungen urn die Westintegration der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Ihre Bewaffnung im Rahmen der Europaischen Verteidigungsgemeinschaft', in Lutz KoHner et al., Die EVG-Phase (= Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt, ed., Anfiinge westdeutscher Sicherheitspolitik, vol. 2) (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag 1990), p. 20. 30. K A. Maier, 'Die internationalen Auseinandersetzungen', pp. 16ff. 31. Acheson to Bruce, 3 November 1950, FRUS, 1950, 3, pp. 426-31. 32. K A. Maier, 'Die internationalen Auseinandersetzungen', pp. 21ff. 33. Franliois Duchene, Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), pp. 231ff. 34. W. Meier-Dornberg, 'NATO und EVG', in Klaus A. Maier and N. Wiggershaus, eds, Das Nordatlantische Bundnis 1949-1956 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1993), pp.219ff. 35. Maier, 'Die Internationalen Auseinandersetzungen', pp. 139 ff. (see note 29); Klaus Schwabe, 'Biindnispolitik und Integration 1949-1956', in Maier, Das Nordatlantische Bundnis, p. 83. Marc 'ftachtenberg, The United States, France and the Questions of German Power, 1945-1960, MS, p. 14, convincingly argues that, to Eisenhower, the ultimate goal was to make Europe a third power, relieving the American defense burden. 36. Holger Schroder, Jean Monnet und die amerikanische Unterstu.tzung fUr die europiiische Integration 1950-1957 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang 1994), pp. 326-9. 37. Dillon to Department of State, 23 April 1954, FRUS, 1952-54,5,1, p. 949 - Agreed United States-United Kingdom Secret Minute on Germany and the EDC, 28 June 1954, FRUS, 1952-54,5, 1, p. 988; Luce to Department of State, 1 July 1954, FRUS,

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38.

39. 40.

41.

42. 43. 44.

45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50.

51.

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1952-54, 5, 1, pp. 993ff.; Conant to Secretary of State, 17 June 1954, FRUS, 195254,5, 1, pp. 971ff.; Bunker to Secretary of State, 23 March 1953, FRUS, 1952-54,5, 1, pp. 778ff.; R. Steininger, 'John Foster Dulles, the European Defense Community, and the German Question', in Richard Immermann, ed.,lohn Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp.lOI. Convention on Relations Between the Three Powers and the Federal Republic .... , As Amended by Schedule I of the Protocol on Termination of the Occupation Regime in Germany. Signed at Paris, October 23,1954, Article 7.2, in United States Department of State, Documents on Germany 1944-1985, Department of State Publication 9446, no date [Washington: 1986], p. 428; Schwengier, 'Der doppelte Anspruch', pp. 327 ff. See also: Hans-Peter Schwarz, Die ;ira Adenauer. Griinderjahre der Republik 1949-1957 (= Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, vol. 2), (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Wiesbaden: F. A. Brockhaus, 1981), pp. 247-54, and Gustav Schmidt, ''lYing (West) Germany into the WestBut to What? NATO? WEU? The European Community?', in Wurm, ed., Western Europe and Germany, p. 140. Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower; Kennedy, and the United States of Europe (London: Macmillan, 1993), p. 79; Schmidt, ''lYing (West) Germany', pp. 153ff. Dulles to US Embassy Bonn, 1 July 1955, FRUS, 1955-57,4, pp. 307ff., also p. 305; Dulles, Memorandum to Eisenhower, 6 January 1956, FRUS, 1955-57, 4, p. 388.ff.; Duchene, Monnet, p. 296; Winand, Eisenhower; Kennedy, pp. 109-13, esp. p.11I. Hanns Jiirgen Kiisters, Fondements de la Communaute economique europeenne (Luxembourg, Brussels: Office des publications officielles des Communautes europeennes, 1990), pp. 110-12; Wolfram Kaiser, Gro!3britannien und die Europiiische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft 1955-1961 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1996), p. 187. Geoffrey Barraclough, Survey of International Affairs 1959/60, (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 80. Hans-Peter Schwarz, Adenauer. Der Staatsmann: 1952-1967 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1991), pp. 291-3. See, for example, Eisenhower's statement before the NATO Council of 9 September 1959, quoted in G. Barraclough, Survey 1959/60, p. 84; also: John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 130. G .Barraclough, Survey 1959/60, pp. 105-7. Marc 'Irachtenberg, 'La formation du systeme de defense occidentale: Les EtatsUnis, la France et MC 48', in Maurice Valsse et al., La France et [,Otan 1949-1996 (= Actes du colloque tenu a l'ecole militaire, 8, 9, 10 February 1996) (Paris: Editions Complexe, 1996), pp. 115-23. Schwarz, Adenauer, pp. 292-5 (see note 43); Georges-Henri Soutou, L'alliance incertaine. Les rapports politico-strategiques franco-allemands, 1954-1996 (Paris: Fayard 1996), pp. 64-7. Valsse, 'Independance et solidarite', in Valsse et aI., La France et l'Otan, pp.220ff. Schwengler, 'Der doppelte Anspruch', pp. 40-2 (see note 25). Memorandum of Conversation Dulles-Brentano, 21 November 1957, FRUS, 1955-57, 4, p. 202. Full text of sanitized passages in published text was kindly provided by Professor Marc 'Irachtenberg. See also Schwengier, 'Oer doppelte Anspruch', p. 45. M. Valsse', Independance et solidarite', pp. 225-8.

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52. Eisenhower was quite conscious of this. See Memorandum of Conversation de Gaulle-Eisenhower, 2 September 1959, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 2, p. 261; Eisenhower to de Gaulle, 30 August 1960, FRUS, 1958-60,7,2, p. 415. 53. Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 3 August 1960, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 1, p. 610; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 16 August 1960, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 1, pp. 612-14; Eisenhower to de Gaulle, 17 November 1959, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 2, pp. 311ff.; Memorandum, of Telephone Conversation Eisenhower-Herter, 10 August 1960, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 2, p. 403. 54. National Security Council Report, Statement of US Policy on France, 4 November 1959, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 2, p. 308; Herter, Memorandum of Conversation, 20 December 1959, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 2, p. 321; Memorandum of Conversation with President Eisenhower, 22 April 1960, FRUS, 1958-60 7, 2, p. 341; Valsse, 'Independance et solidarite', p. 233. 55. For example, Memorandum of Conversation de Gaulle-Eisenhower, 2 September 1959, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 2, p. 260. 56. Memorandum of Discussion at 417th Meeting of the National Security Council, 18 August 1959, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 2, p. 244; National Security Council Report, 4 November 1959, FRUS, 1958-607,2, p. 298. 57. National Security Council Report, 4 November 1959, FRUS, 1958-60 7, 2, p. 307; also: Memorandum of Conversation Eisenhower-de Gaulle, 2 September 1959, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 2, p. 261; Memorandum of Conversation with Eisenhower, 22 April 1960, FRUS, 1958-607,2, p. 341; Herter to Macmillan, 30 June 1960, FRUS, 1958-60 7, 2, p. 396; Memorandum of Telephone Conversation EisenhowerHerter, 10 August 1960, FRUS, 1958-60, 7, 2, p. 403; Frank Costigliola, France and the United States: The Cold Alliance since World War II (New York: Thayne Publishers, 1992), pp. 125-7. DeGaulle had claimed this veto in public: Hans-Peter Schwarz, Die Ara Adenauer 1957-1963 (= Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, vol. 3) (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt; Wiesbaden: F. A. Brockhaus 1983), p. 120. 58. Schwarz, Adenauer, pp. 458-61, 563: Adenauer was particularly incensed by a remark made by Prime Minister Debre that nations without nuclear weapons were satellites. 59. Eckart Conze, Die gaullistische Herausforderung. Die deutsch-franzosischen Beziehungen in der amerikanischen Europapolitik 1958-1963 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1995), p. 95. 60. Eisenhower to de Gaulle, 30 August 1960, FRUS, 1958-60,7,1, pp. 414ff. Eisenhower's real position may be further clarified once the full unsanitized text of his conference with Prime Minister Macmillan is made available (see Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 27 September 1960, FRUS, 1958-60,7, 2, pp. 420ff.) 61. Memorandum of Conversation Adenauer-Kennedy,12 April 1961, FRUS, 196163, 13, p. 279. 62. Schwarz, Adenauer, pp. 566ff. 63. Schwarz, Adenauer, pp. 455ff., 570. 64. Schwarz, Die Ara Adenauer 1957-63, p. 119. 65. Intelligence Report, Problems and Prospects of the Fifth Republic, 6 December 1960, FRUS, 1958-607,2, p. 429. 66. W. Kaiser, 'The European Free Trade Association, the EEC, and the United States, 1958-1972', unpublished MS, p. 13. 67. E. Conze, Die gaullistische Herausforderung, p. 184. Monnet welcomed this step: Duchene, Jean Monnet, p. 325.

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68. Alan P. Dobson, Anglo-American Relations in the 20th Century (London: Routledge 1995), pp. 125ff.; Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy, p. 271. 69. State Department, Circular Telegram, 12 April 1961, PRUS, 1961-63, 13, p. 5. 70. Report Prepared by the Consultant to the Department of State (Bowie), 'The North Atlantic Nations: Thsks for the 1960s', PRUS, 1958-60,7,1, p. 627. 71. George Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern. Memoirs, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), pp. 209, 213. 72. Memorandum of Conversation Kennedy-Adenauer, 15 November 1962, FRUS, 1961-63, 13, p. 125; Memorandum of Conversation Kennedy-21 Such concern inspired the policies of the Fifth Republic, which exploited the credibility gained through the political and economic recovery program, the nuclear potential (from February 1960), and the end of the Algerian War. It would be dangerous to oversimplify relations between the alliance and France. On occasion, France has had a more 'Atlanticist' position than one would have thought. Indeed, the French along with the British insisted on a security agreement with the United States at the beginning of the Cold War. They were also the most ardent to demand, in light of the Korean War, the creation of an integrated army. In reality, President Auriol's complaint was not that there was too much constraint, but rather not enough: 'The prevailing idea is this: the Atlantic Pact should bind all signatory countries and no one should be allowed to go his own way. There should be a common policy in every field.>22 Even the leaders of the Fifth Republic never questioned that the alliance was above all a security blanket. What was contested by France was the domination the United States hoped to achieve through NATO. For

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that reason, Michel Jobert participated in the drafting of a new allied declaration in 1973-74. Kissinger explained: Jobert wanted America fully committed to defend Europe but he wished to reduce our political links to Europe to the greatest extent possible .... In Jobert's view, there was no harm - indeed, there might be some benefit - in periodically reasserting the need for the common defense. But this implied no obligatory political consultation?3 France could also be pleased with the global impact the alliance with America had in the 1950s. After all, the Marshall Plan had helped France to modernize, allowing it to carry the 'plan Monnet' into effect. 24 Furthermore, the Atlantic alliance guaranteed that, unlike in 1914 and 1939, the United States would be involved from the beginning in any future conflict. There was, however, a heavy price to pay since the new international order assigned France a subordinate position: 'France's position seems guided more by the concern for asserting what France is or should be than by any concern for reaching a given goal. In other words, it is a certain definition of international order which shapes French foreign policy, and France's perception of France's place in it.' Still in May 1976, President Giscard d'Estaing deemed it necessary to urge the United States to consider his country as an ally rather than a subject. 25 The first disappointment occurred when privileged status was requested. In January 1949, the French Ambassador Henri Bonnet asked to create a special defense council 'composed of representatives from the US, the UK, and France'. The Joint Chiefs of Staff immediately objected that while Britain and the United States had global strategic responsibilities, the French 'have basically only European and North African responsibilities and inadequate strength to play any role in other theaters and therefore are not entitled to participate in consideration of global strategy'. Eventually a compromise was devised that would never satisfy the French: 'to give France full membership in whatever was the real controlling body from the military point of view of the Pact, but at the same time confine the functions of any of the organizations under the Pact to the immediate question of the implementation of the Treaty.'26 De Gaulle hoped to rapidly reform the alliance, and his failure to do so resulted in France's dramatic withdrawal from the integrated army in 1966.27 In a famous memorandum in September 1958, he had explained that it was necessary to establish, at a political and strategic level, a new body 'consisting of the United States, Great Britain, and France. This body should have the responsibility of taking joint decisions on all political matters affecting world security, and of drawing up and, if necessary, putting into action strategic plans, especially those involving the use of nuclear weapons ....,28

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The request was part of a continued demand for Atlantic consultation about world affairs, a demand which had become the 'leitmotiv' of French politicians. In 1951 Rene Pleven, in 1954 Pierre Mendes France, and in 1956 Christian Pineau all expressed the same dissatisfaction with the way the alliance was working in the 'out-of-area' issues. Yet, de Gaulle's request was new in two respects: first, while during the Fourth Republic France dreaded it might be treated like Italy and longed for Britain's position, it now wanted to be part of an equal partnership with Washington and London; second, strategic nuclear arms consultation was now made a priority. There were some hints that a compromise could finally be reached. However, the United States was not prepared to accept France's tripartite solution. Agreement appeared close in June 1961 when Kennedy (in Paris) accepted an embryonic strategic system that would work by consultation. But on 10 June, Washington backtracked and limited the idea to meetings of the secretary of state and the British and French ambassadors, or between foreign ministers. A few months later, further exploratory talks on nuclear coordination broke down?9 The final outcome occurred in 1966 with de Gaulle's withdrawal policy. French troops were pulled out of the integrated army, which for France was a symbol of subordination. No doubt de Gaulle could have invoked technical considerations; France could have potentially been involved in a war that was the product of policies of which it disapproved. His decision was also related to the new 'flexible response' that the United States had hoped to enact, and which de Gaulle challenged because it dangerously raised the nuclear threshold and implied American control of the French and British deterrents. However, withdrawal from the integrated army essentially boiled down to symbolizing France's determination to defend its interests, to go beyond a 'bloc' system that constrained its freedom and, above all, to try and create a badly needed new and different Europe. In its efforts to restore its former glory, France was not satisfied with just asking for a tripartite cooperation with Britain and America. Very early, it had also decided on a different strategy of leading a united Europe to promote its own interests. From 1963, it began to exclusively pursue this second strategy of playing the part of the Old World in the face of America, even if it meant playing it alone. France's European policy has been strongly linked to its German and Atlantic policies. Ironically, France eventually agreed, albeit reluctantly, with the United States on the one problem that had caused disagreement from the outset: the future of the German western zones in the face of a divided Europe. Early on in Paris there was much anxiety about the extent of American plans to politically and economically rebuild a former enemy that had to be tied to the democratic world. Yet, Paris and Washington successfully overcame their differences. The French fear of standing alone against the Germans helped persuade the United States to become involved in an

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entangling alliance for the first time in history. As early as 23 April 1948, British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin reminded the Americans that 'an Atlantic security system was probably the only way in which the French could be brought to agree to a rebuilding of Germany'?O On the contrary, the French supported the radical proposal of Jean Monnet, which entailed Germany entering into the equally supranational Coal and Steel Community. This Schuman Plan marked the beginning of European integration, which was France's main response to America. 31 Simultaneously pursuing both European integration and the Atlantic alliance inevitably led to ambiguity. American protection made the Old World feel secure and convinced them to create a peace zone with a new Germany. However, there was a risk that the newly unveiled strategy could lead to European dependence on American security; it seemed futile to make the necessary national sacrifices Europe could require if the new entity could not act independently of the United States. It was not long before the ambiguity created enormous tension between the United States and France. The French saw the early development of Europe as a balancing act between the superpowers as well as a solution to the German question. De Gaulle expressed a view that was a continuation of the idea dating from the Fourth Republic. 'What is the point of a Europe?' he confided to Alain Peyrefitte on 22 August 1962; 'it should serve to prevent us from being dominated by America or Russia .... France could be the strongest of the six members. We could control this lever of Archimedes. We could carry away the others. Europe represents the first opportunity France has to regain what she lost at Waterloo: world dominance ..32 The Americans were no doubt the first in history to advocate a united Europe that would be strong enough to resist Russia. Yet, by the time de Gaulle regained power, the Americans envisioned only a Europe that would be dependent on an Atlantic body that the United States could dominate. Tension could be seen for the first time in the European Defence Community (EDC) when the Americans decided to rearm Germany, which meant the French had to apply the Schuman Plan to the armed forces. A new proposal by Jean Monnet was hastily drafted. Still, once the panic of the Korean War dispelled, depriving France of its army appeared to threaten its 'grandeur'. It also threatened to make Germany the dominant power and rendered Europe an appendage to a superpower. Despite instigating the treaty, the French were quick to reject it entirely. This provoked one of the largest crises ever known between France and the United States. 'The Soviets successfully used Mendes France to kill, or at least to maim, EDC', stated J. Foster Dulles before the National Security Council on 24 September 1954. 'Will they now try to use him to destroy NATO?,33 'Those damn French!' exploded Eisenhower when, a little later, France appeared to be complicating the implementation of US foreign policy.34

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During the Fifth Republic, France's main objective was more than simply to reach an equal status with the UK. It was first, as we have seen, to put France on an equal footing with its two principal allies. From 1960 on, however, that objective began to seem unrealistic, and efforts were more and more concentrated on establishing an autonomous or independent Europe that was self-determining. When this became apparent and the United States began to realize the potential power the European Community could wield, American support withered?5 De Gaulle's intentions were the antithesis of Kennedy's Atlantic integration plans. The first moment of dispute occurred in 1962-63 when France successfully opposed Kennedy's 'Grand Design', and then when the American president succeeded in limiting the ramifications of the Elysee Treaty. This treaty was the Franco-German version of the Fouchet Plan, which de Gaulle had earlier used to try to persuade the other Europeans to work together. The climax of the tension came between 1965 and 1968 when de Gaulle decided to withdraw the French troops from the integrated system and take on a Europe with a still unformed identity. Despite the end of the Cold War, the problem remained when Fran~ois Mitterrand sought to establish a European security (albeit not defense) identity unrelated to the alliance?6 It was never more evident than when Kissinger and Jobert clashed in 1973-74 during the 'Year of Europe'. France nearly achieved a victory by using this plan, which was developed by America to persuade Europe to develop a clear identity. 'Is it possible to reconcile the principals of the Atlantic agreement on defense and security while having an increasingly regional European economic policy?' asked Nixon in 1973. 37 But in 1972 Pompidou had reconfirmed that there should be no confusion between the EEC and the Atlantic alliance: There is and must be no link between the "Ten" (political cooperation) and the Alliance to which, moreover, Ireland does not belong. If there are common concerns, well, during the discussions of the Atlantic Council, everyone will tell whatever he wants to the members of the Alliance who do not belong to the Europe of Ten, but no link, not any link between both organisations. 38 The differences continued until the end of the Cold War. The tension was reinforced by a dissimilar perception of the Soviet Union. Essentially, the two countries disagreed about the twofold vision France had of the Soviet Union. France, like the United States, distrusted the totalitarian system. However, many in Paris saw Russia as one of France's oldest partners, which might have even been able to help France counterbalance the United States. Two issues were at stake. Moscow had links with the French Communist Party and its KGB was especially active in France?9 This made it rather easy for the Soviet Union to suggest that America's position in the Cold War was sometimes belligerent and therefore provoked further antagonism. This in

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turn led some in Paris to conclude that the USSR might not have been France's greatest threat, that, in fact, a closer relationship with the Soviets could even prevent a Europe dominated by Germany or the United States. Such ideas unsurprisingly led to various disputes between the United States and France. During the 1950s, some in Paris wondered if a strong pact with the Soviets that included a neutral Germany might not be preferable to a rearmed and pro-American German state. On a number of occasions, the French considered whether it would not be better to avoid being too partisan, which could lead to a European conflict that the Americans could not successfully wage. In the late 1970s when Afghanistan was invaded, President Giscard d'Estaing would not condone sanctions against the Kremlin. Furthermore, the Desert One fiasco seemed to hint that the United States did not have the means to adopt a coercive strategy. Actually, the French president was first and foremost pursuing a third plan (beyond independence and a new Europe), one that de Gaulle had also followed when he returned to power. The general had hoped to work towards an end of the bloc system, which was seen as limiting French influence. After de Gaulle, French leaders often expressed such aims, and it never failed to produce repeated friction. At the beginning of the 1960s, de Gaulle believed that opening talks with the USSR could only be feasible if such talks were based on solid foundations; otherwise, it might be considered to be appeasement. He deplored the building of the Berlin Wall, and jostled Kennedy into negotiation with the Kremlin. In contrast, in 1964 France believed conditions were right to launch a new period of 'detente, entente et cooperation' within Europe. Thus France's withdrawal from the integrated army (1966) symbolized a move away from American domination. 'The old division into two monoliths is over', declared Pompidou in February 1965. 'Naturally from her geographic and historic standing France has no option but to play the European role. Europe has slept in the shelter of American strength for too long.'4o Two years later, Johnson seemed to be warming to the detente de Gaulle had been advocating. This was both a success and a danger for France. Johnson's agreement favored a rather different detente than that imagined by the French. The Americans rapidly gained the support of their allies through the Harmel Report, which strengthened the very blocs the French had hoped to erode. In Paris, detente could still be seen as an asset as it broadened the room for maneuver. Yet there were also dangers. Arms controlled to the 'sanctuarization' of the superpowers, a development of some concern to Europe. Europe could potentially become the scene of a limited nuclear conflict and more probably a condominium in which regional interests were neglected. However one considers the potential of the detente, it was undoubtedly a source of tension between Paris and Washington. France was successful in exploiting the worries engendered by the Soviet-American agreement of 1973

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on the prevention of nuclear war. Unlike previous Soviet offenses, the Afghan invasion did not lead to reconciliation. On 31 December 1979, Giscard stated, 'We are in a possible war situation. We are in a period where the world's future depends on the ability of a few men to remain calm.'41 Evidently this was not a quality that he believed Carter possessed. For many in France, the danger lay in the difference between America's rhetoric and what might actually happen. It is true that Afghanistan was outside the scope of the treaty, in an area that was always an issue of controversy among the allies. The 1948-49 American insistence on restricting the theater of alliance cooperation reflects the extent of their concern. The French denounced this idea of never being led into a colonial war and holding back the Soviet Union. For France, this belief proved that American designs were ambiguous. Throughout the 1950s Paris was indignant of the insufficient support it received from Washington. The American view seemed to be that the best service France could offer was to renounce its colonies and prevent their nationalist leaders from the embrace of communism. No other policy generated a similar degree of resentment. It was reputed that during the Second World War Roosevelt wanted to deprive France of its empire. This suspicion grew as the United States increasingly struggled with the dilemma of how to avoid provoking the allies yet also avoid leaving room for the Soviets to establish strongholds in colonial areas. The complex nature of the position was often at the root of the most dramatic tension faced by the alliance. American and French cooperation was achieved in 1950 in a Vietnam that was exposed to communism. But the offer of help only fed the French concern. For the United States, granting independence to nationalist anti-communist leaders was the only safeguard against communism. France, on the other hand, essentially wanted to preserve its own presence and status in the world. 42 When this appeared impossible after the Korean armistice, they considered peace as the only possibility. For the United States, further communist advance only heightened their fears. The resentment reached new heights in Algeria: first, because of the 'Algeria is France' mentality;43 second, because it sometimes looked as if the United States was attempting to dislodge France. In 1952, an article in Le Monde suggested that Admiral Fechteler, the chief of American naval operations, confirmed America's wish to supersede the French in the Mediterranean. The document was actually a fake, but the suspicion was confirmed when the United States later did exactly that in Indochina. The Suez Crisis in 1956 highlighted the disparate difference of interest and a truth that had been overlooked in 1949 - namely, that it was difficult to be allied in one part of the world and to clash in another.44 Judging from the American reaction, the French felt that the United States would not hesitate to leave

124 them in the lurch. Konrad Adenauer seemed to share their anger, which convinced them to pursue an alternative path of European development. This gave France a new role in which it could be strong (at this point, it was believed that the Common Market would never be ratified in the French parliament) and not dependent on the United States in a nuclear situation. The resentment that the crisis provoked led France into what was a rather adventurous attempt to achieve nuclear cooperation with Germany and ltaly.45 With respect to the Algerian War, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a deputy of the extreme right, declared, 'In North Africa, two dangers exist for France .... One bolshevik and one American. The latter is infinitely closer.'46 Notes historian Michael Harrison, 'It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that what happened on May 13th (1958) was an anti-American revolt in which France fought desperately for a national resolve more than one imposed from the Superpower of the West.'47 American policy in the UN only further convinced de Gaulle of the vanity of the allied agreement. 'I may not be able to force [the Americans] into applying the Western solidarity rules, but by now I just don't give a damn,' declared de Gaulle. 48 The end of the war gave him the chance to be free of what he considered 'a box-full of sorrow'. As a result of the 'cooperation' policy, he transformed the colonial past (which had often been a handicap) into a distinct advantage. Since it was now the Americans who were responsible for stability in the developing world, they would be the ones who would condemn the absence of allied support. The American rhetoric of the 1960s claiming that Washington was defending Western security in Southeast Asia left French leaders rather doubtful. To an extent, the second Vietnam war was a revenge for the French. According to journalist Andre Fontaine, 'Babbitt did not know his country would launch tens or hundreds of air raids similar to the Sakhiet bombing, without feeling the least indignant about it.'49 American intervention, de Gaulle asserted, reflected an inability to recognize neutrality and represented a misapplication of force. It was, in other words, part of a familiar pattern of American behavior. He developed the most severe statement of his opposition in Phnom Penh through a speech delivered on 1 September 1966.50 During the following years, France was able to evolve into the role of privileged intermediary between the Third World and the industrial democracies. France criticized the United States for being obsessed with Soviet advances in the developing world. Giscard went further, criticizing the United States for wanting to tum the Afghan crisis into a NATO issue as well. Likewise, Mitterrand felt that American fears of the Sandinistas were uncalled for since he considered them to be essentially nationalist. However, the divergence was strongest on the issue of the Middle East (the Suez Crisis has already been discussed). During the October War of 1973, the

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French noted that they had been neither consulted nor informed of the US decision to increase its nuclear alert level to DefCon III. Along with the United Kingdom, France agreed on a European declaration that for the most part was critical of Washington. Jobert criticized the way Europe had been treated as a 'nobody'. However, unlike the Suez Crisis, this slowed rather than accelerated European unity. Both the embargo and the quadrupling of the price of oil demonstrated Europe's vulnerability and dependence on the United States. In Washington in February 1974, the conference had no quarrel over isolating France. In 1980, differences grew again when Giscard persuaded the Venice Summit to adopt a pro-Palestinian text that was implicitly critical of the United States. However, Mitterrand showed signs of accepting - although not sharing the US position on Central America, and he supported a very similar Middle East line. In 1982, he almost certainly refused to accept new arms contracts from Managua leaders. 51 WHY FRANCO-AMERICAN SOLIDARITY PREVAILED This selVes to remind us that, regardless of whether the Franco-American relationship is a tumultuous one, ultimately solidarity prevailed. Some examples will demonstrate how this cooperation functioned and suggest why the French always knew they should not bring their conflict with the United States to the breaking point. In many more instances than one could guess, France and the United States cooperated. In Africa, at the end of the 1970s, Paris and Washington were working together to such an extent that one wondered if the French were developing into the 'Cubans of America'. In reality, the French strove to take over the role of the United States in a region where the latter looked dangerously absent. The two nations even cooperated in the Middle East. During the October War in 1973, to camouflage the American planes going overhead, the French went so far as to create some aerial defense exercises. 52 Furthermore, at the request of the United States, Mitterrand agreed that France would take part in the multinational force supetvising the Camp David agreement. 53 In 1991, France was supportive of the United States at the beginning of the Gulf War, even if it wanted to assert certain conditions. Franco-American solidarity appeared particularly strong between 1958 and 1963 during the Cuban crisis. Of course, France was looking to profit from America's retreat. However, in the spring of 1960, France realized that the intensifying relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union threatened its interests and Atlantic security. After the Bay of Pigs crisis, the solidarity grew further, and France probably provided Washington with information on the Soviet MRBM deployment. The October 1962 crisis enabled de Gaulle

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to show both France's independence and solidarity; he openly declared his support for the United States, yet by conceding that the United States could act unilaterally, he implied that France could do the same. 54 Another vital area of unity, which France did not always admit to in public, concerned defense. France's withdrawal from the integrated army quickly led to the Lemnitzer-Ailleret agreement, which allowed France the chance to have an important reserve role in the allied defense. On the other hand, Franco-American differences should certainly not be underestimated. The French initiative seriously damaged NATO credibility and cohesion even if de Gaulle almost always imagined that France would hypothetically support the allies, and he probably considered the sanctuarization policy extreme and desperate. 55 There was another formidable obstacle as well - namely the Paris doctrine, which would imply nuclear retaliation if France was threatened with invasion. Nonetheless, French and American politicians made large efforts to attenuate the differences. Pompidou was quick to show his wish to create a bilateral military understanding with the United States, albeit not with the alliance. As a result, Franco-American relations improved after 1969 until the disagreement over the 'Year of Europe'. Indeed, relations improved when de Gaulle was still in power and a new team of 'Gaullist' American leaders accepted realpolitik. Kissinger was probably flattering Pompidou when in 1971 at the Azores he said, 'You know very well if we have a special relationship with anyone, it is with France.'56 Furthermore, Nixon hoped to gain the support of Pompidou for the 'Year of Europe' when, in Reykjavik in 1973, he stated, 'Until 1969 American policy towards France has been mistaken and disastrous.'57 The new team of American leaders were open in their warmth for France. In May 1971, for the first time, they proposed nuclear assistance for France with no conditionalities. During the Fourth Republic, French requests for such assistance were rejected. At the time of Sputnik in 1957, America undoubtedly dazzled its allies with many promises. Yet Congress refused to amend the McMahon law except in favor of the UK. Eisenhower seemed both to agree to help an ally and to fear seeing France use the 'bomb' to gain stature. 58 Finally, on 15 April 1958, the president of the council, Felix Gaillard, secretly signed the order to make the French bomb. Negotiations began between de Gaulle and the United States to see how Washington could be of assistance - though, apart from small quantities of uranium, n6thing was offered.59 That convinced the Quai d'Orsay that non-proliferation was therefore the American priority.6o This belief was indeed confirmed by the Moscow Treaty (1963) and the NPT. However, in Reykjavik (1973) Nixon explained that US policy had turned 180 degrees: in the early 1960s, the United States had seen Britain's and France's nuclear arsenals as a security threat; by the time of SALT, the United States believed the arsenals helped

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fight the threat of the Soviet Union. Indeed, in 1974, the alliance recognized them as 'capable of playing a deterrent role of their own, contributing to the overall strengthening' of its own deterrent. In 1971, technical cooperation was outlined between the United States and France. In 1973, it was revamped after initial difficulties (France was no doubt disappointed for not receiving the same treatment as the UK) and then further developed. 61 Working together brought a larger degree of closeness with France. Moreover, it also showed France's determination to establish a new type of independent understanding with the United States. As the French minister of defense wrote in 1970: 'We hold strong reservations on the initiatives which result in American control of what they call "wider decision making" ... although we will cooperate in potential military action, provided that our principles are respected that only France decides to deploy her forces.'62 It is therefore not surprising that many solid agreements were concluded. The Lemnitzer-Ailleret agreement was extended principally to the First Army. The most significant agreement, concerning a possible Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNW) coordination, was made between General Rogers and General Mery in 1979. Under Giscard, the closeness accelerated. French leaders were concerned about giving European policy a credibility which was not implied by the sanctuarization doctrine. The 'one war' theme was aired, which meant France was equally involved with the other allies and could therefore speak of the 'enlarged sanctuarization' of Europe and the vital Mediterranean interests. Soon the language would have to change. Independence and integration had indeed become overused concepts. However, evidence shows that, although Mitterrand returned in the early 1980s to a more Gaullist strategic concept, France and NATO discreetly developed cooperation which reached a new level in the 1980s. One historian writes: 'With regard to NATO, Mitterrand accepted the level of military cooperation that had developed in the 1970s and expanded it significantly. By 1985 French military relations with NATO were more extensive and deeper than at any time since General de Gaulle took office in 1958 .. .'63 How ironic that just as the Cold War thawed in the late 1980s, France probably had as much to lose as to gain by remaining outside a body in which its contribution was still significant. We must now consider the ambiguity of independence and solidarity. No doubt in its rhetoric France emphasized an independence it saw as the best way to preserve its identity and to justify its claim to speak for Europe. However, France always knew that in reality its fate was related to the other countries led by America. However, France was not without means. During the Fourth Republic, it knew how to play 'persuasion' with the weakest and the strongest: writes Costigliola, 'Third Force leaders knew how to exploit Washington's

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predicament. "It helps the Communists when Americans insist on France balancing her budget," Minister Jules Moch solemnly warned journalist Walter Lippmann.'64 Later, France exploited its central role in the European Union. Kissinger told Joseph Luns that he had no choice other than to work with France 'for, if France turned against the Year of Europe, it would wither anyway,.65 However, in its search for power, France sometimes appeared only able to cause injury. In Africa, it profited from its former colonial links. However, its position in the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia was considerably reduced. Pierre Mendes France decided, despite his reservations, to support American policy in Indochina where France had vainly tried to keep its sovereignty. In Southeast Asia, ~erica leads the coalition', he said to his envoy in September 1954.66 The incapacity of de Gaulle to pursue his visits to Latin America demonstrated France's vanity in believing it was the sole power able to balance Washington in the region. Mitterrand confirmed the vanity of such an endeavor. The Middle East was the part of the world which showed the bitter truth for France that, after all, had kept links with many Mediterranean and Arab countries. In the Middle East, Mitterrand seemed particularly critical of the United States. In autumn 1994, he called Saudi Arabia the private hunting ground of America and said, 'France does not realize it, but we are at war with America. Yes, permanent war, vital - an economic war ... They are hard, those Americans. They are voracious. They want undivided power over the world.'67 This was not the only example. To be sure, the withdrawal of the integrated army gave France the opportunity to set an example also for Europe. However, above all, it gave the United States the authority to impose a flexible response and also regain control of detente, especially after the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. 68 France's weakness was never as obvious as at the time of the Afghanistan invasion when Giscard risked being 'Warsaw's telephone operator'. In reality, at Warsaw Giscard privately condemned the aggression. However, he paid a high price for meeting Brezhnev at this time without getting a real concession. Helmut Schmidt's policies also worried Washington: 'Giscard's policy, quite unlike de Gaulle'S, has the effect of stimulating Franco-German competition in a race to Moscow.'69 Yet, some months later in December 1980 and at America's instigation, the French president sent a 'very strong' message to the Soviets, who were getting ready to intervene in Poland. 70 The ultimate limitation to France's 'independence' was precisely its dependence on a Europe that could balance the United States. But Europe had no security policy of its own, and there were two major impediments to its developing one. First, France's industrial policy often gave the impression that, while Paris spoke in favor of European union, its businesses mostly preferred transatlantic to European cooperation. More generally, while

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preaching European unity, France always feared alienating its sovereign power in a supranational venture and always wondered if a United States of Europe would not be the Europe of the United States. Second, although the Community partners tried to avoid making a choice, they did not hide their predilection for an alliance with America at the cost of the French initiative. In 1972, Kissinger told Nixon why he wished to cooperate with France: 'Our preferred strategy was to permit Pompidou to establish a position of leadership in Europe by negotiating the terms of a settlement with us. We always had in reserve the threat to isolate him if he were totally intransigent..n

FRANCO-AMERICAN RELATIONS AFTER THE COLD WAR When the Gods wish to punish us, they grant us our wishes. The end of the Cold War freed Europe of blocs, as de Gaulle had hoped for, and apparently gave the ultimate vindication of the French model. Yet it soon became obvious that, for French diplomacy, the disappearance of the Soviet Union raised more problems than it solved. Indeed, another truth had been somewhat forgotten: the end of the bloc system could mean a new and more overwhelming American ascendancy. Actually, the Soviet threat had not been the only justification of America's presence in the Old World. Something more was involved. As far as Europe was concerned, that century was divided into two distinct halves. In the first part, America was only involved in a limited way and Europe was devastated by two suicidal wars; in the second, the United States tried to prevent the demons of the past from rising again, and Western Europe became a peaceful region. For the French as well as for other Westerners, the end of the Cold War opened a new era - the prospects of which were not totally favorable. German unification risked pushing France nearer to Russia, especially when Europe showed its inability in Yugoslavia. The United States might be tempted to revert to an isolationist position. Moreover, France wondered whether its kind of relationship with the United States and NATO was still workable. 72 Its nuclear ability was not normally adequate in the types of intervention it was involved in. Its absence from most of NATO prevented it from reforming the alliance, which could be the future pillar of European security. Its economic difficulties burdened its ability to influence the developing world. Now all depends on the 'strategic revolution' of Chirac. He hopes to negotiate France's return to the alliance in exchange for American recognition of a European military identity. It is too early to tell if this will work. We must also consider that until now this has degenerated into more discord in Africa, the Middle East, and at the UN, leading Jim Hoagland to note that the rule with Franco-American relations is that they 'are never as bad as they

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seem in the worst of times, nor as good as they seem in the best'. 73 Perhaps French leaders were anxious to state that in no way would this change signify acceptance of being a 'subject'. The Southern Command quarrel suggests another interpretation. Chirac may have been bitter, as his predecessors had probably been, about America's rejection of the kind of compromise the French vainly sought which would have met America halfway. No doubt Washington considers France's return to be only a gesture of self-interest. This is the crux of the difficulty. Despite all the rhetoric, the United States always deals in realpolitik. This is also true for France, but it also considered a United Europe a tempting utopia. However, the Americans should wonder whether the development of a United Europe as they hoped for in the 1940s is still not in their enlightened self-interest.

NOTES 1. Charles G. Cogan, Oldest Allies, Guarded Friends: The US and France Since 1940

(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1984), p. 2. 2. 'France Says Final Adieu to "Peerless" US Envoy', International Herald Tribune, 10 February 1997. 3. Mary Kathleen Weed, L'image publique d'un homme secret: Michel Jobert et la diplomatie franr;aise (PhD diss., Institut d'Etudes politiques de Paris, 1983), p. 49. 4. Frank Costigliola, France and the United States: The Cold Alliance since World War II (New York: Thayne Publishers, 1992). 5. Fran~ois Mitterrand, Rejlexions sur la politique exterieure de la France. Introduction avingt-cinq discours (1981-1985) (Paris: Fayard, 1986), pp. 142 and 145. In reality, as Jean-Baptiste Duroselle reminds us, there was some bloodshed between the two countries for two brief periods: first during the 'Undeclared War' or 'Half War' at the end of the eighteenth century (1797-1801) and later during the allied landing in North Africa in November 1942. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La France et les EtatsUnis des origines anos jours (Paris: Seui}, 1976), p. 46. 6. Jean-Jacques Zilberberg: L'image des Etats-Unis dans La France et dans L'empire durant La seconde guerre mondiale, PhD diss., University of Paris III, 1997, pp. 150-2. 7. Georgette Elgey, La RepubLique des illusions, 1945-1951 (Paris: Fayard, 1965), p. 382. 8. Quoted in Raymond Toumoux,Jamais dit (Paris: Pion 1971), p.199 and in Richard Kuisel, Seducing the French: The Dilemma ofAmericanization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 137. 9. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La France et Les Etats-Unis, pp. 226-7. 10. Nicole Gnesotto, 'La France, fille ainee de l'Alliance?', in Pierre Lellouche, ed., Pacifisme et dissuasion. La contestation pacifiste et L'avenir de la securite de ['Europe (Paris: IFRI, 1983), pp. 267-84. , 11. Yves-Henri Nouailhat, France et Etats-Unis; aout 1914-avriL1917 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1979), p. 14. 12. Andre Kaspi, Le temps des Americains: 1917-1918 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1976).

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13. Denise Artaud, La question des dettes interalliees et la reconstruction de l'Europe (Paris: Champion, 1978). 14. See the two major books by Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La decadence: 1932-1939 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1979) and L'abime: 1939-1944 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1982). 15. In his foreword to Charles Cogan's book, Oldest Allies, p. vii (see note 1). Harry Hopkins is quoted in Charles de Gaulle, Memoires de guerre. III: Ie salut, 19441946 (Paris: Pion, 1959), p. 102. 16. Richard Kuisel, Seducing the French, pp. 1-14. See also: Christine Faure and Tom Bishop, eds, L'Amerique des Franr,;ais (Paris: Fr~n«ois Bourin, 1992) and Philippe Roger, Reves et cauchemars america ins. Les Etats-Unis au miroir de l'opinion publique franr,;aise (1945-1953) (Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1996). The American Challenge (Paris: Denoel, 1967) was a bestselling book by French journalist Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber. 17. Herve Alphand, L'Etonnement d'etre: Journal, 1939-1973 (Paris: Fayard, 1977), p.206. 18. Cyrus Sulzberger, L'ere de la mediocrite (Paris: Albin Michel, 1974), p. 286. 19. Alfred Grosser, Les Occidentaux, les pays d'Europe et les Etats-Unis depuis la guerre (Paris: Fayard, 1978), pp. 59-60; Catherine Durandin, La France contre l'Amerique (Paris: PUF, 1994); Etienne Burin des Roziers, 'Le non-alignement', in Elie Barnavi and SaUl Friedlander, eds, La politique etrangere du general de Gaulle (Paris: PUF, 1985), pp. 63-74. 20. Lawrence S. Kaplan, The United States and NATO: The Formative Thars (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984), pp. 14-29. 21. Pierre Melandri, 'France and the Atlantic Alliance: 1950-1953: Between Great Power Policy and European Integration', in Olav Riste, ed., Western Security: The Formative Thars (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1985), p. 266. 22. Ibid. 23. Henry Kissinger: Thars of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), p. 706. 24. See Gerard Bossuat, La France, l'aide americaine et la construction europeenne, 1944-1954 (Paris: Comite pour l'histoire economique et financiere de la France, 1992), vol.2, and L'Europe occidentale Ii l'heure americaine, 1945-1952 (Bruxelles: Complexe, 1992); Irwin M. Wall, L'influence americaine sur la politique franr,;aise: 1945-1954 (Paris: Balland, 1989). 25. L'annee politique, 1976, pp. 202-7. Preceding quotation from Marisol Touraine in Stanley Hoffmann's foreword to Charles Cogan's book. 26. Foreign Relations of the US, 1949, 4, Western Europe (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975) p. 121 and p. 256. . 27. See Frederic Bozo, Deux strategies pour l'Europe. De Gaulle, les Etats-Unis et l'Alliance atlantique, 1958-1969 (Paris: Pion, 1996). 28. John Newhouse, De Gaulle and the Anglo-Saxons (New York: Viking Press, 1970), p. 70; Maurice Valsse, ~ux origines du memorandum de 1958, Relations internationales, 58 (Spring 1989), pp. 253-68 and 'Independance et solidarite', in Maurice Valsse, Pierre Melandri and Frederic Bozo, eds, La France et l'OTAN: 1949-1996 (Brussels: Complexe, 1996), pp. 219-45. 29. Georges-Henri Soutou: L'alliance incertaine, Les rapports politico-strategiques franco-allemands, 1954-1996 (Paris: Fayard, 1996), p. 185 and p. 193. 30. Harry S. lhIman, Memoirs, vol. 2, 1946-1952 (New York: New American Library, • 1965), p. 282. 31. See Pierre Melandri, Les Etats-Unis face Ii l'unification de l'Europe: 1945-1954 (Paris: Pedone, 1980). 32. Georges-Henri Soutou, L 'Alliance incertaine, p. 131.

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33. Foreign Relations of the US, 1952-1954, 5, Western European Security, Part 2 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1983) p. 1266. 34. Frank Costigliola, Franfie and the United States, p. xv. 35. Pierre Melandri, Les Etats-Unis et Ie 'deft' europeen: 1955-1958 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1975), pp. 157-204; Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy and the United States of Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), pp.114-21. 36. Frederic Bozo, 'France and NATO after the Cold War: Between Collective Security and European Indentity', in Michael Brenner, ed., The Atlantic Alliance and Collective Security in Post-Cold War Europe (London: Macmillan, forthcoming). 37. Pierre Melandri, 'Une relation tres speciale: La France, les Etats-Unis et I'Annee de I'Europe: 1973-1974', in Georges Pompidou et l'Europe (Brussels: Complexe, 1995), p. 110. 38. AN,S 1G, Box 1041 (Archives du Septennat de Georges Pompidou) Annotation, 'Telegramme de Fran~ois de Rose au ministere des affaires etrangeres, Bruxelles, 17 mai 1972'. Pompidou speaks of the 'Ten' because, at that time, Norway had not yet said 'no' to the EEe. 39. According to Thierry Wolton, La France sous influence. Paris-Moscou: 30 ans de relations secretes (Paris: Grasset, 1997). 40. Quoted in Alfred Grosser, Les Occidentaux, p. 290. 41. Samy Cohen, La monarchie nucleaire. Les coulisses de la politique etrangere sous la ~ Republique (Paris: Hachette, 1986), p. 133. 42. Lawrence S. Kaplan, Denise Artaud and Mark R. Rubin, eds, Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations, 1954-1955 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1989); Laurent Cesari, La France, les Etats-Unis et la guerre d'Indochine (PhD diss., University of Paris IV, 1991). 43. The French insisted Algeria should be included in the area covered by the Atlantic treaty. 44. On this crisis, see the forthcoming book edited by Maurice Vaisse, La France et ['operation de Suez (Brussels: Complexe). 45. See the articles by Maurice Vaisse, Colette Barbier, Eckart Conze, and Leopoldo Nuti in Revue d'histoire diplomatique, 104e annee, 1990, no.1-2; Georges-Henri Soutou, 'Les accords de 1957-1958: vers une communaute strategique et nucleaire entre la France, l'Allemagne et l'Italie', in Maurice Vaisse, ed., La France et ['atome, Etudes d'Histoire nucLeaire (Brussels: Bruylant, 1994), pp. 123-62. De Gaulle immediately suspended the agreement. 46. Quote from Alfred Grosser, La M Republique et sa politique exterieure (Paris: Armand Colin, 1961), p. 389. 47. Michael Harrison, 'La solution gaulliste', in Denis Lacorne, Jacques Rupnik, and Marie-France Toinet, L 'Amerique dans les tetes (Paris: Hachette 1986), pp. 214-15. See also Pierre Melandri, 'La France et Ie "jeu double" des Etats-Unis', JeanPierre Rioux, La guerre d'Algerie et les Fran~ais (Paris: Fayard, 1990), pp. 429-50. The events of May 1958 led to the fall of the Fourth Republic. 48. Herve Alphand, L'Etonnement d'etre, p. 364. 49. Andre Fontaine, Histoire de la guerre froide, II, 1950-1971 (Paris: Fayard, 1971), p. 407. In the spring of 1958, the French bombed Sakhiet, a Tunisian village where Algerian rebels had taken refuge, killing many civilians. This bombing was severely criticized by France's allies. 50. Anne Sa'adah, 'Idees Simples and Idees Fixes: De Gaulle, the United States, and Vietnam', in Robert O. Paxton and Nicholas Wahl, eds, De Gaulle and the United States: A Centennial Reappraisal (Oxford: Berg, 1994), pp. 307-9. 51. Evan G. Galbraith, Ambassadeur de choc (Paris: Stock, 1986), p. 21.

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52. According to General De Boissieu, Georges Pompidou hier et aujourd'hui. Temoignages, under the chairmanship of Pierre Messmer (Paris: Breet, 1990), p. 221. 53. Pierre Melandri, Une incertaine alliance. Les Etats-Unis et l'Europe: 1973-1983 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1988), pp. 315-17. 54. See Maurice Vai'sse, 'Une hirondelle ne fait pas Ie printemps. La France et la crise de Cuba', Maurice Vai'sse, ed., L'Europe et la crise de Cuba (Paris: Armand Colin, 1993), pp. 89-107 and Laureat Sastre, La France et la revolution castriste: 19591961, Master Thesis, University de Paris X, 1995. See also, but with caution, Thyraud de Vosjoly, Lamia (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970). 55. The best information available is in Frederic Bozo, La France et l'OTAN. De la guerre froide au nouvel ordre europeen (Paris: Masson, 1991) and Deux strategies pour l'Europe. , 56. AN, 5 AG 2, Dossier 1022, Etats-Unis d'Amerique, Entretiens: 1969-1973, 'Entretien du president Pompidou avec M. Henry Kissinger, 13 decembre 1971', Pierre Melandri, 'Une relation tres speciale .. ', in Georges Pompidou et l'Europe, p. 106. 57. AN, 5 AG 2, carton 1023, Reykjavik, 'Compte rendu de la seance pleniere du 1er juin'. 58. Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy and the United States of Europe, p. 212. 59. See Maurice Vai'sse, 'Un dialogue de sourds: les relations nucleaires franco-americaines de 1957 it 1960', Relations inte"!ationales, 68 (Winter 1991), pp. 407-23; Marcel Duval et Pierre Melandri: 'Les Etats-Unis et la proliferation nucleaire: Ie cas fran~ais', Revue d'Histoire diplomatique, 3 (1995), 3, pp. 193--220. 60. Georges-Henri Soutou, L'alliance incerta~ne, p. 135. 61. Marcel Duval and Pierre Melandri, 'Les Etats-Unis et la proliferation nucleaire ..', Revue d'Histoire diplomatique; Pierre Melandri, 'Aux origines de la cooperation nucleaire franco-americaine', in Maurice Vai'sse, ed., La France et l'Atome... , pp. 235-54 and Richard Ullman, 'The Covert French Connection', Foreign Policy, 75 (Spring 1989), pp. 3-33. , 62. AN, 5 AG 2/ 1040, Cooperation militaire France-Etats-Unis 'Note du ministre d'Etat charge de la defense nationale', n.d. 63. Sam F. Wells, Jr., 'France and NATO under Mitterrand, 1981-1989', in Maurice Vai'sse, Pierre Melandri and Frederic Bozo, eds, La France et l'OTAN, p. 560. 64. Frank Costigliola, France and the United States, p. 64. 65. Henry Kissinger, ~ars of Upheaval, p. 182. 66. Pierre Melandri, 'Les difficiles relations franco-americaines', in Fran~ois Bedarida and Jean-Pierre Rioux, eds, Mendes France et Ie mendesisme (Paris: Fayard 1985), p.266. 67. According to Georges-Marc Benamou, Le dernier Mitterrand (Paris: Pion, 1996), p. 52 quoted in William Pfaff in 'Sole Superpower Status Goes to America's Head', International Herald Tribune, 18-19 January 1997. 68. See Frederic Bozo, Deux strategies pour ['Europe... , pp. 167-212. 69. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle. Memoirs of the National Security Adviser: 1977-1981 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983), p. 313. 70. Ibid., p. 468. 71. Henry Kissinger, The White House ~ars (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 958. 72. Frederic Bozo, 'France and NATO After the Cold War'. 73. International Herald Tribune, 27 February 1997.

7 The USA, Britain, and the Question of Hegemony Alan P. Dobson

INTRODUCTION Special? Cooperative but competitive? Informal empire? Empire by invitation? The debate goes on. How can the complexity of the Anglo-American relationship since 1945 best be explained? One approach which has achieved valuable currency in recent years and which could supply a means of interpreting America's relations with its allies is hegemony theory. But it is a contested concept, and there are also questions as to whether or not the USA is still a hegemonic power. lWo authors concerned with policy-making recently adopted diametrically opposed views on this. In a survey of possible options for maximizing US interests, Michael Lind declared, 'Anachronistic talk of "the world's only superpower" to the contrary, the United States today is too weak to dominate the world by itself.'l Martin Walker, writing in the next issue of the same journal, claimed that the price of US hegemony 'can no longer be described as burdensome,.2 The 1996 cost of US military dominance was less than 4 percent of GDP - the smallest percentage since 1940. For this outlay, the USA had 20000 troops in Bosnia and 100000 in Asia and Europe respectively, patrolled the waters off Taiwan and in the Persian Gulf, and enforced the no-fly zone in Iraq, to name only the highest profile US international military roles. The conduits of US hegemony apparently still ring the world, keeping it safe for liberalism and the free market. At first glance, hegemony theory certainly appears to have the potential to explain the largely cooperative postwar Anglo-American relationship, while at the same time giving recognition to the conflicts which also arose. The theory claims that cooperation within an overall system is created by a hegemon which exercises leadership mainly by virtue of its ability to co-opt and to gain acceptance of common norms by those who follow. Much of this seems to be applicable to Britain's relationship with the USA. They share mariy values and cooperated closely in the waging of the Cold War and in nurturing a liberal international economic order. In fact, those areas of cooperation have been so strong and so widely written about that they are largely assumed rather than demonstrated in this chapter. Britain, furthermore, has also often followed America's lead, which seems to be a symptom of the asymmetry of power that has existed between them in the postwar period. But, does all this amount to a hegemonic system that can explain the 134

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relationship between the two countries, or is the term hegemony only capable of being an ex post facto descriptive term? In seeking answers to these questions, this chapter concentrates more on the elements of conflict than cooperation in order to: first, see where the limits of US power lay; second, assess what that tells us of the nature of the overall relationship; third, analyze whether US power amounted to hegemony; and fourth, determine whether one can use the concept in a theoretically useful way. A growing sense of America's relative decline and the publication of Kindleberger's book The World In Depression 3 led to a burgeoning literature on hegemony. Unlike that scholarship, this enquiry does not focus on managing the transition to post-US hegemonic leadership, nor does it attempt to adjudicate on the competing claims of hegemony theorists. Instead, it examines the exercise of power and influence in Anglo-American relations - often in the context of overall US policy towards Western Europe - and assesses whether the common elements of hegemony theory, drawn from several authors, enhance our understanding. Can the theory improve on historical accounts, or provide an interpretation that is useful in a different way? Was the USA really hegemonic? If it was, this could have important implications for the notion of competitive cooperation and various other approaches that have been used to characterize postwar Anglo-American relations, at least in terms of striking the balance between cooperation and conflict. 4 British capability to compete in any really important area of policy would have to be seen as negligible, and the concepts of domination or imperialism would supersede cooperation. To consider these questions and to identify the reasons why Britain and the USA either came together or diverged in their policies, we must first outline hegemony theory. THE THEORY The debate about hegemony developed from a simple, yet seemingly illuminating, idea of Charles Kindleberger. He suggested that hegemonic leaders are needed to pay the costs of creating and sustaining systems for the public good. In addition, the hegemon has other public good costs, not directly related to the economic system, but which are part of the power base of the hegemon. In the postwar period these have been the costs of projecting military power abroad to protect the sovereign integrity of the USA and the international system that it has, supposedly, spawned. A problem, however, arises for the hegemonic leader in that as secondary states acquire the same technology through the open market as the hegemon, and as they do not have to shoulder the costs of leadership (indeed some may be unconscionable freeriders), they become highly competitive and successful. They benefit relatively more from the system than the hegemon. The hegemon's sweet story of

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economic success now sours, and the costs of its international defense burden grow heavy. This is the 'hegemon's dilemma', as described by Arthur Stein: 'To maximise one's own returns requires a commitment to openness regardless of what others do. To maximise one's relative position, on the other hand, calls for a policy of continued closure irrespective of others' policies.'5 The hegemon has to decide whether to continue its leadership role and watch its competitive advantage decline relative to others, or abandon its leadership role and see the system disintegrate. After hegemonic stability, which had apparently laid to rest many international problems, there arises, Phoenix-like from the condition of post-hegemonic stability, the dangers of chaos, collapse, and war. The choice is not quite so stark as this, but the fear of instability has prompted a host of writers to take up the idea of hegemony and explore its implications. These scholars have tried to clarify how hegemonic stability came about, how hegemonic power was exercised and what it consisted of, and how the system might be maintained or nurtured through metamorphosis to something equally stable and secure. Robert Keohane refined Kindleberger's theory with the concept of complex interdependence, which has much to say about the character of the hegemon. He writes: 'If we focus exclusively on questions of power, the most important feature of complex interdependence - almost its only important feature - is the ineffectiveness of military force and the constraints that this implies on fungibility of power across issue-areas.'6 Power in the postwar dispensation is thus a multifaceted concept subject to a variety of constraints, which have always been there but are now more potent. To exercise power means to use a mixture, like Stephen Krasner has suggested, of coercion or its threat, persuasion, incentives, and normative example. 7 Krasner, unlike Kindleberger and Keohane, does not see as much altruism in the role of the hegemon. The hegemon's primary aim is to promote its own interests, not produce public goods. In that sense one could say that Krasner is more of a realist, but for expositions of that argument, we need to turn to Robert Gilpin and David Calleo. Gilpin does not believe that the structural changes of the postwar period (nuclear warfare, economic interdependence, and globalization) have changed the nature of the basic problem of international relations. For him, 'there is little evidence to suggest that the human race has solved the problems associated with international political change, especially the problem ofwar,.8 Gilpin believes that the international system is still dominated by states which promote their interests and pursue security in an anarchical system; the result is a tendency towards conflict and war. More interesting for our present purposes, Gilpin conceives of the hegemon as pursuing its interests in a cyclical pattern reflecting the rise and fall of empires and hegemonic states. When the cycle of development brings it into relative decline, it will try to tax other members in order to spread the cost of sustaining the system. However,

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secondary states will only agree to pay such taxes if they still get more from the system than they pay in. A similar line is taken by Calleo, who sees the USA as an exploitative hegemon - certainly from the 1960s onwards if not before - which has manipulated the international monetary system by abusing its central institutional position. Calleo's solution is for the USA to spread responsibility to Western Europe, as this would allow the USA to contract its overextended commitments and stop abusing the system for its advantage and at the cost of its allies. 9 However, as Calleo remarks, ' ... to call an international system hegemonic means that one power generally takes the initiative in structuring and managing. It does not necessarily mean that the role results in exploitation or springs from coercion.'10 Like Gilpin, Calleo believes that a hegemon both creates and governs the system in its own interests (although these interests coincide with the interests of other members during periods of stability). Unlike Gilpin, he is not wedded to the ideas of hegemonic cycles and wars, or to the necessity of a single hegemonic leader. Finally, there are those writers who see hegemony primarily as a process of socialization (for those of a traditional liberal school), or the result of Gramscian historic blocs (for those who are prepared to engage with more left-wing intellectual categories). Both approaches have much in common in that their main concern is to explain how power can be exercised without overt coercion. Ikenberry and Kupchan believe that the socialization of the hegemon's values among the secondary states in the system is a major aspect ofthe use of hegemonic power. The material components of power have to be integrally related to the beliefs and norms of the hegemon (which are widely disseminated and subscribed to among the members of the system) for the hegemon to be effective in its leadership role - for it to be actually powerful.!! For the Gramscians Robert Cox and Stephen Gill, the key is the historic bloc. Put simply, this is a dominant coalition that transcends conventional divisions of class, civil society, and the state, and which is bound together by ideology and the articulation of a set of norms. The power of a bloc is not so much its physical ability to coerce, though that is important, but its ability to persuade and co-opt: 'The moment of hegemony occurs if and when there is widespread acceptance of the key principles and political ideas of a leading class fraction or constellation of interests.'12 For Gill, the Americans, as the international historic bloc (consisting of liberalism and multilateral capitalism), were able to develop during the war 'a blueprint for the postwar order, and mount long-term strategies for bringing this about, using the tactics of cooptation, compromise and co-operation ... [and] with some arm twisting ... to forge a workable international consensus, .. .'. 13 These summaries of theories of hegemony do not do justice to the sophistication of argument and structure many of them display. However, they allow us to identify some common ground for the concept of the hegemon, how it comes into being, and how it exercises power. In sum, the hegemon conceives

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of and creates the system, usually in a time of crisis when the previous system is collapsing or under severe strain. By definition it has the greatest power, which is primarily derived from a combination of its ability to co-opt through incentives it can offer and normative persuasion. However, it also has physical power of coercion, which is latent in any situation, but rarely used because of self-imposed constraints. The hegemon, depending on whether it is benevolent or exploitative/coercive, will either carry the costs of providing public goods and tolerate free-riders, or seek to tax and exploit other members. The hegemon will weaken over time as the secondary states benefit relatively more than it does, although that does not preclude it from continuing to accrue absolute gains. Finally, in implementing and sustaining the system, the hegemon will compromise and accommodate as it interacts with the secondary powers. This is the most difficult factor or variable to deal with. When is the hegemon exercising its power, and when is it bowing to pressures from others? To what extent can a hegemon be pressed to compromise or be socialized into values by secondary states before it ceases to be hegemonic? BRITAIN AND THE USA The analysis of, first, what brought the USA and Britain together and what divided them and, second, the assessment of the limits of US power and influence in their postwar relationship will be developed in two main themes and in a general overview. The first theme examines the creation of a blueprint for a multilateral economic world order, in which both were expected to play key roles, and the reasons why the Americans postponed its implementation in favor of regionalism as a kind of midwife for internationalism. The second examines problems in managing the Western economy through the Bretton Woods system after 1958, when general currency convertibility came into being, and the related issue of Britain's conventional defense role. The general overview will look at features of decline in Anglo-American relations after 1967. However, before taking up these themes it is important to have a general grasp of Anglo-American relations at the start of the postwar period. During the war, Anglo-American cooperation was unprecedented for nation states. They worked together on the atom bomb, and British and US generals commanded each other's troops. Britain received over US$ 27 billion of Lend-Lease aid, and there was some division of labor in war production. The British set the institutional pattern for the direction of US overseas intelligence operations, and close friendships developed between many key people. Britain became the marshalling yard for American forces to strike at the Axis in Europe, and the fact that it was a relatively secure and politically stable base was not lost on the Americans later in the Cold War. Underpinning their cooperation were shared political, legal, and

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cultural values which led the two countries into a natural and common distaste for totalitarianism. 14 The richness of the wartime relationships, as well as the arguments and conflicts that they spawned, have been well documented by numerous historians and require no further comment here. 15 Cooperation in the postwar period, however, soon ran into difficulties which brought about a cooling of, and a disengagement from, the close wartime partnership. The Combined Chiefs of Staff system was abandoned by the Americans, who looked to the United Nations, collective security, and cooperation by a concert of the four big powers, rather than to bilateral Anglo-American collaboration, to secure the peace. The United States stopped nuclear cooperation, and they wanted to distance themselves from British colonialism and socialism. The British deeply resented the conditions of the Anglo-American Financial Agreement of 1945/46, and in particular the requirement for early sterling convertibility. The British did not believe that this American insistence on a 'rush to normalcy' could be tolerated by the fragile British economy. They differed over policy in Europe and towards the Soviets, and both countries argued most bitterly over the creation of the State of Israel. So, a variety of issues disrupted relations after the war and placed a question mark over their future. The nature of that future was determined by the interaction of economic relations and the development of the Cold War.16

THE NEW ECONOMIC ORDER: OR HOW MULTILATERALISM GAVE WAY TO REGIONALISM Plans for a new economic order took shape in wartime Anglo-American talks, but they were not original. They drew on long-standing liberal economic thought, fears of a recurrence of depression and an awareness of the shortcomings of interwar capitalism. As early as August 1941, Britain and the USA agreed on the shape of a broadly liberal but managed world economy and on the desirability of social and welfare reforms. They embodied these principles in the Atlantic CharterP There was little substantive difference between the prevailing views in the USA and Britain about the overall character of the new economic order. Both wanted to reform the prewar system, which had produced exchange-rate chaos and a collapse of international trade. Both valued the gains to be had from comparative trade advantages and the overall system of liberal capitalism, providing the latter had sufficient management to avoid the interwar pitfalls. The main problems arose over timing and leadership. How to accomplish the transition from wartime to peacetime economics divided the two. That division was exacerbated by more or less justified British fears that the USA would exploit Britain's immediate postwar weakness to its own

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advantage, would seize the leadership in many areas of economic affairs, and might not reciprocate British reduction of protectionism. However, Britain was too weak to cut loose from the USA. It needed US dollars too badly. Without them, as Hugh Dalton, Chancellor of the Exchequer, observed, the British would be deprived of their smokes. 18 On the other hand, the USA could not do without British cooperation. An open world economy could not work without London's blessing because of its trade; because of its banking, shipping, and insurance industries; because of the still important role sterling played in international monetary matters; and because of its influence with the empire and commonwealth, and client states. Britain had been in decline for a long time, but it was still a vital and influential component of any international economic order. 19 This interdependence placed limits on the policies of both states and the power that they could exercise over each other. This is not to say that the USA was not the more powerful, but it is to claim that Britain retained sufficient strength generally to resist coercive US power, except for notable exceptions such as the 1945/46 Financial Agreement and in the Suez Crisis. 2o Notwithstanding the general consensus on substantive policy, there were serious disagreements over tactics for implementing it. The British wanted to keep economic controls in place while they reconverted to peacetime production and became able to compete in world trade. They worried about striking the right balance of concessions with the USA and about the likelihood of trade liberalization coming from Washington. In particular, they were concerned that the American singling out of discriminatory tariff preferences was a greater evil than even highly protective non-discriminatory tariffs. In the USA, the prevailing view was also for a managed, liberal international economy. Secretary of State Cordell Hull pursued freer trade through the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and his international monetary adviser, Harry Dexter White, sought to replace the pound sterling with the dollar in the international monetary system, which was to be managed primarily by the USA in a way that would place a premium on exchange-rate stability. In terms of the IMF and formal commitments to both reducing tariffs and the abolition of imperial preference, the Americans largely got their way. Such results clearly reflected the asymmetry in Anglo-American power relations. In an ideal world, the British would not have agreed to these arrangements. Just how constrained Britain was in the selection of options was largely due to factors that had emerged early in the war. On 7 December 1940, Prime Minister Churchill wrote to President Roosevelt, 'The moment approaches when we shall no longer be able to pay cash for shipping and other supplies. ,21 Fifteen months of war had bankrupted Britain, and that more than anything else dictated the course of Anglo-American economic relations and, indeed, one could argue, relations in general, for the following five years.

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The Americans responded generously through Lend-Lease, for which there were to be no cash payments. But, the Americans used the economic leverage that Lend-Lease gave them to demand economic collaboration in order to create a new postwar economic order. In pursuit of this goal, the USA infringed on Britain's economic sovereignty. It restricted Britain's wartime exports, tried to control the level of her reserves, drew Britain into the IMF, and extracted commitments to the abandonment of discrimination and, in particular, imperial preferences,z2 By the closing stages of the war, however, there was still something of an Anglo-American stand-off. The USA had managed to exercise some control over Britain's export trade and over the size of its reserves, but in neither case to the extent it had ideally hoped for. It had a notable success with the IMF at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, which had more limited liability, smaller resources, and more rigidly controlled exchange rates than Britain thought feasible. It also placed the USA and the dollar in a commanding position in the international monetary system at the expense of Britain and sterling. 23 However, the Americans had only managed to gain equivocal commitments from the British to abandon discriminatory trade controls and to cooperate with the USA in a new liberal trade regime. They therefore seized the opportunity for renewed pressure on the British, which came with the abrupt ending of the war. The atom bomb ended both the war and Lend-Lease earlier than was expected. The end of the latter left Britain economically prostrate. Keynes estimated that Britain had reserves of US$ 1.9 billion, debts of US$ 12-14 billion and a 1945 balance of payments deficit of US$ 5 billion. Much of Britain's capital equipment needed replacing, and there was a massive task ahead in reconverting the economy to peacetime production and in expanding British exports - then one-third of their prewar volume.24 Faced with these problems, the new Labour government under Clement Attlee wanted financial help from the USA and a long transition to fixed exchange rates and freer trade. The Americans determined that things should be otherwise and achieved their aims, at least on paper, in the Anglo-American Financial Agreement. After crisis meetings, the British Cabinet could see no alternative but to accept the US conditions for a loan of US$ 3.75 billion. Britain would have to cooperate in establishing an International Trade Organization (ITO), which threatened imperial preference, and not only enter the IMF, but also make currently earned sterling freely convertible within 12 months of the Financial Agreement coming into force - which was more demanding than the IMF's transitional clauses. The Financial Agreement was a clear case of America exercising coercive power over Britain. It also illustrated the latter's economic dependence on the USA, which was one of the things that bound them together in the postwar period. In the end, the British accepted unpalatable conditions because they believed that the alternatives to a dollar loan would be worse. Reliance on

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imperial preference and sterling area controls would have involved greater hardships and possible economic conflict with the USA. The objectionable aspects of the Financial Agreement were early convertibility and the commitment to trade talks, because it was feared that that would mean the immediate abolition of imperial preference. However, on both these matters the British were not convinced that US intentions could be realized. Later, Attlee suggested that there was skepticism about fulfilling the conditions.25 In fact, the basis of Anglo-American cooperation was not dictated entirely by the USA; instead, force of circumstance partly retrieved the situation for the British and ameliorated the bitter pill they had to swallow to get dollars. If power is measured in terms of the ability to control and to achieve a desired end, then American power must be found wanting: the Financial Agreement was a Pyrrhic victory. When considering hegemony theory, it is important to keep in mind factors which have a bearing on the extent to which the USA 'created' and 'managed' the postwar Western system. First of all, the Americans were inconsistent in their economic aims, except in the sense that they always pursued what was perceived to be in the national interest. However, perceptions ofthe national interest were contested, which led to contradictions and uncertainty and sometimes to unexpected changes in US policies. Second, the general commitment to a multilateral liberal world order did not carry all before it. And in any case it was a form of modified multilateralism. Thus, while trying to browbeat the British into a commitment to a multilateral abolition of imperial preference, the Americans explained that they could not reciprocate in similar kind by agreeing to a multilateral, acrossthe-board, reduction of tariffs. 26 Their much vaunted multilateralism only operated in the trade sphere through the Most Favored Nation (MFN) principle, which extended the benefits of bilaterally negotiated tariff reductions to other members of the GAIT. In specific industries such as shipping, the USA invoked national security for protection, and in the wheat negotiations with Britain in 1941-42 the Americans blatantly attempted to discriminate in their own favor. 27 Lack of coherence and self-serving exceptions to principles makes it difficult to invoke norms effectively - something which is claimed to be a distinguishing feature of hegemonic leadership. Most revealing, however, are the changes in US international aviation policy. At the Chicago International Civil Aviation Conference in 1944, the Americans proposed an open-skies multilateral system. This would have enabled US airlines to gain access to and domination of the world market for the foreseeable future as only they had the equipment and the airlines to exploit it. This attempt at multilateralism was foiled by the British. Thereafter, the Americans themselves changed their minds. In 1946 they negotiated the Bermuda Air Services Bilateral with Britain. Its conditions were extremely favorable to the USA - largely because of the economic pressure that they

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were able to place on the British because the Financial Agreement still had to be ratified by Congress at the time Bermuda was negotiated. The bilateral became a model for the Americans of what they wanted other countries to do. Nevertheless, by early 1946, they had abandoned the idea of price competition for the international airline system, and the Bermuda bilateral was a de facto departure from multilateralism. A few months later they even abandoned the professed principle of multilateralism for the airline industry.28 Third, shifts in domestic politics, which brought Republican successes in the mid-term congressional elections, meant a retreat to a more protectionist position: one that meant Truman eventually had to abandon the ITO and make do with GAIT So, even before taking British policies and the international context into account, we can see that the vision of a liberal multilateral world order was not as clear as it is sometimes suggested, that there were major exceptions to it, and that even as it stood it was already being ground down in the crucible of American domestic politics. Further comment about the implications that such an incoherent 'system' has for a hegemonic interpretation of Anglo-US relations will be made in the conclusion. In the international sphere, the severity of postwar economic disruption in Britain and Western Europe, British reluctance to fall in line with America's economic plans without a transition period of recovery and rebuilding, and Cold War imperatives also began to have an impact on American policymakers and policies. The British, despite the commitments in the Financial Agreement, continued to craft bilateral and discriminatory economic arrangements, and they not only doubted the viability of sterling convertibility in 1947, but regarded the whole exercise as one of going through the motions. Indeed, given the rapid depletion of dollars provided by the loan before the abortive convertibility attempt in 1947, convertibility was a futile gesture?9 Its failure forced the Americans to reconsider their long-held policy of demanding from Britain the abolition of both economic controls and discrimination. Not only did this no longer seem to be practically achievable, there were also other international developments that made the Americans reassess their policies. The beginning of the Cold War in early 1946 and the ever continuing deterioration in East-West relations led the Americans (partly prompted by the British) to set a new national priority: the containment of the Soviets. 3o Part of the policy of containment had to be the recovery and strengthening of Britain and Western Europe. If that meant shifting away from multilateralism, then so it had to be. In the aftermath of the convertibility fiasco and in the light of Britain's continuing difficulties, the Americans conceded that British discrimination against the USA was permissible if it was necessary for obtaining essential goods?! In currency terms, the Americans recognized that the kind of disequilibria that the IMF was designed to cope with were of a much smaller order of magnitude than those that afflicted the deeply unbalanced

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world economy of 1947. Bretton Woods was largely put on ice, and the Americans - instead of demanding international convertibility - concentrated on regional convertibility to help European and sterling area recovery. By 1947, the USA was rapidly becoming more tolerant altogether of regional economic controls and discrimination on the part of its allies, and a renewal of Anglo-American relations developed on that basis and with a common determination to contain the Soviets. America's main priority was now to strengthen Western economies at almost any cost in order to prevent their weakness making them vulnerable to communism. The aim of achieving a multilateral international economic order became a long-term goal to be achieved through economic regionalism. Once the world economy had sufficiently recovered, then internationalism - involving fixed exchange rates, currency convertibility, and freer trade - would become possible. Thus the transition period that the British had striven for all along was in fact achieved. Given the controversy that this had caused with the Americans in the past, it seems rather surprising at first that Anglo-American relations were also simultaneously strengthening: however, the main cause of both these initially contradictory developments was overriding Cold War imperatives. By 1947-48, the US vision of multilateralism, even in the modified form articulated by the Americans and even with the exceptions and contradictions that we have noted, was broadly compromised by America's switch to regionalism. This regionalism was not initially of America's own making and, just as with its multilateralist plans, it found that it needed British cooperation. But did the USA manage to craft regionalism to promote its main policy objectives? On one level the answer must be yes. In so far as the USA set out to bolster Britain and Western Europe in order to make them strong supports of the Western Alliance, it succeeded?2 Also, in terms of this regionalism eventually leading on to the full operation of the Bretton Woods system from 1958-71, again we must say that the USA's intentions for regionalism were fulfilled. Nevertheless, recognition of these broad achievements should not disguise the fact that the USA had to turn, albeit temporarily, away from internationalism to regionalism, and that the kinds of regionalism that emerged in Western Europe and in the sterling area were not entirely of America's making nor always subject to US control. For example, the USA soon found itself pursuing irreconcilable policies towards Europe and Britain, which compromised its goals for both. Constraints of time and space allow only highly selective illustrations of these claims. Fran~ois Duchene's splendid biography of Jean Monnet tells us among many things that the creation of the new Europe was a highly complex development with a rich interaction of ideas and forces from both sides of the Atlantic. 33 On some occasions, as a recent study of the Schuman Plan has shown, the Americans played a key part in bringing the countries of Western

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Europe together. 34 However, the USA did not always have a decisive say and was often thwarted by its allies. This was particularly the case with Britain. In the European Recovery Program (ERP), the Americans wanted Britain to lead reconstruction and integration in Europe. They thought this would be the most efficient method of rebuilding Europe and, with Britain firmly in the integration movement, Germany would be better contained and France reassured. Above all, Western Europe would become strong, stable, and a bulwark against the spread of communism. As late as the autumn of 1949, the US did not think that European economic recovery was likely without constructive British participation. This interdependence necessarily strengthened the bonds with Britain. Unfortunately for the Americans, the British refused to integrate and lead Europe from within. They saw its economic chaos (already a heavy cost had been paid by Britain in its occupied part of Germany) as a possible further drain on its resources. Unlike European countries, where the Second World War had raised searching questions about the adequacy of the nation state, the British had no such doubts. In any case, to be locked into Europe was too parochial for them with their Commonwealth and the special relationship. Along with these national perspectives, the Labour government had a partisan fear that European integration would detract from Britain's economic sovereignty in a way that would damage its industrial nationalization program, as well as employment and welfare policies. This web of reasons made the British wary of integration from the start, and in late October 1949 the Cabinet decided that it should not commit itself to Europe beyond a point from which it could withdraw with ease. 35 The dilemma that the British posed for the Americans was clearly expressed in a discussion by US ambassadors in Paris in October 1949, which took place against the backdrop of Britain's September devaluation of sterling from US$ 4.03 to US$ 2.80 and amid fears for the future of Europe and about British decline and its possible retreat behind economic controls. There was a widespread opinion that Britain could not be left in 'the back yard' if European integration were to go ahead. But as Lew Douglas, Ambassador to the Court of St James, explained, the Labour Cabinet felt that integration would undermine socialist policies; this was a politically sensitive issue and one in which the USA should avoid involvement.36 Averell Harriman was less circumspect. After observing that 'the British prevailed in setting the pattern of [the OEEC] whose impotency was now becoming alarming', he said that the British should be 'bluntly told' that their stance was directly contrary to the US aim of European integration. Ambassador Bruce emphasized that 'No Frenchman ... can conceive of the construction of a viable Western Europe world from which the UK would be absent.'37 The Americans were angry that British policy was undermining their conception of regionalism, threatening economic recovery in Europe, and leaving France

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to try to work out a long-term solution to the German problem without direct British assistance. Anger was one thing, solving the dilemma was quite another matter. George W. Perkins, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, observed that 'there was a deep conviction [in Washington] that the USA needed Great Britain above everything else .... All these things must be taken into consideration when studying the problem of how far to press Britain in the matter of European integration.'38 At this time ERP Administrator Paul Hoffman, angered by Britain's refusal to integrate, wanted to blackmail the British into integration with threats of suspending Marshall Aid funds. It was left to Secretary of State Dean Acheson and his deputy, James Webb, to point out to Hoffman that Britain was too important to be antagonized in this way and that Truman would not endanger the ERP by alienating Britain. By the end of October, Acheson was urging that the French would have to go it alone on integration. 39 Even if the USA could have pushed Britain into Europe, the Americans reasoned that that would probably have slowed down the very process of integration they wanted to speed Up.40 This was not the only time Britain foiled plans for integration. A few months later when the French came forth with the Pleven Plan, the story was the same. The problem was how to rearm the Germans in order to boost the West's feeble manpower resources when compared with the Soviets, without panicking the French. The plan, after initial skepticism, was backed by the Americans who had taken the lead in demanding German rearmament, but the British took a strong dislike to the integrated form of the army that the French had proposed and refused to take part. At his meeting with Truman in January 1952, Churchill explained that his idea of a European army had been that it should be like 'a bunch of faggots bound together, stronger as a bunch than as individual sticks, but each retaining its individual characteristics in the bunch', whereas Pleven's army was like a 'bucket of wood pulp'. Churchill's scorn illustrated British hostility to the whole idea of integration. 41 But refusal to integrate caused problems later for both Britain and the USA, and some of those problems were already visible, so why did the USA not insist that Britain integrate or lose American financial help? The answer is simple: the USA could not afford to lose Britain's help in the Cold War. On successive occasions the Americans reiterated how important their relationship was with Britain. In early 1950, US ambassador Douglas spoke of the existence of the special relationship as being an inescapable fact. 42 The State Department Policy Planning Staff in November 1951 stated: 'We have in fact, at the present time, a special relationship with the UK.'43 Briefing papers for the Churchill-Truman talks of 1952 described the British as the 'most resolute and effective of our allies and, through their Commonwealth ties and influence with other areas, [they] represent an element of strength in

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the free world second in importance only to the US,.44 And even after the Suez Crisis, the briefing paper for the 1957 Macmillan-Eisenhower meeting at Bermuda spoke in similar tones. 45 This indicates America's dilemma. The need for British help - primarily, but not solely, in relation to the Cold War meant that sometimes the USA had to give way on specific issues when there were differences between the two countries. In fact, on a whole range of issues, circumstance and the recalcitrance of its allies meant that the USA did not get its way. With specific regard to the creation of a postwar multilateral world order, British opposition to its immediate implementation, along with other factors, frustrated US aims. When the USA turned to regionalism, its initial plans for integration were not realized, and its hope for a European army was frustrated. The USA got more positive cooperation in the early 1950s, in particular by underwriting British participation in the European Payments Union through the Katz-Gaitskill Agreement of July 1950, but their failure to press Britain into integration and their de facto treatment of Britain as a special partner laid the groundwork for problems for the future of America's grand strategy for Europe. 46 THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIp, 1958-67: OR HOW TO CORRUPT MULTILATERALISM AND REGIONALISM AT THE SAME TIME Fighting the Cold War and managing the Western economy were two key institutionalized features of the special relationship, but in the early part of this period there were more specific developments that symbolized close Anglo-American relations as well as aspects of British dependence on the USA These included the renewal of a special atomic relationship in 1958 through the Agreement for Cooperation in the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes, and the Polaris purchase agreement of 1962. The complexities of these arrangements have been discussed in an excellent recent study which demonstrates that by the 1960s the Americans felt that the political cost of undermining the British nuclear deterrent was too great to pay. They came to this conclusion even though it meant continuing to treat Britain as a de facto special case and differently, for example, from France, which was rapidly developing its own nuclear capability, and from Germany, which it was feared might want to follow the example of its European allies. Nuclear relations with Britain caused serious problems both for the US grand design for drawing Europe into an Atlantic community that would involve freer trade and for its attempts to bring all the nuclear weapons of the West under its control. It tried to salvage the situation by proposing a multilateral nuclear force (MLF) which 'would keep the Germans with us and keep their hand off the trigger',47 as President Johnson explained to Prime Minister Wilson in December 1964. At the same time, the MLF was intended to bring

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the British and French nuclear forces under US control. However, if Germany could not have national control over nuclear weapons in the MLF, neither could France, which was precisely why the idea never gained currency in Paris, nor for that matter in London. In the end, the MLF faded away, but the problem of the Anglo-American special atomic relationship did not. The Americans got some quid pro quo in the atomic and closely allied intelligence field from Britain in return for their atomic help, but it was from the benefit of continuing with the broader relationship of cooperation and support that a substantial part of the payment was to be derived, according to American calculations.48 And it was this payment that was seen as outweighing the untoward consequences the Americans foresaw for their objectives elsewhere. Hegemonic control clearly did not mean the ability to reconcile conflicting policies. Ironically, part ofthis broader scenario of benefit (and of the grand design) was supposed to be the successful entry of Britain into the EEC. The Americans hoped that Britain would help to give political stability to the Community in unsettled times: Adenauer was about to stand down, and there were fears that Germany might be tempted to claim the same nuclear rights as enjoyed by France and Britain. They also hoped that Britain would make the Community more outward-looking, less protectionist, and more amenable to cooperation within a broader Atlantic framework. Unfortunately, the Polaris deal symbolized Britain's closeness to the USA and demonstrated that it was not truly European. It gave de Gaulle yet more reason to veto Britain's application. Just as in the time of the ERP, close Anglo-American relations obstructed Britain's entry into Europe and undermined America's grand strategy for a broad Atlantic framework. It also made the French more determined than ever to push ahead with their force de frappe. But the strength of reasons for tolerating the tendency for Anglo-American relations to produce contradictions in US policies towards Europe was about to go into sharp decline. 49 At the start of the 1960s, Britain, in addition to its significant role in nuclear matters, was important in American eyes because of the conventional military defenses of the West. It had substantial commitments in Germany and east of Suez - in the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and Malaysia. Britain also played an important part in the Bretton Woods system, which was seen by both the USA and Britain as a vital component of the international economic order. The problem that put all this at risk was the weakness of the British economy and uncertainty about the future, an uncertainty exacerbated by de Gaulle's veto. By 1965, Britain's economic problems were manifested in slow growth, a weak pound, and a troublesome balance of payments deficit. These problems worried the Americans. In the summer of 1965, President Johnson directed Treasury Secretary Fowler to set up a Special Study Group to give urgent

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attention to how the USA might help with sterling, 'and thereby sharply reduce the danger of ... devaluation or exchange controls or British military disengagement East of Suez or on the Rhine,.50 The Americans wanted Britain to keep its defense commitments because the USA was already overextended by Vietnam and did not want to have to take up any slack created by British withdrawals. On the monetary front, they saw sterling as the first line of defense for the dollar, which was itself now under pressure because of America's overseas deficit, and ultimately because of the Bretton Woods system. Thus, the Americans, for these interconnected defense and economic reasons, staunchly supported Britain in its financial crises through to 1966, either by bilateral means, or by organizing multilateral assistance. There were, however, two unfortunate consequences of this policy. First, de Gaulle and his favorite economic adviser, Jacques Rueff, were highly critical of the Bretton Woods system. De Gaulle saw it as an Anglo-American management arrangement which was a kind of monetary version of the Nassau Polaris agreement, in that it symbolized Britain's close ties with the USA and its lack of 'Europeaness'. Thus in 1967, Britain's second application to Europe was again vetoed. In his press conference on 27 November 1967, the ranking of reasons for the veto is instructive: the general said that the Community could not accept Britain which, 'owing precisely to its currency, its economy and its politics, is not at present part of the Europe we have begun to build,.51 The second problem with the US policy was that it did not work. Although Fowler still favored shoring up the pound, already in 1965 Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Defense Secretary McNamara, and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy all had problems with the policy, largely because it was not achieving its intended goal. 'We are concerned,' wrote Bundy, 'with the fact that the British are constantly "trying to make narrow bargains on money while they cut back on their wider political and military responsibilities.'52 If the British did not do what the Americans wanted, it did not make sense to carry on giving them help. And so far as the Americans were concerned, the British did not do what they wanted. Successive Defence White Papers from Denis Healey continually cut back defense spending and British overseas commitments, and Britain refused direct military involvement in Vietnam. When the devaluation crisis of November 1967 came, the American Treasury, still worried about the consequences for the dollar and Bretton Woods if the pound were devalued, began to put together a rescue package. But sterling went from bad to worse, not least of all because of heavy French speculation. On 10 November, Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan wrote to Fowler about de Gaulle and the French: 'Of course I realise in the end this will depend upon the General, but it seems to me that the French have stepped up their campaign against sterling with their eye on their main target of bringing down the dollar, and they will do whatever they

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think will achieve this.'53 At the last minute, the Americans offered help to Britain in return for commitments east of Suez, but these were commitments Prime Minister Wilson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Callaghan were not prepared to make. 54 On 18 November, the pound was devalued and with it the special relationship. Britain would no longer playa significant role either in the management of the West's international economy or on behalf of the defense of the West. Britain soon announced that it would withdraw from east of Suez. It also continued to pare down the Army of the Rhine and started to look to Europe once again. As expected, the dollar came under pressure and, while it carried the Bretton Woods system into the next decade, it then had to give way. In 1971, Nixon disengaged the dollar from gold and in 1972-73 floating exchange rates took over from Bretton Woods. The US wartime vision of multilateralism that began to materialize in 1958 had foundered by the early 1970s. The Americans had failed to achieve a broader European community within a more Atlanticist framework. They were unable to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons among their allies, Britain and France, or bring them under American control. They could not dissuade the French from speculating against the pound. And they were unable to prevent the devaluation of sterling or British withdrawal from east of Suez. One might be tempted to exclaim: Hegemony! What hegemony? AMERICA AND BRITAIN: THE LAST THIRTY YEARS This subtitle could mean two rather different things depending upon the emphasis one puts on the word 'last'. It appropriately captures the ambiguity of Anglo-American relations in this period, with Britain attempting to look to Europe and to the USA at the same time. In 1973, Prime Minister Edward Heath finally got Britain into Europe. His success was due to a number of interlinked factors: Heath was truly European, de Gaulle had left office, and his successor Pompidou was keen to have Britain offset the increasing power of Germany and mend fences with his European partners who disapproved of the French veto. Britain in Europe was also the realization of long-held American ambitions; however, they had not expected British entry to bring with it a sharp decline in Anglo-US relations. Heath made no attempt to disguise his coolness towards the USA, much to Nixon's chagrin.55 He also refused permission to allow US planes to refuel at British bases on their missions to re-equip Israeli forces in the Yom Kippur War. There had been cool periods before, but now much of the structure of the relationship had gone: Britain was no longer either a major partner in the defense of the West or in the management of its economy. This is the way relationships can end: not with a bang, but a whimper.

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After all the doubts Americans had expressed about socialism, it was ironic that it was left to Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his Foreign Secretary James Callaghan to mend fences. Callaghan made it his immediate priority, and a briefing paper for Mrs Ford on Wilson's visit to Washington in early 1975 makes it clear that he succeeded: 'With the advent of the Wilson Administration relations between our two countries have been particularly warm and cordial.,56 Later, Callaghan was to have similarly warm personal relations particularly with Gerald Ford, but also with Jimmy Carter. The liking was reciprocated by Carter as was shown in a minor, but worrying, diplomatic impasse caused by polarized views in negotiations for a new air service agreement in 1976-77. Carter sought a deal that would not politically embarrass Callaghan, but it turned out to be somewhat contrary to both US interests and Carter's stated views about airline deregulation. 57 It was not Bermuda 1 in reverse, but it came fairly close to being so. During the period 1974-79, there was little discernible change in the field of nuclear cooperation despite unilateral disarmers on the left of the Labour Party. In fact, the Callaghan government laid the basis for both continued cooperation and the acquisition of the Trident Missile, the purchase of which was subsequently negotiated by the Thatcher and Reagan administrations. The fact that Britain was in the EC did not seem to disturb relations with the USA, with the exception of problems in GATT and over East-West trade. Indeed, until the end of the Thatcher period, whenever there was a choice between the EC and the USA, Britain invariably opted for the latter - most notoriously so in the row about whether the Westland helicopter manufacturer should have a US or European partner. However, this was mainly because of Thatcher's forceful personality. There were more pro-European sentiments within Whitehall, particularly at the Foreign Office and in the form of Sir Geoffrey Howe. 58 While things on the surface appeared unchanged, in fact momentum towards Europe was gaining pace, encouraged by trade and the institutional framework within which Britain found itself in the Community. In the USA, attitudes were also changing, and this was most clearly in evidence in the economic sphere. There was a revealing episode in October 1975 that illustrated the way Americans regarded Britain. In April 1975, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, passed on an article to President Ford from The Economist, which contained a frightening picture of economic decline in Britain. His comment was that this was a model of what the USA must not do. In October that same year, addressing the annual conference of US mayors, Ford was reported in the New York Times as having referred to Britain as a 'horrible example of a government that spends itself sick ... with its Labor Government and its welfare state'. UK ambassador Ramsbotham was quick to protest. Matters were so sensitive that National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft undertook to respond. He lamely

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told Ramsbotham that they had no transcript of the president's speech so he could neither deny nor confirm the report, but he assured him that President Ford's feelings towards Britain had not changed - in itself a rather ambiguous response. 59 In 1976, there was yet another crisis of confidence and a massive run on the pound. Callaghan sought help from Chancellor Schmidt in West Germany, but above all else from Ford and the USA. In Washington there was a division of opinion. The State Department feared that if Britain were not helped in a way that would allow it to avoid severe deflation, then a chain reaction could occur with Britain, followed by others, moving away from the West's liberal financial system. In opposition to this was a stronger faction led by the Secretary of the Treasury William Simon and his Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs Edwin Yeo; this faction believed that Britain's only chance lay in taking the bitter medicine the market dictated. The Americans gave some short-term help, but then refused anything else until Britain accepted harsh IMF terms for further assistance. Some years later, Callaghan remarked that, compared with the way Fowler had responded to British needs in the 1960s, Simon was not as helpful in the 1970s. There was now less incentive for the Americans to be so: Britain no longer had troops east of Suez and there was no Bretton Woods system to uphold. In the letter of intent Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sent to the IMF on 15 December, Britain agreed to cut back its Public Sector Borrowing Requirement by £1 billion in 1977-78 and £1.5 billion in 1978-79. Callaghan later maintained that this was no less than he and Healey had thought necessary, independent of IMF (and indirect US) pressure, but that is debatable. 6o What is clear is that the IMF conditions helped to bury the social contract that the Labour government had with the trade unions - in return for modest wage increases the government undertook to spend generously on social needs. That was now not possible, and industrial unrest led to the infamous winter of discontent which helped the Conservatives to victory in the 1979 General Election. Ronald Reagan commented on Thatcher's victory, 'I couldn't be happier than I am over England's [sic] new Prime Minister,.61 Their friendship soon ripened and gave birth to new comment about the Special Relationship. However, things did not always run smoothly. Secretary of State Haig was reported to have called Foreign Secretary Carrington a 'duplicitous bastard', and Foreign Office aficionados of English must have smiled superciliously at 'Haigravations' of English such as, congressmen were 'castrating our eyes and ears around the globe'. In October 1983, Britain reacted frostily to the US invasion of the small commonwealth island of Grenada (to restore order), and Thatcher was altogether more circumspect about detente than Reagan. There were numerous and anxious exchanges over Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, and in her memoirs Thatcher candidly recalled, 'I did not share the President's view that it was a means of ridding the world entirely

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of nuclear weapons'.62 In particular, she did not want Reagan to negotiate away the US nuclear umbrella from Europe. These difficulties, however, were offset by a pattern of mutual cooperation. Thatcher and Reagan shared a vision of the need to return to a more muscular form of free-market capitalism and had a personal chemistry that drew them together for no less than 15 Anglo-American summits. There were often personal touches, such as Reagan's response to pleas from Thatcher to intervene in the antitrust suit brought by Freddie Laker against British Airways. Much to the amazement of his officials, he did, and the Justice Department dropped its case. At a more important level, in the 1982 Falklands campaign US intelligence and logistic help were vital for the success of British arms. 63 In 1986, Thatcher returned the compliment and allowed US bombers to fly from UK bases for their raid on Libya to punish Gaddafi's alleged involvement in terrorism. Thatcher also supported US deployment of cruise missiles in Europe, and she and her successor, John Major, were staunchly behind President Bush and his leadership in the Gulf War. Personal friendship alone cannot explain all this. Even after the decline of the relationship in the 1970s, substantial areas of cooperation continued in the atomic, intelligence, and conventional military fields while, in the economic sphere, UK investments in the USA stood at nearly US$ 75 billion by the start of the 1990s (more than twice the size of Japan's), and the USA at the same time had US$ 45 billion invested in Britain. Britain remained the most popular destination for US tourists, and educational exchanges and a common language facilitated the absorption of each other's culture. The political values and the legal and cultural inheritance of the two countries which helped them into friendship and on to oppose the great totalitarian threats of the twentieth century - remained more or less the same, and along with the acts of cooperation themselves, created a way of seeing many of the problems that have arisen on the world stage in a similar way. This is not to say that mawkish sentiment lies at the heart of the relationship. But it is to acknowledge that interests and sentiment cannot be so neatly and surgically separated as realists would sometimes lead us to believe. Common interests often generate fond sentiments and fond sentiments can be instrumental in the definition of interests. The postwar relationship has not been a particularly sentimental affair. It was based for the most part on common interests. However, it is clear that British and US interests have recently often taken different paths. There is no longer a common enemy to bring them together and, in any case, Britain can no longer playa major defense role on behalf of the West. The institutional involvement of Britain in the European Union almost inevitably draws its time and energy towards its relationship with Europe, and this has largely superseded the leading internationalist roles Britain used to play. The USA for its part has remained a superpower and now regards Britain as being of very limited help because of its economic and

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military decline. Paradoxically, diminished power in one sense has led to greater freedom for Britain, but only in a context of much more limited ambitions than it used to have. In the current relationship, American power dwarfs Britain's - but then the same could be said of the USA and Israel, although that does not prevent people from talking freely of a special relationship there. Asymmetry does not preclude a special relationship; however, there is little sign of specialness in what Clinton and Major have done, though one should not forget that there have been periods of apathy and decline in Anglo-American relations in the past from which they have revived. Blair and Clinton may have more compatible chemistry, but what the future will bring, others may speculate about. CONCLUSION There is no doubt that what emerged in the Western world in the late 1940s and early 1950s did so at a time of crisis and under the threat of a political, economic, and social collapse of Western Europe. These are the kinds of conditions identified by the theory as favorable for the creation of a new hegemonic system, and there is little doubt that the USA played a central role in developments in Britain and Western Europe in this period. However, the USA had to abandon its initial vision of its version of multilateralism in favor of a regionalism that contradicted many of the economic values it had preached during the war. Even the system it abandoned in favor of a kind of ad hoc regionalism hardly merited the title 'system'. It contained within it contradictory policies of discrimination, protection, freer trade and non-discrimination, bilateralism, and a qualified form of multilateralism. These inconsistencies could be seen from one vantage point as indicative of America's power to 'break the rules' in order to promote its own interests although on some occasions they were more to do with enforced compromises due to an inability to achieve optimum goals. From another perspective, these inconsistencies may be seen as the result of contending forces and arguments within Washington, which made the Americans themselves uncertain of what they wanted. If their system was so incoherent as to hardly merit the term 'system', if America did not have the power to impose its first choice of economic arrangements on the Western world (never mind the Soviets), and if American decision-makers were often uncertain - buffeted by contending domestic political forces and floundering around in search of policies to pursue - then the whole concept of a hegemon seems to be in trouble and suggests that the level of power prescribed by the theory was not met by the USA. To be a hegemonic leader is to be the architect of a system in which rules are followed: part of the public good costs it pays is obedience to the rules even when others ignore them. And while realists would reject such

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altruism, their notion of system also appears to assume some degree of consistent rule following. Indeed, it is difficult to see how the hegemonic reliance for most of its power on the appeal to norms can work if there is not a degree of consistency within the system that rules out the kind of self-serving exceptions that the Americans often made. In other words, there has to be a degree of coherence - but it has been amply demonstrated that the 'system' was just not like that. Macro policy changed substantially and repeatedly, and arrangements for particular industries were frequently at odds with the principles championed in macro policy. Neither did the hegemon, the most powerful state actor in the system, have the kind of control over the inception or development of the 'system' that one might be plausibly led to expect by the theory. In the light of the evidence, it does not seem plausible to suggest that the Americans invented or created a postwar system in accordance with a preconceived blueprint. 64 At best, they adapted ideas with a long pedigree. Confronted with the complex relationships and circumstances of the postwar period, they found themselves both caught up in pressures and ideas from various quarters that they could not fully control and were often dependent on Britain for help. At times, as one historian has recently demonstrated, they hardly knew what they were doing: 'It was the United States' uncertainty about how to act as a great power, how to manage her enormous economic and military prowess, and how best to carry her own public opinion with her that continually preoccupied British officials.'65 After the USA had switched from multilateralism to regionalism, it still found itself dependent upon British cooperation - as it had been with its multilateral plans - and, despite its immense power, was unable to force them to integrate Europe from within. The Americans had to come to terms with Britain as a de facto special friend, which remained a feature in their policies from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The Americans could not escape from that fact because of Cold War priorities and because they needed British cooperation in their attempt to manage the international economy. That relationship, however, compromised American ambitions for Europe. Along with other things, it made Britain unacceptable to de Gaulle throughout the 1960s and undermined US attempts to make the EEC more outward-looking and more compatible with the idea of a broader Atlantic framework. It also drew the Americans, contrary to what would have been their wishes in an ideal world of the 1960s, into supporting Britain's semi-independent nuclear deterrent - a course of action that also strengthened French determination to develop their own nuclear capability, which in tum was contrary to American wishes. Neither during the supposed height of its hegemony (1945-60) nor during its early period of decline (1960-73) did American control ever extend to being able to reconcile its conflicting policies towards Britain and Europe. Of course some might say this is all very well, but it is very much a case of seeing the US cup of power as always half empty and never as half full - or

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even fuller. It could be claimed that, in fact, the USXs cup of power was always more full than empty in its relations with Britain, and nowhere more effectively so than in the Suez Crisis. The Americans, by refusing to divert oil supplies to Britain, by blocking IMF help for sterling, and by their refusal to oppose speculative sales of sterling in New York, encouraged the development of economic circumstances that forced Britain to succumb to US diplomatic pressures to halt the military campaign. 66 However, this chapter does not argue that the USA never acted with decisive power: the US cup of power was almost always fuller than Britain's and, in the events involving the 1946 Financial Agreement and Suez, coercively and dominantly so. The argument is that such exercises of power depended upon particular constellations of factors and US calculations of profit and loss. That is why in the Middle East, only five years before Suez, the Americans had to tolerate with utmost reluctance British refusal to accept the American strategy for dealing with the crisis over the Iranian nationalization of Anglo-Iranian Oil Company assets: There is general agreement that broad strategic considerations limit the extent to which we may force the UK's terms for the purpose of achieving a compromise on the oil question .... 1t is conceded that [the] US, in the absence of any overall plan of approach to Iran or the Middle East as a whole, has been placed in the position of following the British line. 67 Circumstances at that time reflected the longstanding desire of the USA that Britain should take the main responsibility for the defense of the Middle East; the consequence was that the Americans had neither the plans nor the means, given the nature of the crisis, to force the British to fall in line with their view of Middle East priorities without incurring unacceptable costs. One of the problems of hegemony theory is lack of sensitivity to time and circumstance. For hegemony theory, the cup of power, by definition, is always nearly full. 68 No one would argue with hegemony theorists that the USA has been and still is the most powerful state in the world, but what good is that if we have no idea about the limitations of that power, about what America can and cannot accomplish? Such a theory seems unable to explain the shifts in Anglo-American relations, the varied reasons they had for cooperating and conflicting, and the varied outcomes. Does the theory offer any answers to these problems? The theory claims that secondary states will strengthen more than the hegemon and that as the hegemon's relative decline becomes more evident it will seek to spread the costs of leadership and tax other members of the system who have previously been free-riders. Looking at what happened in the 1960s, we can see that these claims have some credence. America pressed Britain to maintain its international defense role, sought more offset payments from Germany, and tried to organize multilateral action to deal with

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the pressures on the Bretton Woods monetary system. However, it would be a hard case to make that Britain benefited more as a secondary power in the system than the USA did. Furthermore, Britain could hardly be described as a free-rider. Between 1946 and 1957, just before the abolition of conscription, Britain spent on average 9.75 percent of its GNP on defense, and never spent less than 7 percent until 1963. The USA in 1966, with Vietnam in full swing, spent 8.5 percent of its GNP on defense. 69 Neither could Britain be called a free-rider given the damage done to its economy in the attempts to save the pound and Bretton Woods. (Of course, hegemony theorists could claim that this was evidence of the USA effectively taxing the British: a case of heads I win, tails you lose.) By 1967, it would seem that the USA was neither hegemon enough to sustain the 'system' nor to spread its costs. It could not get Britain into Europe, or get it to keep its defense commitments east of Suez. And it could not prevent the fall of the pound in the face of French speculation and British refusal to accept the final conditions for bilateral US help. Hegemony theorists would no doubt respond that they clearly acknowledge that the hegemon has to compromise and accommodate with other powers within the system. But this then simply becomes a theory without any explanatory powers of its own. We only know when the hegemon has to compromise and accommodate after the fact, and we only know the manner in which the accommodating and the compromising takes place after historical investigation. Like so many other theories that have emerged from the social sciences, this looks like yet another that is parasitic upon history for its credibility. The theory asserts that the USA has been the most powerful actor on the world stage, and that it has led the West in both defense and economic matters. It claims further that the USA has suffered relative decline and has tried various strategies to offset this - including incentives, persuasion, and an appeal to norms in exercising its power rather than attempts at crude coercion - and has had to compromise and accommodate with secondary powers. But this seems to be little different from what realist power theory has long told us, and told us better. In the two cases that have been identified where the USA exerted most power (the Financial Agreement of 1945/46 and the Suez Crisis), the USA used coercion rather than persuasion or appeals to norms, which creates no problem for realism, but a considerable one for hegemony theory. Of course, given the lack of coherence in the 'system', and the selfserving exceptions that the Americans had built into it, it made appeal to norms rather difficult. Lack of uniformity of treatment flies directly in the face of the requirements of a moral order. Hegemony theory thus appears to amount to a tautology: the hegemon gets its way when it has the power to do so; it does not get its way when it does not have the power to do so. As such, the theory cannot cast much light on explaining how much or how little of the original US vision for the postwar

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world was realized and why. Nor can it cast light on why the USA had to give way to circumstances or to the determination of its allies, except by the bland claims that it had or did not have the power to prevail. Claims by defenders of hegemony theory that it matches the historical reality of Anglo-American relations in the sense that there was cooperation, that hegemony theory explicitly acknowledges that the hegemon is not all-powerful, and that conflict is necessary, miss the point - the point being that it is incapable of explaining what the limits are divorced from the historical narrative. Furthermore, the theory has an inability to tell us when the extent of compromising amounts to the end of hegemony in either macro or subject-specific issue areas. But cannot hegemony theory describe events in ways that are more helpful than a Procrustean historical narrative which abjures such concepts? In principle it might provide a useful angle for decision-makers, but the rationalization of events by hegemony theory gives a false impression of the way events unfold. It may comfort some to think that a state designs, initiates, and manages a system, but this study has demonstrated that language such as that can mislead one into a false sense of security that both underestimates the force of contingency and the impact of human fallibility, and overestimates the effectiveness of potential power. This study has shown not only just how complex the reasons were for the collaboration and for the conflicts between Britain and America, but also how they changed over time - as did the variables that constrained US power or made it effective. The world is far more complex than hegemony theory appears prepared to acknowledge, and trying to simplify it in an inappropriate way that does not add to our knowledge or the sophistication of our analysis is a rather bootless enterprise.

NOTES 1. Michael Lind, 'Pax Atlantica: the Case for Euroamerica', World Policy Journal, 13(i), 1996, p. 6. 2. Martin Walker, 'The New American Hegemony', World Policy Journal, 13(ii), 1996, p.21. 3. Charles Kindleberger, The World In Depression 1929-1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). 4. Competitive cooperation has been used by David Reynolds in his important work on US-UK relations: The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937-41 (London: Europa, 1981); ~erica, Britain and the International Order Since the Second World War', and 'Rethinking Anglo-American Relations', both in International Affairs, 63, 1986, and 65, 1988, and by the author in a less formally conceptual way, Alan P. Dobson, US Wartime Aid to Britain (London: Croom Helm, 1986); The Politics of the Anglo-American Economic Special Relationship (Brighton/New York: WheatsheafiSt. Martin's Press, 1988); and Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth

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Century: Of Friendship, Conflict and the Rise and Decline of Superpowers (London:

5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

10. 11.

12.

Routledge, 1995). For other important approaches to Anglo-American relations see H. C. Allen, Great Britain and the United States: A History of Anglo-American Relations, 1783-1952 (London: Odhams Press, 1954); D. C. Watt, Succeeding John Bull: America in Britain's Place 1900-1977 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); C. J. Bartlett, The Special Relationship: A Political History of AngloAmerican Relations Since 1945 (London: Longman, 1992); H. G. Nicholas, The United States and Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975). Of course hegemony theory assumes conflict within the cooperative system established by the hegemon, but the overall sense of the theory suggests far less scope for 'genuine' conflict than the historical concept of 'competitive cooperation'. Perhaps the best known hegemony theory 'history' is Thomas J. McCormick, America's Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). Arthur A Stein, 'The Hegemon's Dilemma: Great Britain, the United States, and the International Economic Order', International Organization, 38(ii), 1984, p. 384. Robert O. Keohane, 'The Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and Beyond', in Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). The theory of complex interdependence was formulated by Keohane and Joseph Nye. See Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little Brown, 1977). Stephen Krasner, 'State Power and the Structure of International Thade', World Politics, 283, 1976, pp. 317-48. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 213. Ibid. and David P. Calleo, Beyond American Hegemony: the Future of the Western Alliance (New York: Basic Books, 1987). The distinction between exploitative or coercive and benevolent hegemons was developed by Duncan Snidal, 'The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory', International Organization, 39(iv), 1985, pp. 579614. In that article Snidal claims that contrary to Kindleberger, Keohane, Gilpin and Krasner, cooperation to sustain a system in the absence of a hegemon is possible, providing that the hegemon's decline is not dramatic and that there is a small core of largish secondary states that can act together to make the system beneficial to participants. He tries to refine hegemony theory by raising analytical issues to do with absolute and relative size, the presumed correlation between interest in and capability for promoting cooperation, and models of coercive and benevolent hegemony. Calleo, Beyond Hegemony, p. 14. G. John Ikenberry and Charles A. Kupchan, 'Socialisation and Hegemonic Power', International Organization, 44(iii), 1990, pp. 283-315. The authors claim to corroborate three hypotheses from the experience of British and American hegemony: socialization occurs mainly after wars or similar catastrophes; the elite in society must succumb to the socialization process; and socialization usually comes after the exercise of power. Furthermore, success depends on the quality of the norms being promulgated; socialization is a two way process, and while it leads to cooperation it can also cause discord between the hegemon and the secondary states. Stephen Gill, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 118. Cox says something very similar, see Robert Cox with Timothy J. Sinclair, Approaches to World Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 127.

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13. Gill, American Hegemony, p. 53. Gill does not see American hegemony in decline; rather he sees a transition from US leadership of an internationalist hegemony to US leadership of a supranational hegemony, brought about by the change from one historic bloc to another. 14. For further elaboration see Dobson, Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century.

15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. See T.A. Wilson, The First Summit: Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969). The best general account of postwar planning is still R.N. Gardner, Sterling Dollar Diplomacy in Current Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980). More narrowly focused but revealing accounts are also to be found in Dobson, US Wartime Aid to Britain and Randall B. Woods, A Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations 1941-45 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). For left-wing perspectives see Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969) and Fred Block, The Origins ofInternational Economic Disorder (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). 18. Hugh Dalton, High Tide and After: Memoirs 1945-1960 (London: Frederick Muller, 1962). The more serious consequences were set out in Keynes's paper, 'Overseas Assets and Liabilities of the UK', 12 September 1945, PRO, FO 371/45699. 19. Ample evidence for this claim can be found in Dobson, US Wartime Aid to Britain, or in his Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century. Alternatively, one only needs to look at the terms of the Loan Agreement: Cmnd. 6708, 'Financial Agreement Between the Government of the United States and the United Kingdom', 6 December 1945. 20. Other candidates are the Bermuda Air Service Agreement of 1946 and the 1976 IMF crisis, though they both have aspects to them that make them rather awkward fits in the category. 21. Churchill to Roosevelt, 7 December 1940, from Warren F. Kimbal~ Churchill and Roosevelt: the Complete Correspondence, 3 vots (London: Collins, 1984), vol. 1, pp. 49-50. 22. See Dobson, Anglo-American Relations, pp. 81-90. For fuller accounts see the relevant chapters in his Economic Special Relationship, his US Wartime Aid to Britain, and his 'The Export White Paper', 10 September 1941, Economic History Review, 39, 1986. 23. A. Van Dormael, Bretton Woods: Birth of a Monetary System (London: Macmillan, 1978). 24. Keynes, 'Overseas Assets and Liabilities of the United Kingdom', 12 September 1945, PRO FO 371/45699. 25. See F. Williams,A Prime Minister Remembers (London: Heinemann, 1961). 26. FRUS, 1945, vol. 7, p. 45, Clayton to Hawkins, 28 April 1945; for HawkinsLiesching trade talks April-August 1945 see PRO FO 371/45680, UE3692UE3830/113/53. 27. Alan P. Dobson, 'A Mess of Pottage for Your Economic Birthright: The 1941-42 Wheat Negotiations and Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy', Historical Journal, 28, 1985. 28. Alan P. Dobson, Peaceful Air Warfare: The USA, Britain and the Politics of the International Aviation System (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). 29. See Dobson, Economic Special Relationship, and Peter Burnham, 'Re-evaluating the Washington Loan Agreement: a Revisionist View of the Limits of Post-war American Power', Review of International Studies, 18(iii), 1992, pp. 241-61, in particular sources PRO CAB 129/36 and T232/199.

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30. The importance of economic policy in the early containment strategy is demonstrated in John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). 31. PRO CAB 129, CP(49)114, memo. by Dalton, 10 May 1949. In fact as early as August 1947 the Americans were prepared to agree on trade proposals that did not involve the 'substantial elimination of imperial preference', Truman Library, Naval Aide Files, State Department Briefs 1947 Jan. - 1949, Dec., folder: Jun. - Aug. 1947, 27 Aug. 1947 re impasse in Geneva trade talks. The Americans, however, tried again, but without success, to erode imperial preference at the Torquay GATT Conference, ibid., PSF box 165, folder: Conferences, Tariff Conference Torquay, England, 1951, memo. by J. R. Steelman. 32. I do not go along with Alan Milward's interpretation of the ERP, The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945-51 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). America to my mind did have more impact and input into the character of European recovery and integration than he allows. It is a matter of where to draw the line. 33. Fran~ois Duchene, Monnet (New York: Norton, 1994). 34. A. W. Lovett, 'The United States and the Schuman Plan: A Study in French Diplomacy 1950-1952', Historical Journal, 39(ii), 1996, pp. 425-55. A comprehensive synthesis of scholarship on the extent of America's impact on European integration, as well as a stimulating interpretation, may be found in Geir Lundestad, 'Empire' by Integration: the United States and European Integration 1945-1997, at the time of writing publication pending. 35. PRO, CAB 128,3(47)2,28 Jan. 1947; CAB 129, CP(47)35, 18 Jan. 1947; and see especially CAB 128,62(49)6, 27 Oct. 1949 considering CAB 129, CP(49)203, 25 Oct. 1949, Bevin and Cripps, 'Proposals for the Economic Unification of Europe'. 36. Truman Library, PSF box 163, Subject file Conferences, Sept. 1947 - Dec. 1950, folder: Subject File Conferences, Paris Conference, Oct.-Nov. 1949, US Ambassadors' Meeting, 21 Oct. 1949. 37. Ibid. See also Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe 1947-1952 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Anne Deighton, The Impossible Peace: Britain, the Division of Germany and the Origins of the Cold War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990); Milward, Reconstruction of Western Europe.

38. Truman Library, PSF box 163, Subject file Conferences, Sept. 1947 - Dec. 1950, folder: Subject File Conferences, Paris Conference, Oct. - Nov. 1949, US Ambassadors' Meeting, 21 Oct. 1949. 39. Truman Library, Acheson Papers box 64, folder: memos of conversation, minutes by Webb of luncheon meeting 25 Oct. (dated 3 Nov.) 1949; ERUS 1949,4, p. 345, Acheson to US Embassy, London. 40. Hogan, Marshall Plan, ch. 6. 41. Acheson Papers, box 67, Memo. of conversation 1952, folder: Jan. Pearson to Acheson, 15 Jan. 1952. Eden solved the German rearmament problem after the failure of the EDC by committing British ground troops and air power to the continent for as long as the WEU wanted them. German rearmament went ahead within NATO, the French were reassured and the threatened 'agonising reappraisal' of its European policy by the USA did not occur. However, the solution to the problem, it should be noted, came from and by a European power, not the USA. 42. Library of Congress, Harriman Papers, box 271, folder: Marshall Plan Country File, UK 20, Douglas to Acheson et ai., 7 May 1950.

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43. FRUS, 1951,4, pp. 980-5, PPS memo. 'Outline for Discussion at JCS Meeting', 21 Nov. 1951. 44. 1hIman Library, PSF box 116, folder: Central File Churchill-Truman Meetings, Papers prepared for US-UK relations, 'Nature of US-UK relationship'. 45. Eisenhower Library, CF CF, box 9, folders: Bermuda Meeting, March 21-23, 1957, for the President (1), undated. 46. For a' consideration of the formal/informal character of the special relationship see, Alan P. Dobson, 'Informally Special?: the Churchill-Truman Talks of January 1952 and the State of Anglo-American Relations', Review of International Studies, 23(i), 1997. 47. Johnson Library, NSF boxes 18 & 19, memo, meeting with Prime Minister Wilson, 7 Dec. 1964. 48. Ian Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship: Britain's Deterrent and America, 1957-1962 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). McGeorge Bundy, for example, said that 'nothing could justify this kind of American damage to AngloAmerican relations' in reference to the possibility of the USA not supplying a substitute for the cancelled Skybolt delivery system. Quoted from ibid., source, McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty ~ars (New York, Vintage Books, 1990), p. 492. 49. Alan P. Dobson, 'The Years of Transition: Anglo-American Relations 1961-67', Review of International Studies, 16, 1990; Frank Costigliola, 'The Failed Design, de Gaulle and the Struggle for Europe', Diplomatic History, 8, 1984. 50. L. B. Johnson, The T1zntage Point (New York: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston, 1971), Appendix A. 51. Uwe Kitzinger, The Second Try: Labour and the EEC (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1968), p. 315; see also his Diplomacy and Persuasion: How Britain Joined the Common Market (London: Thames & Hudson, 1973). 52. L.B. Johnson Library, NSF, Country File, folder: Trendex, McGeorge Bundy to Johnson, 28 July 1965. 53. L.B. Johnson Library, CF CF, folder: financial relations, Callaghan to Fowler, 10 Nov. 1967. 54. Harold Wilson, The Labour Government 1964--70 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), pp. 577, 579; and interview with James Callaghan, 26 Nov. 1987, conducted by the author. 55. Henry Kissinger, The White House ~ars (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1979), pp. 91, 937-8. 56. Gerald Ford Library, WHCF box 56, CO 160, folder 11/1/74-1/27/75, Davis to Porter, 27 Jan. 1975, background information for Mrs Ford re: Prime Minister Wilson's visit. 57. Alan P. Dobson, 'Regulation or Competition: Negotiating the Anglo-American Air Service Agreement of 1977', Journal of Transport History, 15, 1994; and his Flying in the Face of Competition: Diplomacy and Airline Policy in Britain, the USA and the European Community 1968-1994 (Andover: Ashgate, 1995). General background on Callaghan'S relations with Ford and Carter come from Callaghan interview, conducted by the author. 58. Contrast Geoffrey Howe's, Conflict of Loyalties (London: Macmillan, 1994), with Margaret Thatcher'S, The Downing Street ~ars (London: HarperCollins, 1993). 59. Ford Library, WHCF box 57, CO 160 folder: 11/1/75-12/31/75, Ramsbotham to Hartman, and Scowcroft's reply, 28 Oct. and 7 Nov. 1975. 60. Kathleen Burk and Alec Caimcross, Goodbye Great Britain: The 1976 IMF Crisis (London: Yale University Press, 1992); Callaghan interview, conducted by the

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61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68.

69.

163

author; James Callaghan, Time and Chance (London: Collins, 1986); Denis Healey, Time of My Life (London: Michael Joseph, 1989). Quoted from R. Dugger, On Reagan (New York: McGraw Hill, 1983), p. 517. Thatcher, Downing Street lears, p. 467. C. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: Seven Criticallears in the Pentagon (New York: Warner Books, 1990). Gill, Hegemony, p. 53. Deighton, Impossible Peace, p. 231. See Dobson, Economic Special Relationship, pp. 166-73; W Scott Lucas, Divided We Stand: Britain, the US and the Suez Crisis (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), ch. 25. Truman Library, Records of the Psychological Strategy Board, box 1, File: Plans, Iran, Korns to Gray, 21 Sept. 1951. I am grateful to Steve Marsh for supplying me with detail on the Iran crisis: Stephen Marsh, 'The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Crisis and Anglo-American Relations', PhD Thesis, University of Wales, Swansea, submission pending at time of writing. The theory also seems to lack sensitivity to what we might call the qualitative aspects of power. On any quantifiable calculation of power one would not have expected the British to get the result they did in the Bermuda 2 Air Service Agreement in 1977: Dobson, Regulation or Competition. Statistics are taken from World Military Expenditures 1966-67 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1969); and R. N. Rosecrance, Defense of the Realm: British Strategy in the Nuclear Epoch (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968).

Part III The Present

8 The United States and Western Europe: Dimensions of Cooperation and Competition Werner Link

We are living in a period of transition. The old bipolar structure of the international system has been broken down by the peaceful revolution in Central and Eastern Europe and by the implosion of its hegemonic power, the Soviet Union. Since one pole of the old system, the 'East', has disappeared, it is inevitable that the 'West' (with the remaining institutionalized parts of the old system, that is, NATO and the EC/EU) has had to rethink its internal arrangements and develop new relations to the fragmented 'East'. In contrast to the dissolution of the old structures, this is a change not by revolution but by evolution - an evolutionary process that we have witnessed over many years. Its long duration can be explained by the absence of a great dividing conflict between the main powers and by the inclination of democratic states to postpone hard decisions and to pursue a policy of muddling through. Nevertheless, change is happening; again, we are 'present at the creation' of new structures - both in the global system and in the EuroAmerican subsystem (to which I shall restrict the following remarks). As is usual in periods of transition, we are experiencing the coincidence of opposing tendencies: • the attempt to continue American hegemony (mostly called 'leadership', which is nothing other than the Greek 'hegemonia,)l in contrast with the European quest for a balanced relationship between Europe and the United States; • the call for the sharing of burdens and the reluctance to share responsibilities; • the policy of balancing Russia by the extension of NATO to the East (in response to the policy of bandwagoning of the Eastern European reform states) and yet attempting to organize cooperation with Russia; • the policy of balancing Germany and yet offering 'partnership in leadership'; • support for European integration coexisting with opposition to European assertiveness or independence;

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• acceptance of the development of a 'European Security and Defense Identity' coupled with preservation of American veto power; and • the pursuit of cooperative trade relations in a new multilateral framework (WTO) while enhancing geo-economic competition (eventually by unilateral policies). How can we understand and assess these opposite and contradictory tendencies without falling victim to the rapidly changing fashions of the day? I think it may be useful to identify the continuity in the different patterns of transatlantic relations during our century in order to gain some perspective. Thus, in the first part of this chapter I review the findings of a historical analysis I recently published? In the second part, I explore how these continuities relate to the current period of transition. In the third part, I discuss the prospects for a balanced transatlantic relationship. And in the final part, I deal with a specific aspect of this concept, namely the proposal of a new transatlantic treaty. HISTORICAL CONTINUITY IN TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS The changing patterns of transatlantic relations in the twentieth century were to a large extent dependent on three different power shifts. First, the rise in power of the United States - initially to the status of the predominant economic power in the Atlantic, and then to that of a superpower laying claim to the right to establish a global order - was linked to the decline of Europe. This power relationship weakened in the 1960s and 1970s and then became inverted as US economic power declined. Power was then enhanced in the West European states through economic integration and steps toward a political union. Second, the peripheral power, Russia, rose to the status of a communist great power and then to that of an imperial superpower with global revolutionary aims. From 1989 to 1990, the dissolution of this empire and of its core, the Soviet Union, once again (as in 1918) created the problem of how to reintegrate Russia and the East European states into the international system. Third, Germany rose again to the status of a great power after two failed attempts to acquire a hegemonic position on the continent or even global hegemony. The resurgence of Germany and its reintegration into the world community was twice made possible through American help, and on the second occasion integration was underpinned with two kinds of institutional safeguards, one Atlanticist (NATO) and one European (the EC). In the course of these shifts of power, different patterns of relations between Europe and the United States evolved. However, despite the

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changes, there was a large measure of continuity. In other words, in similar recurring situations the policies by which the states responded tended to be similar. 3 In short, since the European great powers, as in the earlier European system of states, were no longer in a position to avert the hegemony of a single state or of a group of states, they repeatedly required the involvement of the United States as a balancing power whenever the threat of hegemony became acute. They preferred a junior partnership with the transatlantic great power to submission to German or Soviet hegemony, and they accepted the hegemony of the United States within the Atlantic alliance for the duration of the German or Soviet hegemonic threat in order to ensure national survival - especially since American leadership within the alliance promoted national prosperity and, owing to the community of democratic values, was exercised in terms of 'benevolent hegemony'. This also meant that European attempts at integration and strengthening their position in the alliance vis-a-vis the United States were constrained by their dependence on American protection against the common threat. The United States, for its part, considered the hegemonic threat of a single European state to constitute a threat to its security, freedom, and prosperity. In the recurring threat situations, the United States was always prepared to enter into consultations and agreements, in its own interests, or even an alliance with the threatened European states in order to avert the impending danger (although it retained the right to decide on the use of military force in general and of nuclear weapons in particular - even in the Washington Treaty of 1949).

This continuity of US European policy - which boiled down to following the realist maxim that it was necessary to avert hegemony in Europe - was repeatedly underlined, and in quite a deliberate manner. The New American Doctrine, propounded by Senator and former secretary of state Knox in 1918,4 was reiterated several times, most recently by President Bush in his report on national security strategy in 1990, in which he states, '[F]or most of this century, the United States has deemed it a vital interest to prevent any hostile power or group of powers from dominating the Eurasian land mass. This interest remains.'5 Historical analysis shows the extent to which this maxim influenced the direction of foreign policy pursued at various points in the twentieth century. All three transatlantic war coalitions were responses to acute political and military threats by the formation of a countervailing power with military means (although, in the final case, a military test of strength never came about because nuclear weapons deterred both sides from attempting a showdown). The anti-hegemonic maxim was also pursued in a preventive manner, even in cases of potential concentrations of power on the European continent after the acute danger had been successfully overcome. After the First World War,

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the United States was just as concerned about preventing the formation of a Russo-German bloc as it was about resisting French hegemony or the formation of a Franco-German bloc. Similarly, the United States effectively resisted British hegemony or the diversion of American resources through British channels. Germany's Central European policy of the 1920s and 1930s was also perceived as a threat (as it had been before the First World War), and it evoked American opposition. After the Second World War, there was once again opposition to Soviet predominance in Eastern Europe and the potential Soviet-German concentration of power, as well as to the formation of a West European bloc under British leadership and the tendency to establish French hegemony over Germany. When, after de Gaulle's return to power, there was a renewed danger of French hegemony or of the formation of a Franco-German bloc, the United States once again asserted itself, and in doing so had recourse to what de Gaulle termed its German 'vassal'. And it was not surprising that the Central Europe concept, which resurfaced in a new guise at the start of the period of detente in the planning staff of the German foreign ministry, led to a great deal of irritation, especially in the United States. However, at one highly significant point, this line of continuity was seemingly interrupted. In the 1920s and early 1930s, in keeping with the realist maxim, the beginnings of European integration or of a European Union were rejected as being US interests and thus countered with the help of America's strategic partner, Germany. In contrast, beginning in 1947-48, the US government pursued the innovative policy of encouraging West European integration. In principle this policy has been retained to this day, although always with an important proviso: namely, if and as long as a nascent Europe pursues pro-American policies and does not exclude the United States from the decision-making process. Inasmuch as West European integration above all as envisaged by the French - marked the start of the formation of a counterweight to the United States, and was pursued in this way, it met with American resistance and prompted a change of course back to the earlier anti-integrationist policy, wholly in keeping with the maxim that it was imperative to prevent a European concentration of power directed against the United States. The reference to US support for an integrative and federal peaceful order in Western Europe with a pro-American orientation points to another line of the continuity - namely the policy of global order, the worldwide implementation of democracy and market economy in a multilateral and open international system without blocs and discrimination. This policy was not - as is often assumed to be the case - in direct contrast to the realist policy of preventing hegemony or bloc formation in Europe. In fact, the formation of a European bloc stood in the way of global unity. In a way, the globalist maxim and the anti-hegemonic maxim were, and are, two sides of the same

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coin - the pursuit of which defines the continuity of American policy towards Europe in the twentieth century. When the hegemonic challenger had been defeated, the policy of global order came into its own. Here again there is a long line of continuity - from Wilson's 'the world must be made safe for democracy', through Roosevelt's 'one world', to Bush's 'new world order' and Clinton's 'engagement and enlargement'. That the United States, as the strongest power, could best develop in an order of this kind was, and is, obvious, and is also the officially given reason for that policy. American leadership in the establishment and management of a democratic world community was, and continues to be, openly emphasized (and in cases where American decision-making freedom has seemed restricted, as in the League of Nations, the United States has refused to participate). What Americans have tended to admit less frequently is that from the point of view of the other states, and also from the point of view of the West Europeans, American leadership has meant 'hegemony' that is, not domination, but decisive influence6 and sometimes leadership together with other great powers ('partnership in leadership') or collective hegemony. Whenever this concept of order could not be implemented on a global scale (for example, after the two world wars, for partly similar and partly different reasons), the universalist concept of order and American leadership was reduced to Western Europe and transatlantic relations. Thus in the 1920s the United States laid the foundations for 'economic peace' in Europe through its position as the leading economic power and function as arbiter and balancer. After 1947-48 it laid the foundations for transatlantic and European peace through its position as the leading economic and military power (with a hegemonic function), as balancer of the internal relationship of the European states, and as balancer against the Soviet empire. On both of these occasions, the United States augmented its position through the strong involvement of other actors (transnational politics). TRANSATLANTIC COMPROMISE IN THE LIGHT OF POLICY CONTINUITY When the East-West conflict ended, both American maxims, the universalist and the anti-hegemonic one, were reiterated by both Bush and Clinton. At the same time, the EC states breathed new life into the European integration process, which finally led to the creation of the EU (Maastricht Treaty). The rationale behind the EU is a policy of 'double balancing', that is, internally balancing a unified Germany and externally balancing the United States. Both aspects are most clearly discernible in the currency sector: the decision to establish the European Monetary Union was made in order to balance by

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integration the influence of the Bundesbank and the pre-eminent role of the German mark, as well as to produce an integrated counterweight to the US dollar (to 'fight effectively against American hegemony', as President Chirac has put it several times)? Insofar as the European attempts at deepening and strengthening the EU have collided with the above-mentioned American maxims, a critical response was to be expected. Indeed, both public and diplomatic statements have voiced American concern. It was most clearly expressed by Samuel Huntington, who wrote, 'The political integration of the European Community, if that should occur, would also bring into existence an extraordinarily powerful entity which could not help but be perceived as a major threat to American interests.'8 For this reason he believed that it was in American interests to 'promote the evolution of the European Community in the direction of a looser, purely economic entity with broader membership rather than a tighter political entity with an integrated foreign policy'. The Bush administration concurred with this when it objected to the Franco-German initiative to turn the WEU into the defense arm of the EU, and Euro-Corps into the core of an independent European military structure. In the administration's diplomatic initiative of 21 February 1991, the prospect of strengthening the 'transatlantic partnership on security affairs with a more confident and united Europe' was welcomed, but it was followed by a direct and open warning: 'In our view, efforts to construct a European pillar by redefining and delimiting NATO's role, by weakening its structure, or by creating a monolith bloc of certain members would be misguided. We would hope such efforts would be resisted firmly.'9 Shortly afterwards, the first version of the Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal ~ars 1994 to 1999 stated, 'While the United States supports the goal of European integration, we must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine NATO, particularly the Alliance's integrated command structure.'l0 In general terms it was also suggested that the challenge to American leadership by the great industrial states should be discouraged. President Clinton has emphasized a more positive attitude to the future development of the EU, although again conditioned by a pro-American cooperative policy (including a policy of open markets). The West European governments have become more self-assertive but have repeatedly stated that NATO continues to have priority in defense and security policy, and that a European defense organization should be established only for such cases where the United States is not able or willing to become involved in military terms. This has led to the negotiation of asymmetrical compromise arrangements, typical of the current transitional period. On the one hand, the agreement between France, Germany, and NATO concluded in December 1992 and January 1993 disposed of the obvious irritations concerning Euro-Corps.

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The units assigned to Euro-Corps (including the French ones) may thereby be placed under the control of NATO in the event of hostilities and for peacekeeping purposes. l l On the other hand, the NATO agreement on developing capabilities for both WEU and NATO missions on the basis of the 'separable but not separate' principle was reached at the January 1994 summit in Brussels and was endorsed at the June 1996 NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Berlin. This agreement figures as a 'historic compromise', as described by Danish defense minister Haekkerup, a compromise between the European quest for a security and defense identity and the maintenance of American hegemony. The agreement establishes 'Combined Joint Task Forces' (CJTF), which should enable the WEU to conduct operations drawing upon capabilities and command structures identified in advance within NATO. However, NATO has to decide unanimously in each case on the use of these assets and will monitor the WEU operations. In this way, the United States maintains full veto power and control (that is, remains in a hegemonic position). It is no wonder that the subsequent efforts to implement the CJTF concept (to design procedures for 'lending' American assets and so on) has turned out to be highly controversial. The same is true with respect to the reform of the NATO command structure (see below). Whatever the outcome of these controversies, the practical political relevance of this agreement on military structures should not be overestimated. The Bosnian conflict is a case in point: the EU and NATO have been unable to prevent the war from escalating, not because structures were not available, but because a common assessment and a common policy were missing. The differences of interest and opinion led to a polarization between the United States and Europe and between European states. Eventually there was a shift in French policy in favor of greater American involvement and a shift in American policy to become engaged. As it turned out, NATO became the decisive actor under American leadership. Within the alliance, the eventual transatlantic consensus to operate 'out of area' - on the basis of a UN mandate - is perhaps the most important aspect. The Bosnian conflict is also often considered a case that ostensibly demonstrates the utility of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) agreements with the successor states of the Soviet Union and possibility of cooperation between NATO and Russia. But the Eastern European states want more than PfP, and Russia wants more than pragmatic cooperation in a junior partnership. Again, a compromise is sought that tries to combine NATO extension with a special security agreement between NATO and Russia on matters beyond Article V of the Washington 1teaty. Although there is a transatlantic consensus in principle, the details of these arrangements are still controversial in the Atlantic alliance and in its member states (not to mention Russia)Y And it is not at all certain whether the parliaments of all NATO member states will

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eventually ratify the forthcoming NATO extension treaties. As a consequence, the transatlantic security alliance may not be strengthened but, rather, weakened by overextension and 'security partnership' with Russia thus turning NATO into an OSCE-like organization. In the area of trade policy, the sharply divergent transatlantic conflicts (in which the United States once more attempted to use the influence of Germany within the EU) were settled with a compromise reached at the GAIT round in 1993, leading to the transformation of GAIT into the World TI'ade Organization (1995). However, this compromise did not prevent new confrontations. The extraterritorial implications of the Helms-Burton Act, America's embargo policy against Iran and Libya, and the controversy over Germany's 'constructive dialogue' with Iran give ample evidence that interests differ in accordance with different geopolitical and geo-economic positions. 'The world's pre-eminent power', Clinton, is in a position to act unilaterally, to neglect multilateral norms, and to oppose WTO arbitration. In the final analysis, it is the unbalanced political relationship between the United States and the European states that is producing the current transatlantic ambivalence. THE PROSPECTS OF A BALANCED EUROPEAN-AMERICAN RELATIONSHIP What are the prospects that the transatlantic political imbalances will be rectified? To be sure, the concept of a balanced Atlantic alliance ('une nouvelle relation d'alliance equilibree avec les Etats-Unis,)13 has its origin in France and is strongly influenced by neo-Gaullist thought. In Germany, after its defeat in the two world wars, there is a culture of bandwagoning - an inclination to go with 'the real victor,14 and 'to overestimate the United States'Y However, the concept of a balanced transatlantic relationship finds increasing support in Germany, too. Karl Lamers, the foreign policy expert ofthe CDU, argued along these lines even before the dissolution ofthe bipolar order. And since then, he has repeatedly stated that a 'new balance' and a 'new NATO' is necessary for coping with the new challenges. The official policy paper of the CDU/CSU caucus in the German Bundestag, 'Considerations on European Policy' (1 September 1994) - the ScbaubleLamers Paper - articulated Germany's fundamental interest in deepening and widening the EU and called for the creation of a 'core group' that could become a unitary actor in both foreign and defense policy. And the consequences for the transatlantic relationship were expressed very clearly: 'Prospectively, that means the transformation of NATO into a balanced alliance between the United States and Canada and Europe as a workable unit.' Accordingly, the paper explicitly endorsed the CJTF concept. Influential

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members of Germany's security and foreign policy elite - such as Uwe Nerlich I6 - also advised the development of a 'dual European-American structure'. The Kohl administration is cautiously proceeding in this direction - holding on to a pro-American policy and at the same time closely cooperating with France to make the WEU the defense and security instrument for the EU and its top decision-making body, the European Council. France's decision to possibly return to the military institutions of NATO if the structures are 'Europeanized' is welcomed by Bonn. And it is noteworthy that Germany, for the first time, took France's part in a security policy dispute with America. France insists that the 'Europeanization' of NATO must become 'visible'; it demands that two regional commands of NATO should be assigned to European officers on a rotating basis. Washington's opposition to this idea (especially to a European commander in the south, AFSOUTH)17 and the continuing struggle about the implementation of CJTF are characteristic of the current ambivalent situation. What, then, are the prospects for a more symmetrical and balanced relationship between Europe and America? If we assume the continuity of the two American maxims described above and of Europe's will to assert itself, then we certainly will have to expect a long and difficult process of reconstruction - but the final outcome may be positive. Much will depend on the willingness and capability of both sides to adapt their policies to the new situation and to consider a new balance as being in their own interests. Of course, American hegemony would become obsolete in a balanced partnership between an integrated Europe and the United States, as would the internal balancer function of the United States within the alliance (especially with regard to Germany) or, alternatively, the use of Germany as a factor of strategic influence and as a continental European 'vassal' of the United States. As discussed earlier, these functions have been important elements of continuity in US policy towards Europe since the interwar period and the end of the Second World War. Numerous influential commentators in the United States (and in Europe) want the United States to continue its role as 'balancer and guarantor', as 'geopolitical equalizer and benign arbiter', and as a purveyor of 'reassurance' against a German misuse of power - even if this should include a 'strategic German-American partnership' aimed at stabilizing Central and Eastern Europe. IS This is a clear sign that it cannot be generally assumed that there is readiness for structural change in the Atlantic alliance. The decisive factor will be whether the European states have both the will and the means to turn the EU into an independent entity, a precondition for a new balanced transatlantic partnership. Today, European integration stands between federal integration and intergovernmental cooperation. To put it more precisely, in the EU both principles are specifically combined (with

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additional elements of cooperative balance of power). Given that there is no such thing as irreversibility in history, events may progress in one of two directions: either back to a mere economic union in the sense of a large freetrade area and political renationalization, or toward a political union (with 'graded integration' or a geometrie variable). In the case of the first direction, there might be a resurgence of old European rivalries, the way 'back to the future' that has been mapped out by John Mearsheimer. 19 The United States will then be forced to act as a balancer between the European great powers, either against Germany in order to prevent German hegemony of a German sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe, or with Germany to enable the United States to influence the policies of the European states (as in the 1920s and after the Second World War). And if the United States is unwilling to play the role of balancer, then the all-too-familiar circle of fear of hegemony and encirclement that has always been part of European history could recur, possibly leading to an antagonistic balance of power. In the case of the second direction (that is, political union), there would be a cooperative integration of German power through mutual control and restraint in accordance with the federal and confederate principle of integration. This would obviate the necessity for balance from overseas. It is obviously in the best interests of both Europe and America not to relinquish the innovation of European integration and to continue to pursue and support further moves toward the political unification of Europe. If the transatlantic relationship - parallel to the rise of Europe as a political actor were freed from the necessity to contain and balance Germany, it would be possible to formulate a common transatlantic response to the challenges of both the present and the future in the two 'areas of crisis' in Eastern and Southern Europe. For this, a 'new US-European strategic bargain' seems to be necessary.20 A NEW TRANSATLANTIC TREATY? It is, however, an open question whether a new transatlantic agreement needs

a comprehensive and institutionalized form - a formal treaty. The debate on this issue started when the old order collapsed in 1989-90. At that time, Secretary of State Baker aired the idea of a 'New Atlanticism' stressing the need to strengthen 'the net of institutional and consultative links' between the US and the Executive Committee;21 and Chancellor Kohl argued,22 'we must intensify ... the coordination between Europe and America - if necessary by establishing new institutions,.23 Kohl was referring to the positive experience of the European Political Cooperation (EPC) , and he pleaded for applying these experiences to the transatlantic dialogue.

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As a matter of fact, the Transatlantic Declaration of November 1990 had already incorporated elements of the EPC's consultative mechanism into the Transatlantic Dialogue, namely: • biannual summit meetings of the presidents of the European Council, of the European Commission, and of the US; • biannual consultations between the foreign ministers of the EC and the US secretary of state; • ad hoc consultations of the EC Troika and of the US secretary of state; and • biannual consultations between the EC Commission and US cabinet members. Only an equivalent of the EPC Political Committee was missing in the new transatlantic consultative mechanism. And the Transatlantic Declaration resolved that consultations in accordance with the Gymnich formula (agreed upon in 1974 and practiced since then) should be continued along with the new elements of institutionalized consultations. In the wave of globalization and regionalization, 'comprehensiveness' became the second leitmotif of the political debate. Again, German top politicians (Kohl, Genscher, Kinkel, and even Scharping)24 spoke in favor of a new transatlantic treaty to translate the Transatlantic Declaration 'into a comprehensive treaty between Europe and North America,25 and to organize a Transatlantic Free Trade Area. 26 Obviously, Germany has had a special interest in these ideas. However, it should be noted that also politicians from other European countries (especially French prime minister Juppe) have proposed a New Atlantic Charter. The charter has received support from members of the academic community and think tanks, for example: • a report by the Carnegie Endowment Study Group on US-EC Relations (1993) proposed a 'New Atlantic Agenda'; • the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute favored the idea of 'Atlantic Political Coordination' (similar to the EPC pattern); • Werner Weidenfeld, Josef Janning, and Philipp Borinski of the Transatlantic Study Group argued that the consultation mechanisms of the Transatlantic Declaration of November 1990 should be upgraded, culminating in due course in a 'Transatlantic Political Cooperation' based on the model of the European Political Cooperation, and to be crowned by a Transatlantic Treaty and a 'reinstitutionalization of the new Atlantic Community'. During the last three years, regular US-ED summit meetings and the transatlantic business community have given new impetus to the process. At the Berlin summit (July 1994) groups of experts at the senior level were installed to make policy recommendations for the follow-up summits in order to 'turn what have been largely episodic semiannual events, with little

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continuity, into more substantive, interconnected sessions, which can make important decisions'.27 This semi-institutional innovation resulted in very little change. The next summit in June 1995 degenerated to a farce -lasting only twenty minutes. What official political groups could not deliver was then shifted to the business community: Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown and Sir Leon Brittan and Martin Bangemann of the EU Commission took the initiative to call a conference of European and US business leaders. In Seville, Spain, 10-11 November 1995, the Transatlantic Business Dialogue was founded (succeeding the former US-EC Businessmen's Council). Its recommendations for the development of a Transatlantic Marketplace were partly adopted by the Madrid summit meeting (December 1995). The New Transatlantic Agenda and the Joint Actions Plan EU-USA, which had been agreed upon, were reviewed by the next meetings of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue. A further step towards institutionalization was made at the Madrid summit: the High Level Group of senior officials was charged with monitoring the implementation of the Transatlantic Agenda and preparing the subsequent summit meetings. Recently, the Dutch EU presidency initiated the establishment of a Thsk Force EU-US. Thus, something like the EPC Political Committee (or like the 'sherpas' of the G7) has been established, and thereby the EPC consultation mechanism is nearly completely incorporated into the Transatlantic Dialogue. An elaborate institutional mechanism is now available to deal with matters which are not covered by NATO. Whether it is used or not will depend on the political will of both partners. Thus, as a complement to NATO, we have a new institutional framework but no comprehensive treaty. But do we really need one? Werner Weidenfeld and Josef Janning answer in the positive: 'The Transatlantic Declaration of 1990 and the New 1tansatlantic Agenda, resolved recently in Madrid, with its loose mechanisms of consultation, are not sufficient.' In their judgment, a binding framework is necessary to build the Transatlantic Community.28 In contrast, Thomas Frellesen and Roy H. Ginsberg come to the conclusion (in a CEPS Paper written and published in 1994, that is, before the Madrid summit)29 that - although there is not yet a full-scale foreign policy partnership between the EU and the US - 'the elements of a foreign policy partnership do exist and take the form of cooperative action and declaration'. As to its further development, they argue that the crucial question is whether the EU members are able to successfully implement the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the Maastricht Treaty (CFSP). They write, 'The sooner the EU members and the responsible bodies can work out how they will manage CFSP and integrate the WEU, the better are the chances for deepening the EU-US foreign policy partnership.' I agree with this argument. Apart from the open question of whether a New Transatlantic Treaty could be negotiated, let alone whether it would then be

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ratified by the US, the main objection to the treaty idea is that the EU is not yet a single, unitary actor that could be an equal partner of the US in concluding such a comprehensive treaty. Thus, the strategic problem is the future development of the EU. As argued above, my assessment is twofold: first, that in the foreseeable future we will simultaneously have a partly integrative, partly cooperative policy the coexistence of integration and differentiation; and, second, that in the field of foreign policy and defense, the cooperative, intergovernmental mode will prevail for a long time to come (with variable groupings from case to case). The outcome of the current EU Intergovernmental Conference (Maastricht II) will probably not change this situation. Since we do not have (and as long as we do not yet have) balance and symmetry in transatlantic relations, the promotion of a comprehensive partnership agreement or treaty is unrealistic and premature. It would have no chance of implementation, 'since both sides are insufficiently prepared in terms of structures, actors and societies to carry it out. The political damage resulting from the failure to ratify a comprehensive partnership treaty could be irreparable.'3o The development of a genuine European security and defense capability would be the necessary precondition for a long-range strategy aiming at a comprehensive transatlantic treaty. To put it differently, whatever the European states and the EU do to support the materialization of this precondition will help the emergence of a comprehensive balanced partnership with the United States which, in the long run, may be sealed by a formal agreement or treaty. FINAL REMARKS: TRANSATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP IN PARTS In the current period of transition we are experiencing the recurrence of a phenomenon I call the transatlantic paradox. That is, arrangements for a balanced European-American relationship depend on the development of a unitary European actor, and when such an actor tends to emerge (with the prospects of independent and assertive actions), this elicits US opposition because of America's dual fear of hegemonic trends and open-market restrictions in Europe. The willingness of the European states to appease these American fears and reservations prevent them from taking the necessary steps towards deeper integration and unity - thereby blocking the development of a balanced transatlantic relationship. The transatlantic paradox resembles a vicious circle: each side blames the other for the transatlantic deficiencies. The events of the last years have shown that not great designs but compromises may be a way out of this dilemma - step by step. This procedure follows

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the principle of functional differentiation which may be labeled 'transatlantic partnership in parts' (in variation of Joseph Nye's notion of 'peace in parts,).31 Two examples of this are: first, in the field of military security, the compromise between SACEUR and Euro-Corps (1992-93) and the compromise on CJTF (1994-96) became possible (although with an asymmetrical content) because this sensitive security problem was not linked to other issue areas. I do not see any reason why other big security problems (for example, the harmonization of European and American policies on NATO enlargement to the East and consultative arrangements with Russia) could be more easily resolved within an institutional framework broader than NATO. And second, in the field of economics and trade, the EU is already a unitary actor and the economic balance with the United States will improve when EMU eventually materializes. The roughly balanced economic relationship and the avoidance of any linkage to other functional areas have made possible the successful conclusion of GATT (and the building of the WTO), as well as the development of other meaningful elements of transatlantic economic partnership - from the Transatlantic Declaration to the Transatlantic Agenda and Action Plan. This also allows room for fighting out special conflict issues (as the Helms-Burton Act) without destroying the whole fabric of the relationship. Furthermore, the functional separation enables the business community to contribute decisively to the cooperative management of geo-economic competition between the United States and Europe. To summarize my arguments: first, after the disappearance of the unifying common threat from the 'East', there has been an inherent tension between the pursuit of America's foreign policy maxims (that is, to prevent the formation of a European bloc or hegemony and to incorporate Europe into a universalist order) and Europe's policy of self-assertiveness and of 'double balancing'. Both tendencies will be compatible only if Europe, continuing the process of integration, remains an open system and an open market and if the United States relinquishes its hegemonic policy - that is, if both sides create and accept a 'balance of interdependences' (Jean-Marie Guehenno). Second, the asymmetric relationship between the United States and Europe accounts for the asymmetric compromises in the current period of transition. A balanced relationship between the United States and Europe would probably foster transatlantic cooperation and partnership. Third, the strategic task is to make Europe a unitary political actor. Since this is not yet accomplished, the idea of a comprehensive transatlantic partnership treaty is premature. Fourth, a balanced transatlantic partnership is in the interests of both sides. However, it cannot be brought about uno actu or by fiat. Instead, it may evolve in a piecemeal process ('partnership in parts'). This procedure prevents the risks of counterproductive linkages, as well as the risks of overburdened and overcommitted comprehensiveness. Eventually, a productive

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spillover from one field to the other may occur (thereby generating synergetic effects). In any case, however, we should not neglect the fundamental state of affairs of international politics: the European states (the EU) and the United States will remain competitors or even rivals. At best, they can only be participants in a 'cooperative competition' or 'cooperative balance of power,?2

NOTES 1. For a comprehensive and brilliant analysis of hegemony, see Heinrich li"iepe1, Die

2.

3.

4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14.

Hegemonie: Ein Buch von fiihrenden Staaten (1943) Aalen: Scientia-Verlag, 1974 (second reprint). Werner Link, 'Historical Continuity and Discontinuity in Transatlantic Relations: Consequences for the Future', in Miles Kahler and Werner Link, Europe and America: A Return to History (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1996), pp. 29-126. Alexander Gerschenkron, 'On the Concept of Continuity in History', in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 103 (1962), pp. 195-209. See also George Liska, 'Continuity and Change in International Systems', World Politics, 16, 1963-64, pp. 118-136. On 18 December 1918, Knox summarized his 'new American doctrine' in a major Senate address: 'If a situation should arise in which any power or combination of powers should, directly or indirectly, menace the freedom and peace of Europe, the United States would regard such situation with grave concern as a menace to its own freedom and peace and would consult with other powers affected with a view to concerted action for the removal of such menace.' Quoted in Uoyd E. Ambrosius, 'Wilson, the Republicans, and French Security after World War 1', Journal ofAmerican History, 59,1972173, p. 345. George Bush, National Security Strategy of the United States, Washington DC: Brassey's, 1990, p. 5. This is the definition of hegemony given by Thiepel (see note 1). See, for instance, International Herald Tribune (IH1), 12 February 1997. Samuel P. Huntington, ~erica's Changing Strategic Interests', Survival, 33, 1991, pp.12f. The text of this initiative has not been made public, although the author possesses a copy of it. Washington Post, 24 May 1992. See Andrew Denison, ~erika und das Eurokorps,' Europiiische Sicherheit, 3, 1993, pp. 123-6. In the meantime, the 'Founding Act' between NATO and Russia has been signed. However, its content is interpreted differently by NATO and Russia, and its future implementation is open to question. Cf. Thomas L. Friedman, 'Forgetting That Russia's Nuclear Weapons Are the Problem', IHT 3 June 1997. Jacques Chirac, speech to the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 17 June 1991, in Le Monde, 19 June 1991. Assessment by US Commissioner Ellis Loring Dresel after his first trip to Germany after the First World War, December 1918/January 1919, quoted in Werner

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Link, Die amerikanische Stabilisierungspolitik in Deutschland, 1921-32 (Dusseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1970), p. 38. 15. Adenauer to de Gaulle, Memorandum of Conversation, 3 July 1964, quoted in Werner Link, ~denauer, Amerika und die deutsche Nachwelt', in Klaus Schwabe, ed., Adenauer und die USA (Rhondorfer Gesprache, vol. 14), Bonn, 1994, p. 141,

tn. 27. 16. Uwe Nerlich, 'Relations of a European Common Defense with NATO, the OSCE, and the United Nations' (unpublished manuscript).

17. During his visit to Bonn on 4 March 1997, US Defense Secretary Cohen responded 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

in the positive to a German initiative to review the matter in five, six or seven years (1HT, 5 March 1997). See Werner Link, 'Europas Interesse an der Funktion der USA als europaische Balancemacht', in Jurgen Notzold et al. (eds,) Wohin steuert Europa? Erwartungen zu Beginn der neunziger Jahre (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1995), pp. 235-63. John J. Mearsheimer, 'Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War', International Security, 15 (1990), pp. 5-54. See Ronald D. Asmus, Richard L. Kugler, and F. Stephen Larrabee, 'It's Time for a New US-European Strategic Bargain', IHT, 28/29 August 1993. Secretary of State Baker, talk given at the 'Berliner Presseclub', 12 December 1989, in Europa-Archiv, 4/1990, pp. D77ff. Helmut Kohl, talk given at Harvard University, 7 June 1990. See Werner Link, 'Europas Interesse an der Funktion der USA als europaische Balancemacht', in Notzold et al. (eds,) Wohin steuert Europa?, pp. 235-63. See Gunther Hellmann, 'Die Europaische Union und Nordamerika nach Maastricht und GATT: Braucht die Atlantische Gemeinschaft einen neuen Transatlantischen VertragT (= Interne Studien der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, No.70!1994), Sankt Augustin, 1994. Helmut Kohl, 'United Germany in a Uniting Europe', talk given at St Anthony's College, Oxford, 11 November 1992. Foreign Minister Kinkel, presenting the study of the Institute for Economic Policy, University of Cologne, 'Die Auswirkungen eines transatlantischen Freihandelsabkommens auf die deutsche Industrie', July 1996. US Ambassador Eizenstat, IHT, 19 August 1994. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22 January 1996. Thomas Frellesen and Roy H. Ginsberg, EU-US Foreign Policy Cooperation in the 1990s: Elements of Partnership (Brussels: CEPS Publications, 1994). Christoph Bail, Wolfgang Reinicke, and Reinhardt Rummel, Medium-term Perspectives on Transatlantic Relations (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1997), p. 43. Joseph S. Nye, Peace in Parts (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971). It is noteworthy and deserves at least a footnote that theoretical considerations confirm my argumentation: theories of cooperation and interdependence stress the point that symmetric interdependence is the decisive condition for real partnership, whereas asymmetric interdependence promotes the rhetoric of partnership which merely conceals the dependence of the weaker party. The consequences are that, on the side of the dependent party, a 'pathology of dependence' leads to the unwillingness to shoulder responsibilities and that, on the other side, unilateralism prevails. Furthermore, under the condition of asymmetry, the problem of unequal distribution of cooperative gains (the 'relative gains problem') arises. As Joseph Grieco and others have shown, states are concerned about relative gains not only when the unequal distribution of gains is directly relevant to their military power, but also when it is relevant to their bargaining power and position in the

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world. Therefore, asymmetries are supposed to hamper cooperation. And since institutions or institutionalized relationships reflect the distribution of power between the participants, it is doubtful whether the institutionalization of an asymmetric relationship really promotes cooperation. Moreover, realists (like John Mearsheimer) have convincingly cautioned against 'the false promise of international institutions'. Realist theory proposes that in cases of extreme asymmetric distribution of power in favor of one preponderant state balancing will be the probable policy (the alternative is a policy of bandwagoning). Balance of power must not be antagonistic. Historical evidence and theoretical considerations support the proposition that a cooperative balance of power is possible. Finally, conflict theories (see, for instance, Kurt Singer) say that if the degree of organization or institutionalization is inadequately high (compared with the ratio of common and divergent interests), then a critical tension will occur threatening the relationship.

9 Western Transformation after the Cold War David P. Calleo

The end of the Cold War has ushered in a period of confused and volatile transformation, not only for the East but also for the West. The retreat and collapse of the Soviet Union has relaxed the limits, disciplines, and structures of the Cold War and deprived Western political leaders of one of the main props to their authority. This combination has led to a growing paradox. The external ambitions and expectations of Western elites have grown inflated, while Western publics have grown indifferent to foreign policy and often hostile to the exertions it requires. Leaders, afraid of being too timid in the face of what appears to be a historic opportunity, are also fearful that their publics are in no mood for ambitious schemes. The consequences are wellillustrated both in the United States and in the European Union. THE UNITED STATES: FROM THE AMERICAN CENTURY TO THE AMERICAN MILLENNIUM American pundits and politicians like to speak of their country as the 'only global superpower' in a 'unipolar world'. A certain predilection for imperial Roman imagery has insinuated itself into the everyday discourse of foreign policy experts. For several years, these pretensions were mainly rhetorical. But recently nature has begun to imitate art. American diplomacy has pressed for NATO's enlargement and, at the same time, resisted any reform of the Atlantic alliance that would suggest a new division of labor with the Europeans. It has long been said that the United States is a 'European power', and without doubt it intends to remain the principal manager of European security. American leaders also see the United States as an ~sian power', and the indispensable deus ex machina of any stable Asian security system. Given the undoubted primacy of the United States in the Western Hemisphere, and its special role in the Middle East, the vision of a 'unipolar world system', with the United States as global hegemon, seems not implausible. After a couple of decades of 'declinist' debate, however, American elites are sensitive to the dangers of overextended hegemony. This does not so much limit their geopolitical ambitions as increase their determination that the United States should also be the most dynamic of the world's advanced economies - the leading innovator and producer of the technology that shapes the future.

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Public opinion in the United States indicates that Americans are pleased enough to be 'Number One' in the global league, but appear to have little stomach for the sustained and patient exercise of power, or the careful husbanding of resources that the role of global hegemon requires. For a nation planning to lead the world into the next millennium, the United States is surprisingly reluctant to put resources into the institutions that would seem necessary for such a role. Not only is the United States egregious among advanced nations for defaulting on its obligations to the UN, not to mention for its low ratio of foreign aid to GDp, but America's own foreign affairs bureaucracy is itself severely squeezed for funds. The position of the professional foreign service has probably never been less respected, while congressional critics have reduced the Central Intelligence Agency to a shambles. Even the military budget has been cut sharply. In the 1990s, American elections have turned almost entirely on domestic issues. Despite an upward business cycle that began in early 1991 and still seems robust in mid-1997, the public has all along remained apprehensive about the economy. The most important legislative issue has been whether and how to balance the federal budget. The last Congress saw the budget issue escalate into a bitter constitutional struggle that paralyzed the federal government. The principal legislative accomplishment of that Congress was its 'welfare reform', with the Democratic president and the Republican majorities vying to see who could trim benefits more. The ensuing presidential election of 1996 found both major candidates competing with fervent promises to balance the federal budget within the next few years. President Clinton was able to claim that he had greatly improved the fiscal situation during his first term. Indeed, the federal deficit had dropped from 4.7 percent of the GDP in fiscal year 1991 to 1.3 percent in fiscal year 1996. The principal structural improvement came from cuts in the defense budget. Official estimates expected real defense outlays to continue falling until 2001. 1 The cuts in defense have had obvious consequences. US forces in Europe, for example, have dropped from roughly 300000 in the 1980s to roughly 100000 in the mid-1990s. 2 Despite the heavy cuts and the radically changed geopolitical situation, the administration and Congress have lacked the interest and energy for a serious reform of military structures or budgets. Cuts are not matched by corresponding changes in strategy, force structure, or budgetary allocations. Insofar as a budget reflects a nation's real priorities, the United States seems to be losing interest in managing the world. The geopolitical daydreams of foreign policy elites may be more vivid than ever, but the general public is watching another program. It is not surprising that recent American foreign policy exhibits a certain schizophrenic oscillation between theatrical displays of overcommitment and protracted periods of high-level inattention. Under the circumstances, ambitious elites and special interest groups find it

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relatively easy to hijack foreign policy. Their commitments, however, may not be worth much. The levity with which recent American foreign policy has sometimes been made seems well-illustrated in the major American foreign policy initiative of the post-Cold War era: NATO enlargement. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has understandably been torn between two approaches to Europe. One is to build a new, balanced Euro-Atlantic security system that includes Russia and a less dependent European component within NATO; the other is to consolidate American military hegemony in the West and extend it eastward. Logically, the first course calls for a Western entente with Russia, and for a European Union that is stronger - militarily and politically. Such a European Union might take in some new members from among the old Soviet satellite empire, in particular those countries with a strong historic claim to belonging to the 'West' - notably today's westernized Poland or the old Crown lands of Austria. In order not to disturb the Western entente with the Russians, the security guarantees for these new EU members would presumably not be provided directly through membership in NATO, or at least not a NATO in which the United States continued to playa hegemonic role. Instead, these new EU members would belong to a European-run affiliate - presumably the West European Union (WEU). NATO, meanwhile, would itself evolve into a more European-run organization. Russia would be brought into some larger pan-European construction, perhaps something built around the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).3 In other words, in the first approach, the EU would expand but not NATO. The security needs of the new EU members would be met through the WEU. A conceivable variation would be for both the EU and NATO to expand, but only to a limited extent - presumably to include only such unequivocally Western states as Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. The second approach would be to simply extend the traditional Americanled military alliance to incorporate countries abandoned by the Soviet empire. These might include even states that had once been part of the Soviet Union itself, like the Baltic states and Ukraine, or even some of the states in the Caucasus or Central Asian regions. American policy initially inclined toward the first approach. 'Partnership for Peace' was the inspired policy that reflected the whole approach.4 All the former communist states in Europe, including Russia, were invited to join with NATO states in a loose construction that stressed practical cooperation and sought to avoid any new polarization. The shift to enlarging NATO itself reflected the decline in the first course and the ascendancy of the second. NATO enlargement was not altogether an American initiative; it also reflected strong pressure from Chancellor Kohl. Within the American government it was pressed by Richard Holbrooke, America's energetic former ambassador to Bonn and a strong advocate of a German-American partner-

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ship to manage the new European situation (he later became Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and negotiated the Dayton Agreement to settle the Bosnian crisis). Enlargement was also warmly supported by various influential ethnic lobbies in the United States - Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Balts - all hoping, through NATO membership, to consolidate the independence and democracy of their respective homelands. It was also enthusiastically welcomed and promoted by the NATO bureaucracy and various Atlanticist organizations - worried that without some bold new mission NATO would wither and the United States would drift into 'neoisolationism'. And, of course, it was warmly welcomed by arms suppliers. German promoters argued that NATO's enlargement was needed to relieve the Federal Republic of its uncomfortable position as the 'East of the West'. Germany needed protection by extending NATO's 'carpet of stability' eastward. This would relieve the fears of countries recently behind the Iron Curtain, boost confidence in their westernization, and thus attract the longterm economic investment required. Once in NATO, the military forces of the former communist countries would be brought into conformity with Western professional military standards. They would be under civilian control and thus inhibited from promoting ethnic quarrels and border disputes. The whole region would be stabilized - politically and economically as well as militarily. Russia's interests would be served by this stabilization and certainly by a continuing American commitment to NATO that would preclude any revival of German militarism. Given the recalcitrant mood of Western publics toward foreign policy initiatives, NATO enlargement might have been expected to arouse a certain popular antipathy. That reaction has yet to emerge. But it is no secret that many foreign policy experts in the United States and Europe have been opposed - silently or otherwise. Many others are extremely diffident, even if reluctantly accepting the argument that the cost of not following through, with a commitment already made, would be dangerously destabilizing. Within the American elites, of course, there has always been a faction wary of American overcommitments in foreign policy and favoring a strong and more independent Europe as the best alternative. Many within the elites also favor a conciliatory approach to Yeltsin's Russia. They see a genuine opportunity to cooperate with a reformed Russia and an integrating European Union to build a peaceful and stable European balance. NATO enlargement seems an unimaginative, ungenerous, and, indeed, unworthy Cold War response - with the West failing, through its own small-mindedness, to rise to the occasion. Many 'realist' critics, including some notable Cold Warriors, share some of these sentiments and believe NATO enlargement is contrary to America's own national interests. 5 Their most obvious argument is that NATO enlargement involves for the United States a gross disproportion between the size of the threat and the

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strategic and perhaps financial cost of the commitment. 6 They see no present danger that Russia will attempt to interfere with the independence of its former East European 'satellites', or even object to their membership in the European Union. Thus they believe that extending the NATO commitment is unnecessary at best, and at worst actually harmful because it may embitter the Russians and make trouble in the future. They fear it will poison the atmosphere between Russia and its neighbors and, over time, create the very threat it was designed to prevent. There is a good second argument, in my view, to complement the first. If there is a serious Russian threat, or should one develop, extending the NATO guarantee to Russia's close neighbors creates an American military commitment that is unlikely to be sustainable. Russia, whatever its current disarray, remains a superpower in one respect - its nuclear arsenal. Our Cold War system for deterring Russia was highly successful, but also very expensive. It required not only a large nuclear arsenal but also substantial conventional forces - so that the United States would have a full range of options between surrender to superior Soviet conventional forces and an intercontinental nuclear Armageddon. Compared to the task that is being contemplated with NATO enlargement now, the Cold War task of stabilizing the EastWest confrontation across the middle of Germany was relatively easy: the distances were not great, the borders were clearly defined and well-guarded, and the local political authorities on both sides were highly reliable. Nevertheless, 'flexible response' during the Cold War required large forces - the cost of which for the United States was officially described in the 1980s as roughly half of the very large Reagan defense budgets.7 Building a comparable 'flexible response' for an extended NATO - with its much longer and less certain borders - would be more expensive than during the Cold War. It seems unlikely that the United States would accept such expenditures under present circumstances. One resolution, talked about softly, is to drop the automatic guarantee implied under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and to revert to looser interpretations of its guarantees, at least insofar as new members are concerned. This is not, of course, a resolution pleasing to the new members. In effect, it establishes a NATO version of 'variable geometry'. It disturbs the alliance's traditional members as well - who fear that any such devaluation of the American commitment will sooner or later also extend to them. From a realist perspective, one of two assumptions seems needed to justify NATO enlargement. One is that Russia is implacably hostile and dangerous to its neighbors. But if true, as I have just argued, NATO's enlargement would mean a commitment that the United States would be unprepared to sustain. Russia would be provoked but not reliably deterred. The other assumption is that Russia is finished as a great power, and that its threats and reactions no longer have to be taken seriously. Given Russia's size, still vast resources, and

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nuclear armament, the assumption seems unwise. It also carries some implications that Americans and Europeans should not welcome. For if it is true that Russia is finished, it leaves a large vacuum of power - not only in Europe but also in Central Asia and the Far East. What would be the consequences for Europe and the United States of the disappearance of Russian power in Central Asia or the Far East? Is the United States to fill this vacuum as well? Among Europeans, the disappearance of Russia as a great power in Europe would inevitably arouse old fears of Germany, as well as place great strains on the Franco-German partnership and the European Union in general. The chain of action and reaction is all too familiar. It is difficult to see who would benefit - certainly not the Germans themselves, as two world wars ought to have made clear. An angry and resurgent Russia might, of course, incline Europeans to cleave once more to their American protector. NATO would have regained its vital function, but the price would be high, and not just for Europe. In summary, a sober calculation does not easily explain how NATO enlargement favors American national interests. With its present budget cuts, the United States is ill-prepared to take on such a military commitment. Restoring the military budget to its Cold War dimensions would almost certainly undo the progress that has been made toward regaining control of American fiscal policy. The economic price would be heavy and the geopolitical benefits doubtful. At a moment when American, Russian, and European geopolitical interests seem to coincide - in Asia as in Europe - the United States would be deliberately picking an unnecessary quarrel. In fact, it is difficult to see the benefits to the United States. And with a hostile or a weak Russia, Europe's own prospects would be much diminished. Under the circumstances, it is has been interesting to watch American diplomacy belatedly come to grips with the issue it has itself created. For months, American diplomats spread the word that the Russians were not really opposed to NATO enlargement. By 1997, as President Clinton's press conference in March indicated, hopes had come to rest on some kind of grand deal to square the circle - to reconcile NATO's enlargement with a cooperative pan-European system. 8 At the end of May, after two months of intense negotiations, Yeltsin and the NATO leaders gathered in Paris and, with great fanfare, signed a 'NATO-Russia Founding Act'. Among their shared principles was 'indivisibility' of security for all states in the Euro-Atlantic community. The parties pledged to work for a 'common and comprehensive security based on the allegiance to shared values, commitments and norms of behavior in the interests of all states,.9 Their aim was a 'common space of security and stability, without dividing lines and spheres of influence limiting the sovereignty of any state'. To pursue this goal, a Russia-NATO Permanent Joint Council was established to act as the 'principal venue of consultation between Russia and NATO in times of crisis', and for conflict management generally,

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and to 'pursue as many opportunities for joint activities as possible'. A further section listed a catalogue of arms and security issues, followed by a hedged NATO commitment not to station nuclear forces on the territory of new members. NATO will carry out its commitments through 'interoperability, integration and capability for reinforcement rather than by additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces'. This will, however, require 'adequate infrastructure'. In general, military forces will expand their regular consultations and cooperative ventures and strive for increased mutual confidence and transparency. An accompanying release from the White House states clearly, however, that neither side will have a veto on the decisions of the other. Russia will work closely with NATO, but not within it. And the alliance will proceed to enlarge according to its own internal procedures. NATO's 'door to membership will remain open to all emerging democracies' .10 It is too early to assess the significance of so patently ambiguous an agreement. It can plausibly be read as a merely rhetorical concession to Russian pride, and a way of disarming domestic American opposition while the United States proceeds to consolidate and extend its European hegemony eastward. But it can also be read as a deft retreat from the latter, with the United States instead achieving a limited NATO enlargement, placating Russia and domestic and European critics, and stealthily withdrawing from an overextended and false position toward the rest of Eastern Europe. Either interpretation restores luster to the Clinton administration's diplomacy. Indeed the whole ambiguous outcome, which can be read in so many contradictory ways, should renew faith in the 'cunning of reason' and trigger a fresh interest in Hegel, among more philosophically minded observers of international affairs. Nevertheless, if the 'Founding Act' turns out to be only a cosmetic cover for a resolutely hegemonic policy - if, for example the United States continues to stonewall any serious Europeanization within NATO then the American policy's deep inner contradiction between undisciplined goals and limited means will be confirmed, and its difficulties are likely to grow ever more acute and self-defeating. Meanwhile, the historic opportunity will go by for building the kind of alliance with Europe and relationship with Russia that will add to American strength rather than drain it. The United States will fail to rise to the occasion, thanks to the confusion of its aims and the inattention of its leaders - both perhaps signs of the inherent weakness of its fragmented political system for playing an imperial role. The United States, of course, may not have any choices. The balanced Euro-Atlantic system that seems the best long-term outcome for American interest requires not only a delicate balance of engagement and self-restraint from the United States, but above all it requires the Europeans themselves to rise to the occasion, not to mention the Russians. All this may take considerable time, or it may not happen at all. What does seem clear is that the United

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States should not make itself a major obstacle to an outcome that is in its own best interests. EUROPE: DROLE DE PAIX? European post-Cold War ambitions and expectations seem no less contradictory than those of America, although there are significant differences: European foreign policy is at least made by those who are genuinely in charge. And Europe's problems are relatively urgent. Indeed, whereas current US foreign policy suffers from too many hypothetical opportunities and too few real problems, Europe is overwhelmed by immediate concerns. This reverses the situation that prevailed throughout the Cold War. In effect, Europe is now overstretched, whereas the United States can pursue its fantasies at leisure. It has now become easy to appreciate how much the Cold War provided Western Europe with a sheltered environment conducive to its prosperity and unhurried integration. In the early postwar years, the Soviet threat liberated the American economic aid that made it easier for the West Europeans to transform their economies. For European states, the Cold War alliance with America also meant participation in an open world economy, fostered by the Americans, which gave stimulating access to global markets and cheap raw materials, and more than compensated for the loss of colonial empires. The need to compete with the Americans in this liberal global system encouraged Europeans to build their own economic bloc. The Cold War greatly assisted the building of that bloc. In a bipolar Europe, Germany was split and occupied, and France thereby proved a manageable partner for constructing a European confederacy. The Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe removed a further traditional source of discord among West European states. Meanwhile, an American-led NATO provided security for West Europeans without requiring them to compete among themselves for military hegemony. The collapse of the bipolar system abruptly ended Europe's sheltered situation. Without the Soviet superpower in the middle of Europe, American military hegemony seemed deprived of its rationale and legitimacy, among Americans as well as Europeans. Germany was reunited - once more substantially larger than France and uncertain politically. Eastern Europe was a political vacuum in political, economic, and social turmoil, and hoping to attract Western interests. The Soviet thaw left new security problems: revived religious and ethnic conflicts, mass migrations, banditry, and gangsterism. Within a few years Western Europe also began to suffer from serious economic difficulties. Germany's grandiose strategy for economic reunification threw Europe's monetary system into chaos and, after a short boom, dragged

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the continent into a prolonged slumpY Meanwhile, the global economy, particularly Asia's rapidly developing economies, began to pose a serious long-term challenge to European prosperity. Not since the Great Depression had Europe seen such high unemployment - encouraged by new labor-saving technologies, the very cheap labor on offer in Asia, the rigidities of Europe's labor markets, and the costs and comforts of its welfare systems. European leaders, sparked by Mitterrand and Kohl, hoped the Maastricht Treaty would meet these new challenges. Its formula was to press ahead more rapidly with the integrating projects of the 1980s, as opposed to altering those objectives in order to embrace the newly liberated European states from the Soviet empire. In other words, the European Union was to first 'deepen', then 'widen' to the former communist states. 12 To give substance to deepening, the treaty called for the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) to enact constitutional reforms that would permit more rapid and transparent decisionmaking and a more efficient administration. 13 Greater social integration was another aim - with a common policy for immigration and border control and the Social Charter to set common work rules. Capacity for a common European foreign and security policy (CFSP) was a further principal aim. Above all, Maastricht called for a full European monetary union (EMU). Informing the Maastricht program was the vision of a more self-sufficient European Union, managing its own economic and political space, and allied militarily with the Americans but not unduly dependent upon them. CFSP implied a reborn Concert of Europe - ready to intervene within Europe's space to preserve its standards of human rights and diplomatic order, and ready to join with the United States to preserve Western interests in the world. At the same time as the European states embarked on Maastricht's formidable program for Europe's deepening, they solemnly affirmed their commitment to its widening. Events soon deprived European leaders of any facile optimism they may have shared initially. The Maastricht goals have proved very difficult to reach, not least because European publics have turned out to be wary of schemes either for more integration or for widening. Even in France, where Mitterrand felt it opportune to call for a referendum on the treaty, it proved extremely difficult to gain a popular majority in favor, despite near unanimous endorsement from the elites. As the Yugoslav drama unfolded, the goal of CFSP and a renewed Concert of Europe proved embarrassing as political backing for hazardous peacekeeping evaporated. Progress on the rest of the IGC agenda has also been very slow, as layers of swaddling rhetoric are gradually stripped away to reveal the intractable national differences that remain. Constitutional difficulties among the present relatively homogeneous 15 members of the EU may be modest, however, compared with the problems to be expected after the addition of several formerly communist Central and East European states.

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EMU By the spring of 1997, the fate of European economic and political integration had grown intimately entwined with the project of European monetary union. Europe's most important political leaders have staked their prestige on it. It is difficult to see Chancellor Kohl remaining in power if the project fails. President Chirac is scarcely less engaged. Prime Minister Romano Prodi is committed to the seemingly implausible goal of fitting Italy into the Maastricht criteria. No one can rightly accuse these European leaders of lacking political courage and resolve. Polls in Germany consistently show a majority opposed to giving up the deutschmark. France has long suffered from outrageously high unemployment that critics link, not implausibly, to the inflexible determination with which successive governments have sustained the franc fort. Nevertheless, the Juppe government never flinched from its commitment to the German mark - which is arguably the reason for its recent overwhelming electoral defeat. For the moment, however, the succeeding socialist government itself remains firmly committed to EMU, even if ostensibly more inclined than its predecessor to argue over the terms. Meanwhile, in Italy the changes required to fulfill EMU's fiscal profile constitute a revolution that will inevitably cause a great deal of economic and social distress as well as alienate a considerable part of the electorate. Mainstream political leaders, including Massimo d' Alema, leader of the transformed communists, certainly understand the political risk, but it has seemed to make them only more determined to succeed. The interesting question is why European leaders have pursued EMU so resolutely - all the more surprising since many economists have never found the economic case for it convincing. The answer is that the rationale for EMU quickly goes beyond the considerations of simple economic efficiency that normally interest academic economists. The arguments fall into three distinct categories: liberal-economic, mercantilist, and geopolitical. The liberal economic arguments are familiar. A single market cannot reap the rewards of comparative advantage, it is said, if its prices are continuously distorted by currency fluctuations. Often these fluctuations are not rational adjustments to changing competitive conditions but consequences of speculative and erratic financial flows. These flows greatly exceed the volume of trade and often greatly overshoot the adjustments that trade imbalances might justify. Volatility among EU currencies is often made worse by the uneven effects on those currencies produced by fluctuations in non-EU currencies, most notably the frequent gyrations of the US dollar. When the dollar is weak, for example, market speculators tend to push the German mark up more than most other European currencies. Keeping the French franc tied to the German mark generally requires a premium added on to French interest rates. Not keeping up with the mark, on the other hand,

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exposes France to the risk of inflationary pressures from the rising prices of German goods sold in France. The risk is high because France and Germany are each other's major trading partners. German trade with France amounts to roughly 11 percent of its foreign trade; France's trade with Germany is roughly 17 percent of its overall foreign trade. 14 Changes in the bilateral exchange rate can thus have significant effects on domestic price levels. Those effects are magnified when trade with other European partners is added in. When the Italian lira depreciates, as it did by 16 percent when the EMS collapsed in 1992, it depresses the demand for French and German products and also tends to cause further inflation in Italy itself. European statesmen have not failed to note that a single currency, ending the fluctuations among EMU members, would also shelter their national economies from the present differential consequences of the volatile dollar. Indeed, the dollar's effects on Europe would be greatly reduced in general. The EU's present 15 members, were they in an EMU, would have a collective exposure to trade factored in foreign currencies equal to only 11 percent of their combined GDp, a ratio about the same as that of the US. 15 The euro, moreover, would soon be the natural reserve currency for those adjacent areas - like Russia, Central Asia, or the Middle East - that trade heavily with the Europeans. There seems no reason, furthermore, why Europeans should not purchase their oil in euros. Under such circumstances, the EU, like the United States, would be relatively untroubled by exchange-rate fluctuations. The economies participating in Europe's single market could expect comparative advantage to work its magic without continual disruption from national currency movements. Firms could then concentrate on longterm productive investment, as opposed to short-term agility in currency. There are, of course, also liberal arguments against EMU. These generally turn around the concept of an 'optimal currency area'. For a currency union to be 'optimal' it is said to require either a high degree of convergence of economic conditions among its participating regions, or else great flexibility of wages and prices within those regions. The European Union, it is argued, meets neither requirement: its regions are diverse and inflexible. Liberal supporters of EMU turn the argument on its head. They admit that Europe's national economies need more flexibility. Given the increasingly global nature of competition and the growing possibilities for technological 'downsizing', European prices and wages must become more flexible and competitive. Otherwise Europeans must expect a worsening of unemployment, followed by fiscal collapse from the weight of welfare charges. The changes involved in becoming more flexible and competitive, painful as they may be, are necessary whether or not there is an EMU, or indeed an EU. But achieving and sustaining an EMU will promote the changes. Maastricht imposes greater convergence in macroeconomic policy as a criterion for joining EMU. A subsequent 'Stability Pact' aims to make that convergence around norms of

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limited fiscal deficits. 16 But achieving and sustaining that convergence will, perforce, impose greater flexibility on Europe's national economies. National governments will be less able to substitute subsidies, inflation, and devaluation for more direct adjustments in the markets for goods and labor. Opposition to such rigorously enforced flexibility is, of course, what turns many interest groups against EMU. Arguments for EMU, however, can be not only liberal but also mercantilist. Former French President Giscard d'Estaing recently suggested that Europe's unemployment is closely linked to its overvalued currencies - in particular the mark and, more recently, the faithful francP Giscard believes a common currency can end the overvaluation of Europe's stronger currencies. In other words he hopes that the euro will be weaker than the current German mark. These arguments can easily take on an anti-American dimension. The weak dollar, it is fair to say, has not only been a great problem for Europe, it has also been a great help to the American economy. When the dollar devalues, it helps the sale of American products but has comparatively little inflationary effect on American prices. This is because of America's relatively autarkic trade patterns with the rest of the world. US exports are equivalent to roughly 12 percent of the GDp' 18 In addition, thanks to the dollar's role as reserve currency, many imports, like oil, are factored in dollars. Indeed, many of the countries with which the United States trades heavily tie their currencies to the dollar. Thus, when the domestic economy flags, the United States can run an easier monetary policy without caring very much about the inflationary consequences of depreciating the dollar. Meanwhile, of course, the weak dollar does help some important American exports. Since 1971 the United States has made frequent use of its comparative advantage in beggar-thyneighbor devaluation. 19 Europeans, the French and Germans in particular, have long been annoyed at these American advantages. With a single currency, Europe could run an easier monetary policy, if it wished, without immediately worrying about stimulating price inflation from the disruptive reverberations on the exchange rates of its own internal currencies. A currency bloc of this sort would naturally be in a much stronger position to demand that the Americans stabilize their exchange rate policy, or to impose sanctions on American products if they did not. To some extent, these antiAmerican arguments are a smokescreen obscuring an argument among the Europeans themselves. Countries like Germany and France, which have wanted low inflation and therefore strong currencies, greatly resent sharing a single market with countries that devalue frequently - like Britain and Italy - because they are prepared to accept a higher rate of domestic inflation. For Germany and France, EMU can be seen as a mercantilist solution to the problem of 'unfair' competition from their more inflationary neighbors. For many economists, these are troubling arguments. They imply the intrusion of political power into markets and raise the threat of protectionism.

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It would be extremely naive, however, to assume that such arguments do not weigh heavily on European decision-makers. In an era where all advanced countries will probably have difficulty sustaining their current living standards, it is idle to suppose that political leaders can reckon otherwise. Nor is there any good reason why governments should not employ political power to sustain a favorable macroeconomic and microeconomic environment for national prosperity and competitiveness, so long as there are some mutually accepted rules about the appropriate limits. Thanks in good part to Europe's disunity and military dependency, the United States has had certain asymmetrical advantages for the past several decades. EMU should put Europeans in a less vulnerable posture before a mercantilist United States, and perhaps in a better position to bring about a global stabilization of exchange rates, as many seem to wish. In any event, it seems unlikely that a single market can survive indefinitely when the currencies of the major members are volatile. Mercantilist considerations indicate how wrong it is to see EMU merely as a visionary crusade for a united Europe. EMU has had such strong support from national leaders because it is seen to favor the national interests of Europe's various major states. The French, for example, favor EMU because they believe it is the best way to ensure the competitiveness of their national economy. French elites have been convinced since the 1970s that a strong, non-inflationary monetary policy is the only appropriate macroeconomic frame for a technologically advanced country with high living standards. 2o Such a monetary policy pushes fiscal policy toward balance and compels firms and unions to adopt the flexibility and innovation needed to remain competitive. To impose monetary rigor on their recalcitrant political system, the French elites were happy to borrow the Bundesbank model. But the Bundesbank they wanted was that of the old Federal Republic, where strict monetary policy was generally matched with balanced fiscal policy. The new Germany, with its Reaganite combination of a large structural fiscal deficit and tight monetary policy is not what they bargained for. Staying tied to the unnaturally high mark has tended to saddle the French with high interest rates, despite their very low inflation, and hardly seems to many analysts the ideal policy for a period of extremely high unemployment - hence the strong French pressure for a more political management of EMU's monetary policy. The pressure seems bound to be exerted more forcefully by the socialist government. Still, tying the franc to the mark was Mitterrand's policy as well as that of Giscard D'Estaing and Chirac. Over the longer term - as Giscard's own recent interventions suggest, together with those of his old partner, Helmut Schmidt - the French see EMU as a powerful instrument for ensuring a global environment where the dice are not loaded against the big advanced economies of Europe, their own in particular. EMU remains a critical part of a 'European' policy to assure France's future as a prosperous country and as a major political and economic force in the world. Under the circumstances, if

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the French do give up on EMU, it may well portend a broader shift in their European policy in general. What is the significance of the recent elections in France? Obviously they reflect popular discontent with high unemployment. Increasingly, that discontent fuels skepticism about EMU, and in particular toward any strict view of its convergence criteria. On the fringes of the left and the right, skepticism has turned to outright opposition, not only to EMU but to the EU itself. But within the broad spectrum of elite opinion, commitment to Europe, and indeed to EMU, seems to remain very high. Although it is too early to tell, this consensus probably pervades the new Socialist-led government of Lionel Jospin. But if Jospin is to avoid the fate of his predecessor, he must presumably show different results. If he is to cleave to EMU, he must reconcile achieving it with urgent pressure for a significant improvement in employment. The growth of support for the Front National, on the one hand, and the PCF on the other, suggests that time is running out for the French elites and their pensee unique. There are, as I have tried to indicate, good arguments showing how EMU could strengthen the French economy, particularly when EMU is seen as part of a grand strategy to build a Franco-German Europe. But the policies implied in these French arguments will need to be reconciled with German views of EMU. Conceivably, this reconciliation could prove easier than is now imagined. It is popular among many Germans to lament the donation of their peerless deutschmark to Europe. But for significant parts of the economy, the mark is becoming a curse. A strong mark was admirably suited to the old Federal Republic, which for a long time came close to possessing a model economy. But reunification has greatly altered Germany's situation. Fiscal debt is rising rapidly, and a significant part of the new national economy remains dysfunctional and expensive to maintain. Germans are thought to be constitutionally averse to inflation. Inflation has, however, been considerably higher in the past without provoking a national nervous breakdown. 21 Nor have the postwar Germans ever faced an apparent trade-off between severe unemployment and somewhat higher inflation. Given the severity of the cuts required in wages and welfare if Germany is to remain competitive, a little more inflation might be useful to ease the pain. In any event, a successful EMU will help to relieve the German economy from its super-strong deutschmark. By contrast, if EMU fails and, in particular, if France and Italy both defect from the German mark, the competitive position of the Germans will be less than ideal. While big firms can diversify their production internationally, the Mittelstand (the backbone of the German economy and principal provider of its employment) is not so footloose, even if it is already greatly attracted to Eastern Europe. The prospect of this migration of production because domestic costs are too high is not, of course, appealing to German labor. German labor and capital thus both have a common interest in EMU.

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Against them, however, stands the Bundesbank and its prevailing creed of monetary stability. With an aging population concerned about pensions, not to mention a population generally addicted to foreign tourism, the Bundesbank is a formidable foe, capable, at the right moment, of precipitating a populist revolt against EMU. Meanwhile, Kohl's own credibility is undermined by his disastrously expensive and apparently inept policies in the new Lander. Managing the domestic politics of Germany's own accession to EMU has thus grown increasingly delicate. Despite the difficulties, the Germans, even under a different government, seem unlikely to abandon EMU easily. German elites are probably as devoted as French elites to seeking their country's future through a broad European construction. As a symbol of Franco-German partnership in Europe, the more embattled EMU becomes, the less likely the Germans are to desert it. But, like the French, they must somehow reconcile their European ambitions with the requirements of their own national economic well-being. From certain perspectives, EMU is an excellent means for doing so. But those perspectives, and their broader international implications, are far from being popularly understood or accepted, or frankly explained by those who hold them. Elites in other big European countries, including Italy, also have tended to see a strong national interest at stake in EMU. Italy is the world's fifth economy, not far behind the French in the size of its GDP. Italians have, moreover, proud engineering and technological traditions of their own, and do not relish being relegated to the periphery of Europe as relatively cheap subcontractors for the Germans. And even the British grow restive at the prospect of being left out of the great financial power center that EMU would almost certainly create. There are, of course, more direct political arguments for EMU. Europe needs to restore its geopolitical self-confidence. It needs some resounding political success that will catch the imaginations of people at home and abroad. France and Germany need to demonstrate the efficacy of their partnership, their ability to hold Europe together and give it an effective policy. By now, so much political capital has been invested that EMU's failure would be even more costly than its success. All such 'non-economic' reasons help to explain the fervent attachment of so many European political leaders to the monetary project. Europe wants to be a power in the world, and does not believe it can prosper otherwise. EMU allows European states, in one important sphere, to aspire collectively to superpower status. Supporters of EMU are probably right that it will prompt serious efforts at further integration, including a Common Foreign and Security Policy. To preserve superpower status only in one sphere is geopolitically improbable. Not everyone in Europe has such aspirations. Some members of the EU have never been among the great powers and are not particularly attached to the values that go with such status. Some others, like Germany or Italy, have

Western Transformation after the Cold War

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played the great power role on their own and failed disastrously. Since then they have adopted a certain protective modesty, often sporting it proudly as a sign of moral superiority. These attitudes, painfully acquired and successfully deployed after the Second World War, will presumably have to change. A Europe that wants to be a monetary giant cannot expect to remain a military dwarf - especially now that the old bipolar framework has disappeared. The end of the Soviet empire east of the Elbe poses a further geopolitical challenge to the West Europeans. For historical, geographical, and cultural reasons, it is difficult for the EU to avoid reaching out to absorb the former Soviet East European bloc. To do so effectively, however, it must figure out a way to reconcile expansion with its own economic and political cohesion. If it cannot, it may have to choose between limitation and disintegration. EMU offers a good illustration. For the current EU members, already relatively convergent economically, the problems of meeting the Maastricht criteria are nevertheless formidable. Is sustaining EMU really compatible with enlarging the EU? The Maastricht criteria for homogeneity may certainly be stretched. But for the obvious economic reasons discussed earlier, imposing a monetary union in a single market when a high degree of economic convergence is lacking means either extremely painful adjustment for the ill-favored, or else a massive transfer of resources to equalize their condition. Inflation rates are one critical indicator of convergence. The Maastricht norm for consumer price inflation in 1996 was between 3.0 and 3.3 percent - a standard met by all1S EU members except Italy (4.4 percent), Spain (3.6 percent), Greece (7.4 percent), and Portugal (3.3 percent). By contrast, the Czech Republic had a rate of 9 percent, Hungary of 21 percent, and Poland of 19 percent. 22 By 1997, the Maastricht criteria are between 3.0 percent and 3.4 percent. The February rates, as reported by The Economist, were 7.3 percent among the Greeks, 18.8 percent among the Hungarians, and 17.3 percent among the Poles.z3 Given the great difficulties still remaining even for the most successful of former Soviet countries in transition, achieving the very large reductions in inflation needed to converge with Western European rates remains improbable any time soon. If these inflationary countries cannot regularly depreciate their currencies, how can they remain competitive? If they become members of EMU, how could any European Central Bank reconcile their needs with monetary stability in the EU as a whole? And if they become members of the EU, with free access to the single market, how well would the EMU members tolerate their frequent devaluations? There are, of course, answers to such questions. But they are not easy to put into practice and, typically, cost the richer EU countries a great deal of money. European enthusiasm for EU enlargement nevertheless continues. At the moment, it seems to result in a sort of perverse competition. The Germans, having recently seen two Scandinavian states and Austria received into the fold, now dream of Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary to round out Mitteleuropa.

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Slovenia, Croatia, the Baltic states, and perhaps even Ukraine also seem part of the same vision. The French and other 'Mediterranean' states feel driven to respond with compensating enthusiasms of their own - Malta, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria, and perhaps Turkey. The European Union seems well on its way to elephantiasis. Again, it is interesting to compare the transatlantic reversal of fortune since the end of the Cold War. In contrast to the United States, which has too few international challenges for its ambitious elites, Europe is overwhelmed with new problems. Solving them probably does require heroic ambitions. The major European states do need to form a strong and cohesive confederal bloc. To do so, however, will take time and require a certain tough-mindedness about priorities. European elites have the ambition but so far lack the tough-mindedness to make choices. And they may also be running out of time. LARGER PERSPECTIVES What seems lacking, on both sides of the Atlantic, is any clear vision of what the new European system should look like. Logically, there would seem to be three basic models. The first is a renewed bipolar system, with the US in its old hegemonic role and Russia isolated and greatly reduced. The second is an integrated pan-European system - 'Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals' with the Americans thrown in. The third is a sort of articulated pan-European system, a cooperative balancing of the United States, the EU, and Russia. Of the three, the third seems the most reasonable. It implies a United States that sticks around Europe without getting too much in the way - a difficult posture given the current American rhetoric of geopolitical megalomania, but perhaps not far from America's real interests and instincts. It also implies a reasonably democratic and strong Russia, able to establish a civilized hegemony over its own confederation. Above all, this last model also requires a strong and cohesive European Union - one that reaches out to stabilize the areas around it, but without losing its own balance in the process. No doubt such a model requires a degree of generalized rational self-interest, selfrestraint, and generous accommodation that seems improbably optimistic. Over the long run, however, the alternatives seem even less plausible, and very probably much less pleasant to live with.

NOTES 1. In constant 1992 US dollars, the federal deficit was $60 billion lower in fiscal 1997 than in fiscal 1989; defense outlays in 1992 US dollars were $100.9 billion lower,

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Western Transformation after the Cold War

having fallen from $338.3 billion in fiscal 1989 to an estimated $237.4 billion in fiscal 1997. Official estimates expected annual defense outlays to be $22.4 billion lower by 2001 - again in constant 1992 US dollars. US federal government outlays (in constant 1992 US dollars)

1986 1991 1996 2001'

Balance %GDP ($ billion)

Defense %GDP ($ billion)

Non-defense ($ billion)

%GDP

-274.8 -228.6 -108.4 5.4'

324.8 283.3 242.1 215.0'

905.7 1082.8 1177.5 1255.5'

16.4 17.9 17.3 16.6'

1980 1985 1990 1996 2001'

5.1 4.7 1.3

0.1'

6.2 4.7 3.6 2.8'

US federal debt ($ million)

%GDP

909050 1817 521 3206564 5181930 6485214*

33.4 44.3 56.4 69.2 69.4'

• Official estimates.

Source: Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal

~ar

1998

(Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1997), pp. 23, 24, 101, 102, 103.

2. The IISS figure for 1988 is 317000. See The Military Balance, IISS 1988-89 (London: Brassey's, 1988), p. 25. The IISS figure for 1995 is 139200. See The Military Balance, IISS 1995-96 (London: Brassey's, 1995), p. 30. 3. Conceivably, Russia could also join NATO itself, which would then become the panEuropean structure - a solution disliked in the West because it would seem to leave Western Europe without a security guarantee from the United States. 4. In January 1994 the states participating in the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) and/or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were invited to join the NATO member states in the Partnership for Peace. 1\ventysix states have since accepted (Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzystan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Macedonia, Thrkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan). Four - Austria, Finland, Malta and Sweden - are not members of the NACC but participate in NACC deliberations on PfP issues. See Partnership for Peace, NATO Fact Sheet No.9, March 1996. 5. Among the most prominent critics of enlargement is George Kennan, who was, of course, dubious about NATO in 1949. For his early views, see David Calleo, Beyond American Hegemony: The Future of the Western Alliance (New York: Basic Books, 1987), chapter 3, and John L. Harper, American VISions of Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), chapter 5, especially p. 205 and following. Perhaps the most outspoken critic among younger foreign policy experts is my colleague at SAIS, Michael Mandelbaum. For his analysis and vision of the European future, see Michael Mandelbaum, The Dawn of Peace in Europe

202

6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

David P. Calleo

(New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1996). For his general critique of the Clinton administration's foreign policy, see 'Foreign Policy as Social Work', Foreign Affairs, 75: 1, January/February 1996, pp. 16-33. For his critique of NATO expansion, see 'Expansion Means Trouble for NATO', Newsday, 17 September 1996, p. A35. Congressional critics include such respected figures as Sam Nunn. Prominent 'Cold Warriors' who are critics include Fred Ikh~ and Paul Nitze. Among the prominent supporters, however are Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger. For Kissinger, see, for example, 'Expand NATO Now', Washington Post, 19 December 1994, p. A27. Establishing what NATO enlargement will cost is not just a financial, but also a political and strategic calculation. At the high end, the Congressional Budget Office study postulated a figure of $125 billion based on the deployment of 10 divisions and 10 fighter wings. The CBO's estimates assume a NATO strategy where new members require as much military support as did Germany in the Cold War era. See The Costs of Expanding the NATO Alliance (Washington DC: Congressional Budget Office, March 1996). The Clinton administration recently released a report to Congress putting the cost of NATO enlargement at between $27 billion and $35 billion over 13 years. It estimated the cost to new members for military restructuring at $10 to $13 billion, with an additional cost to current members of between $8 and $10 billion. Direct enlargement costs, e.g. enhancements in command, control, communications, and intelligence equipment, were estimated at $9 to $12 billion: Washington Post, 12 March 1997, p. A01. A Rand Corporation study estimated the overall cost at $42 billion, according to which current and new members would shoulder 61 percent and 19 percent of the total cost respectively with the remaining 20 percent covered by NATO infrastructure funds. See Ronald D. Asmus, Richard L. Kugler, and F. Stephen Larrabee, 'What will NATO Enlargement Cost?', Survival, Autumn 1996, pp. 5-26. For my analysis of earlier NATO costs, see David P. Calleo, Beyond American Hegemony: The Future of the Western Alliance (New York: Basic Books, 1987), pp 124-5. For America's cycles of military strategy and security spending, and the economic consequences, see chapter 7. See also Calleo, The Bankrupting ofAmerica (New York: William Morrow, 1992) pp. 57-60, also notes 19-22, p. 237. 'President's press conference', Washington Post, 10 March, 1997, p. AI. Quotations from the official English text of the 'NATO-Russia Founding Act'. See also Craig Whitney, 'Decision for NATO: The Overview', New York Times, 28 May 1997, and John Vinocur, 'For NATO and Russia, A Landmark Charter', International Herald Tribune, 28 May 1997, pp. 1 and 16. White House release of 27 May 1997. For the fiscal consequences of German unification, see Ullrich Heilemann and Wolfgang H. Reinecke, Welcome to Hard Times (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution and Johns Hopkins AICGS, 1995). Mitterrand describes how he and Kohl were coming to agree on this course in November 1989. See Fran