The United States and Europe in the Twentieth Century 058230864X, 9780582308640
The relationship between the US and Europe in the 20th century is one of the key considerations in any understanding of
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Cover
Half Title
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Introduction to the Series
Author’s Acknowledgements
Publisher’s Acknowledgements
List of Maps
Chronology
Part One: Background
1. The Traditions of US Foreign Relations
Cooperation, Conflict and the National Interest
Spheres of Influence: The Monroe Doctrine
Empire as a Way of Life: Manifest Destiny and Imperialism
Open Doors: Expanding Trade
The Turn into the American Century
Part Two: The United States and the World Wars
2. Wilson’s Order and European Power
The United States and Imperial Europe
The First World War: Prelude to Intervention, 1914–16
US Intervention
The Russian Revolution
The Western Front and Western Peace
3. The Inter-War System to the Second World War
Ruling the Waves?
Economic Engagement with Europe
Economic Fragmentation: The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression
Washington and The Rise of Fascist Europe
US Isolation?
The Second World War
Part Three: The United States, Europe and the Cold War
4. The Division of Europe, 1945–56
Planning the Post-war Order
Emerging Cold War in Europe
The Marshall Plan: Integrating Europe
Crisis in Berlin and the formation of NATO
The End(s) of Empire
Peaceful Coexistence?
5. The United States and Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals? 1957–72
Bystanders: Eastern Europe and Hungary
Transatlantic Division: Suez
European Unity
Kennedy’s Grand Design
De Gaulle and Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals
Ostpolitik, Czechoslovakia, Détente
Part Four: The United States, European Integration and the end of the Cold War
6. US Decline and European Integration, 1973–86
Détente and Economic Tensions
The Year of Europe and EEC Enlargement
End of Authoritarian Government
Renewed Cold War?
Solidarity in the East or West?
Single European Act
7. The End of The Cold War, 1987–2000
Soviet New Thinking
Revolution in Eastern Europe
German Unification
Soviet Dissolution, 1991
The European Union or Transatlantic Unity?
Yugoslavia: Bosnia to Kosovo
Part Five: Assessment
8. Extending the West
Part Six: Documents
Glossary
Who’s Who
Further Reading
References
Index
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The United States and Europe in the Twentieth Century David Ryan Seminar Studies In History
The United States and Europe in the Twentieth Century
For Daniel Norman Ryan, Hannah Storeheier Ryan and Heidi Storeheier
SEMINAR STUDIES
I N H I S TO RY
The United States and Europe in the Twentieth Century DAVID RYAN
'JSTUQVCMJTIFECZ1FBSTPO&EVDBUJPO-JNJUFE 1VCMJTIFECZ3PVUMFEHF 1BSL4RVBSF .JMUPO1BSL "CJOHEPO 0YPO093/ 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 3PVUMFEHFJTBOJNQSJOUPGUIF5BZMPS'SBODJT(SPVQ BOJOGPSNBCVTJOFTT $PQZSJHIUª 5BZMPS'SBODJT The right of David Ryan to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. "MMSJHIUTSFTFSWFE/PQBSUPGUIJTCPPLNBZCFSFQSJOUFEPSSFQSPEVDFEPSVUJMJTFEJOBOZGPSNPS CZBOZFMFDUSPOJD NFDIBOJDBM PSPUIFSNFBOT OPXLOPXOPSIFSFBGUFSJOWFOUFE JODMVEJOH QIPUPDPQZJOHBOESFDPSEJOH PSJOBOZJOGPSNBUJPOTUPSBHFPSSFUSJFWBMTZTUFN XJUIPVUQFSNJTTJPO JOXSJUJOHGSPNUIFQVCMJTIFST /PUJDFT ,OPXMFEHFBOECFTUQSBDUJDFJOUIJTGJFMEBSFDPOTUBOUMZDIBOHJOH"TOFXSFTFBSDIBOEFYQFSJFODF CSPBEFOPVSVOEFSTUBOEJOH DIBOHFTJOSFTFBSDINFUIPET QSPGFTTJPOBMQSBDUJDFT PSNFEJDBM USFBUNFOUNBZCFDPNFOFDFTTBSZ 1SBDUJUJPOFSTBOESFTFBSDIFSTNVTUBMXBZTSFMZPOUIFJSPXOFYQFSJFODFBOELOPXMFEHFJO FWBMVBUJOHBOEVTJOHBOZJOGPSNBUJPO NFUIPET DPNQPVOET PSFYQFSJNFOUTEFTDSJCFEIFSFJO*O VTJOHTVDIJOGPSNBUJPOPSNFUIPETUIFZTIPVMECFNJOEGVMPGUIFJSPXOTBGFUZBOEUIFTBGFUZPG PUIFST JODMVEJOHQBSUJFTGPSXIPNUIFZIBWFBQSPGFTTJPOBMSFTQPOTJCJMJUZ 5PUIFGVMMFTUFYUFOUPGUIFMBX OFJUIFSUIF1VCMJTIFSOPSUIFBVUIPST DPOUSJCVUPST PSFEJUPST BTTVNFBOZMJBCJMJUZGPSBOZJOKVSZBOEPSEBNBHFUPQFSTPOTPSQSPQFSUZBTBNBUUFSPGQSPEVDUT MJBCJMJUZ OFHMJHFODFPSPUIFSXJTF PSGSPNBOZVTFPSPQFSBUJPOPGBOZNFUIPET QSPEVDUT JOTUSVDUJPOT PSJEFBTDPOUBJOFEJOUIFNBUFSJBMIFSFJO
*4#/ QCL
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book can be obtained from the Library of Congress
5ZQFTFUCZJO4BCPO3PNBO
CONTENTS
Introduction to the Series Author’s Acknowledgements Publisher’s Acknowledgements List of Maps Chronology PART ONE: BACKGROUND 1.
vii viii viii ix x 1
THE TRADITIONS OF US FOREIGN RELATIONS Cooperation, Conflict and the National Interest Spheres of Influence: The Monroe Doctrine Empire as a Way of Life: Manifest Destiny and Imperialism Open Doors: Expanding Trade The Turn into the American Century
3 3 7 9 12 15
PART TWO: THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WARS
17
2.
WILSON’S ORDER AND EUROPEAN POWER The United States and Imperial Europe The First World War: Prelude to Intervention, 1914–16 US Intervention The Russian Revolution The Western Front and Western Peace
19 19 21 25 27 30
3.
THE INTER-WAR SYSTEM TO THE SECOND WORLD WAR Ruling the Waves? Economic Engagement with Europe Economic Fragmentation: The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression Washington and The Rise of Fascist Europe US Isolation? The Second World War
33 34 37 38 40 41 43
PART THREE: THE UNITED STATES, EUROPE AND THE COLD WAR
51
THE DIVISION OF EUROPE, 1945–56 Planning the Post-war Order Emerging Cold War in Europe The Marshall Plan: Integrating Europe
53 54 56 59
4.
vi
Contents
Crisis in Berlin and the formation of NATO The End(s) of Empire Peaceful Coexistence? 5.
62 64 66
THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE URALS? 1957–72 Bystanders: Eastern Europe and Hungary Transatlantic Division: Suez European Unity Kennedy’s Grand Design De Gaulle and Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals Ostpolitik, Czechoslovakia, Détente
69 70 71 74 76 79 82
PART FOUR: THE UNITED STATES, EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND THE END OF THE COLD WAR
87
6.
US DECLINE AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, 1973–86 Détente and Economic Tensions The Year of Europe and EEC Enlargement End of Authoritarian Government Renewed Cold War? Solidarity in the East or West? Single European Act
89 89 91 95 98 101 103
7.
THE END OF THE COLD WAR, 1987–2000 Soviet New Thinking Revolution in Eastern Europe German Unification Soviet Dissolution, 1991 The European Union or Transatlantic Unity? Yugoslavia: Bosnia to Kosovo
105 106 108 110 112 113 116
PART FIVE: ASSESSMENT
121
EXTENDING THE WEST
123
PART SIX: DOCUMENTS
127
Glossary Who’s Who Further Reading References Index
165 169 177 182 190
8.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
Such is the pace of historical enquiry in the modern world that there is an ever-widening gap between the specialist article or monograph, incorporating the results of current research, and general surveys, which inevitably become out of date. Seminar Studies in History is designed to bridge this gap. The series was founded by Patrick Richardson in 1966 and his aim was to cover major themes in British, European and world history. Between 1980 and 1996 Roger Lockyer continued his work, before handing the editorship over to Clive Emsley and Gordon Martel. Clive Emsley is Professor of History at the Open University, while Gordon Martel is Professor of International History at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada, and Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University. All the books are written by experts in their field who are not only familiar with the latest research but have often contributed to it. They are frequently revised, in order to take account of new information and interpretations. They provide a selection of documents to illustrate major themes and provoke discussion, and also a guide to further reading. The aim of Seminar Studies in History is to clarify complex issues without over-simplifying them, and to stimulate readers into deepening their knowledge and understanding of major themes and topics.
AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In a study of such length one is bound to sometimes deal in generalities. In this book the word ‘Europe’ has often been used to describe essential positions which the United States either worried about or attributed as though the continent was unified. Of course the continent has not been unified throughout the twentieth century and there were always exceptional positions even within the various unions. Word space has not permitted an analysis of all the individual responses. I alone am responsible for any errors in fact or interpretation. Special thanks are due to Gordon Martel who encouraged me to work on this project and who provided guidance, editorial advice and general support throughout. Thanks are also due to Maurice Fitzgerald for his encouragement and discussion and for opportunities to discuss sections at his European Studies seminar and to Mark Bell for similar encouragement. Thanks are due to Ian Jackson for providing stimulating conversation and insight into US policy over the years. De Montfort University provided time to complete the project, for which I am grateful. Especial gratitude is also due to Heidi Storeheier for her support and patience throughout, and to Daniel and Hannah. Thanks are also due to Casey Mein, Hilary Shaw, Yvonne Blow and Magda Robson.
PUBLISHER’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to NATO for permission to reproduce extracts from their online library at www.nato.int.
LIST OF MAPS
1. 2. 3. 4.
The United States and the European colonial world: the inter-war period European alliances, 1914 Containment: the United States and the Western Alliance Europe after 1945: political division and economic integration
CHRONOLOGY
1897– 1901 William McKinley administration; Secretaries of State: John Sherman 1897–98; William Day, 1898; John Hay 1898–1905. 1898 11 April
US goes to war with Spain over Cuba and the Philippines.
1901–09 Theodore Roosevelt administration; Secretaries of State: John Hay 1898–1905; Elihu Root 1905–09; Robert Bacon 1909. 1909–13 William Howard Taft administration; Secretary of State: Philander Knox. 1913–21 Woodrow Wilson administration; Secretaries of State: William Jennings Bryan 1913–15; Robert Lansing 1915–20; Bainbridge Colby 1920–21. 1914 28 June
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. First World War begins and intensifies after the German declaration of war on Russia on 1 August.
2 November
British blockade of Germany begins; North Sea declared a war zone.
1915 7 May
Lusitania sunk by German U-boats off the southern Irish coast. US protests against the action, but does not enter the war.
1916 12 December
Central Powers make a peace offer which the Allies reject on 30 December.
Chronology
xi
1917 31 January
Unrestricted submarine warfare resumed by Germany.
12 March
Russian revolution leads to Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication. Duma replaces Tsarist government.
6 April
US declares war on Germany; US troops arrive in Europe in June.
18 May
Kerensky leads provisional government in Russia.
8 September
Kornilov affair exposed by Kerensky in Russia.
7 November
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia; Lenin assumes power. The following day Lenin forms a government and calls for a peace.
7 December
US enters war against Austro-Hungarian Empire.
17 December
Russia and Germany agree on a cease-fire at Brest-Litovsk.
1918 8 January
President Woodrow Wilson announces the Fourteen Points as the basis on which to bring the war to an end.
3 March
Brest-Litovsk: Bolsheviks accept the terms of peace offered by Germany.
23 June
Allied forces arrive in Murmansk, Russia.
14 August
US forces arrive in Vladiviostok, Russia.
3 October
Germany seeks to negotiate surrender based on the Fourteen Points.
23 October
Wilson refuses to negotiate peace terms with the Kaiser, who abdicates in November.
9 November
Germans create a republic.
11 November
Armistice agreed in the West.
1919 15 January
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht killed after revolt in Berlin by the German Communist Party.
28 June
The Treaty of Versailles. League of Nations created. US Senate rejects membership in March 1920.
1921–23 Warren Harding administration; Secretary of State: Charles Evans Hughes. 1922 6 February
Washington Treaty signed by US, Britain, France, Italy and Japan, which limits the size of their navies.
xii
Chronology
March
Stalin assumes post of General Secretary. Lenin suffers a stroke in May 1922. Lenin dies 21 January 1924.
30 October
Mussolini arrives in Rome and forms a cabinet the following day. Dictatorial power assumed in November.
30 December
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) formed.
1923–29 Calvin Coolidge administration; Secretary of State: Frank Kellogg 1925–29. 1924 9 April
Dawes Plan advanced by US bankers, backed by President Coolidge, which facilitates payment of German reparations to Allied governments and Allied repayments of loans to US.
1925 1 December
Locarno Treaty guarantees borders between France and Germany and between Germany and Belgium.
1928 27 August
Kellogg–Briand Pact signed by US, France and 62 nations, outlawing war and requiring settlement of disputes through negotiation.
1929–33 Herbert Hoover administration; Secretary of State: Henry Stimson 1929–33. 1929 6 February
Germany joins Kellogg–Briand Pact.
7 June
US Young Plan reschedules and reduces German reparation payments.
29 October
Wall Street Crash in New York. US credit for Europeans cease.
1932 31 July
Nazis win 230 seats in Reichstag becoming the largest party.
1933–45 Franklin D. Roosevelt administration; Secretary of State: Cordell Hull 1933–44; Edward Stettinius 1944–45.
Chronology
xiii
1933 30 January
Hitler becomes Chancellor in Germany.
November
US recognises Soviet Union.
1934 June
US Reciprocal Trade Act.
1935 31 August
US Neutrality Act passed. Further acts passed in 1936 and 1937.
15 September
Nuremberg Laws passed in Germany.
3 October
Italy invades Ethiopia.
1936 7 March
Germany violates the Versailles Treaty, occupying the Rhineland.
18 July
Spanish Civil War begins, lead by General Franco. War concludes in April 1939.
19 October
Four-year economic plan announced in Germany in preparation for war.
1 November
Axis between Berlin and Rome announced (formed on 24 October).
18 November
Axis recognises Franco’s government in Spain.
1938 12 March
German forces enter Austria in the Anschluss.
23 April
German forces move into part of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland.
30 September
Munich Agreement between Hitler and British Prime Minister Chamberlain gives Sudetenland to Germany, for ‘peace in our time’.
9–10 November
Kristallnacht: Anti-Jewish violence in Germany.
1939 27 February
Franco’s government recognised by Britain and France.
15 March
Germany takes rest of Czechoslovakia.
31 March
Britain and France guarantee Polish sovereignty.
1 April
Spanish Civil War concludes.
23 August
Nazi–Soviet Pact signed by German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov.
1 September
Germany invades Poland.
xiv
Chronology
3 September
Britain and France declare war on Germany.
30 September
Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland.
3 November
France and Britain begin ‘cash and carry’ arrangement with US to obtain arms.
1940 10 May
German attack on Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium. Chamberlain resigns in Britain. Winston Churchill becomes wartime Prime Minister.
12 May
German forces enter France.
29 May
British forces evacuate from Dunkirk, after German advance.
18 June
General de Gaulle organises French government (the Free French) and resistance from London.
June–September
The Battle of Britain.
1941 6 January
President Roosevelt proposes the Lend-Lease Bill to the US Congress, passed in March.
13 April
Soviet Union concludes a non-aggression pact with Japan.
22 June
Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.
14 August
Atlantic Charter signed initially by Roosevelt and Churchill.
7 December
Japanese bomb US fleet at Pearl Harbor.
11 December
Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.
1942–43
Operation Torch begins in North Africa. Anglo-American forces eventually defeat Axis forces in Africa in May 1943.
1942 2 January
Grand Alliance formed between the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 23 nations with the common purpose of defeating the Axis powers.
1943 14–24 January
Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Casablanca to negotiate the German unconditional surrender.
10 July
Allies invade Sicily.
8 September
Italy surrenders; Germany takes over in Italy. Rome falls to the Allies in June 1944.
28 November
Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill meet for the Tehran Conference.
Chronology
xv
1944 6 June
Allied forces land in Normandy in Operation Overlord.
1 July
Bretton Woods Conference begins the design of the post-war economic order.
25 August
Paris liberated; de Gaulle’s provisional government installed in October.
10 October
Churchill and Stalin conclude the sphere of influence deal allocating power in south-east Europe.
1945–53 Harry Truman administration; Secretaries of State: James Byrnes 1945–1947; George Marshall 1947–1949; Dean Acheson 1949–1953. 1945 4 February
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meet at the Yalta Conference to discuss German surrender and Allied zones of occupation, the Polish settlement and the Declaration for a Liberated Europe.
12 April
Roosevelt dies.
2 May
German surrender to Soviet Union.
7 May
German unconditional surrender in the West.
8 May
VE-Day, Victory in Europe.
17 July– 2 August
Potsdam Conference: Stalin, Truman, Churchill and then Attlee meet to discuss the German occupation and Eastern Europe.
1946 22 February
George Kennan’s long telegram sent.
5 March
‘Iron Curtain’ speech made by Churchill at Fulton, Missouri.
1947 12 March
President Truman’s address to the joint session of Congress initiates the Truman Doctrine, requesting aid for Greece and Turkey.
5 June
Marshall plan announced to create the European Recovery Plan (ERP).
12 June
Committee of European Economic Cooperation (CEEC) created to advance plans for European recovery.
July
Mr. X (George Kennan) articulates the US policy of containment.
xvi
Chronology
1948 25 February
Czech coup; Benes government dominated by communists.
14 March
Congress approves initial Marshall aid.
17 March
Brussels Treaty Organisation on military security set up between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Britain.
April
Organisation for European Economic Cooperation created to deal with the Marshall aid.
24 June
Soviets blockade western access to Berlin. The blockade lasts until May 1949. The Berlin airlift re-supplies the city. The Federal Republic of Germany is created as a result. In the East the German Democratic Republic is created in October.
15 August
India and Pakistan granted independence from Britain.
1949 25 June
Soviet and East Europeans create Comecon for economic cooperation.
4 April
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) joins the Brussels Treaty Organisation with the United States, Canada, Portugal, Norway, Iceland and Denmark. Collective security is introduced.
1950 14 April
National Security Council Paper 68 (NSC-68), provides a blueprint for US strategy in the Cold War
1951 18 April
Six West European countries set up the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Membership includes France, West Germany, Italy and Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. Britain refuses to join.
1952 18 February
Greece and Turkey join NATO.
27 May
European Defence Community created to tie in West German power with other West Europeans.
1953–61 Dwight Eisenhower administration; Secretaries of State: John Foster Dulles 1953–59; Christian Herter 1959–61. 1953 5 March
Stalin dies. Khrushchev and Malenkov vie for power.
June
East German protests are crushed.
Chronology
xvii
1954 May
French forces defeated at Dien Bien Phu resulting in their withdrawal from Indochina.
1955 5 April
Messina Conference proposes a customs union among ‘the Six’ West European countries
9 May
West Germany enters NATO.
14 May
Warsaw Pact created, joining the states of East Europe with the Soviet Union.
1956 25 February
Khrushchev’s secret speech denounces Stalinism and introduces reform.
October
Hungarian revolution begins. By November Soviet intervention suppresses the uprising and deposes the government.
29 October
Israel invades Egypt at Suez; British and French forces follow.
1957 25 March
‘The Six’ sign the Treaty of Rome creating the European Economic Community (EEC).
1959 20 November
European Free Trade Association (EFTA) set up for greater cooperation in the face of EEC. EFTA, ‘the Seven’ include Britain, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and Portugal.
1961–63
John F. Kennedy administration; Secretary of States: Dean Rusk 1961–69.
1961 10 August
Britain, Ireland and Denmark apply to join the EEC. De Gaulle vetoes the British application in January 1963.
17 August
Berlin Wall erected to stem the flow of refugees to the West.
1962 4 July
Kennedy announces Grand Design for Europe, envisaging ‘interdependence’.
October
Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States and the Soviet Union; West European allies generally not consulted by Washington.
xviii
Chronology
1963–69 Lyndon B. Johnson administration; Secretary of State: Dean Rusk 1961–69. 1966 March
France withdraws from the Military Command structure of NATO. NATO moves its headquarters from Paris to Brussels.
1967 27 November
De Gaulle vetoes second British application to join the EEC, along with Ireland and Denmark.
1968 January–August
Prague Spring introduces liberalisation and reform in Czechoslovakia. Warsaw Pact invades Czechoslovakia to suppress the social experiment.
1969–74
Richard Nixon administration; Secretary of State: William Rogers 1969–73; Henry Kissinger 1973–77.
1969 October
Chancellor Willy Brandt accelerates Ostpolitik, increased contact and integration with East Germany and East Europe. Détente begins between the superpowers.
1971 15 August
Nixon announces his New Economic Policy.
1972 26 May
Nixon concludes agreement with Moscow on Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I).
1973 1 January
Britain, Ireland and Denmark join the EEC. The ‘Six’ becomes the ‘Nine’.
14 May 1973
Kissinger announces the ‘Year of Europe’.
October 1973
OPEC crisis and Arab–Israeli War creates tension between Europe and the United States.
Chronology
xix
1974–77 Gerald Ford administration; Secretary of State: Henry Kissinger 1973–77. 1974 April
Carnation Revolution in Portugal ushers in reform and grants independence to Portuguese colonies in southern Africa.
26 June
Atlantic Declaration signed between West Europeans and the US.
14 August
Turkey invades Cyprus.
1975 1 August
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) process concludes in Helsinki, Finland. The treaty ratifies European borders.
20 November
Franco’s death in Spain ushers in reform.
1977–81 Jimmy Carter administration: Secretaries of State: Cyrus Vance 1977–80; Edmund Muskie 1980–81. 1979 3 May
European Monetary System (EMS) set up.
1980 July–September
Solidarity leads strikes across Poland in opposition to communist rule and deteriorating economic conditions.
1981–89 Ronald Reagan administration; Secretaries of State: Alexander Haig 1981–82; George Shultz 1982–89. 1981 1 January
Greece joins the EEC.
December
Martial Law declared in Poland.
1982 30 May
Spain joins NATO.
xx
Chronology
1985 10 March
Gorbachev assumes power in Soviet Union. By 1986 he introduces glasnost and perestroika on openness and restructuring in the Soviet Union, and by 1987 Soviet ‘New Thinking’ reorients its foreign policies.
November
Geneva Summit between Reagan and Gorbachev on Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and strategic arms limitation.
2–4 December
Single European Act (SEA) signed, envisaging a single European market by 1992.
1986 1 January
Spain and Portugal join the EEC (now at 12 members).
14 October
Reykjavik Summit between Reagan and Gorbachev.
1987 14 December
Washington Summit: US and USSR agree on Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty.
1988 7 December
Gorbachev unilaterally reduces Soviet forces by 500,000 troops and 10,000 tanks.
1989–93 George Bush administration; Secretaries of State: James Baker 1989–92; Lawrence Eagleburger 1992–93. 1989 September
Hungary opens its borders with Austria, thousands move towards the West.
October– November
Demonstrations spread across East European cities. These were generally peaceful, but there was widespread violence and repression in Romania.
9 November
Berlin Wall opened.
5 December
Summit at Malta between Gorbachev and Bush declare the end of the Cold War.
1990 February
German unification process begins with the 2+4 negotiations.
December– January 1991
Gorbachev suppresses Baltic demands for independence.
Chronology
1991 August
Dissolution of USSR and formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS); Gorbachev resigns in December.
November
Warsaw Pact countries join NATO in the North Atlantic Cooperation Council.
9–10 December
Maastricht Summit agrees on the Treaty for European Union.
1992 February
Bosnia-Herzegovina breaks away from Yugoslavia, with European encouragement.
1993–2001 William Clinton administration; Secretaries of State: Warren Christopher 1993–97; Madeline Albright 1997–2001. 1994 January
NATO extends an invitation to join the Partnership for Peace; 30 nations accept.
1995 1 January
Austria, Sweden and Finland join the EU.
November
Dayton Agreements brokered by US between Serbs and Bosnians.
1999 27 March
NATO begins campaign in Kosovo.
2001– George Bush administration; Secretary of State: Colin Powell.
xxi
xxii
Maps
GREENLAND (Denmark) ALASKA
NO RW AY SWED EN
FO
E. LATVIA
U ND
D.
LAND
L.I. D AN
PO L
NY N. MA B. ER G C. L. AU. H. S. FRANCE IT
SP A
UNITED STATES
ROM.
K.S BUL.
LY
A
PORTUGAL
IN
BEL.
W NE
CANADA
D L AN FIN
ICELAND (Denmark)
A. GREECE
SPANISH MOROCCO
TUNISIA
FRENCH MOROCCO
C XI ME
Bahamas (Britain)
O
British CUBA Honduras
ALGERIA RIO DE ORO
HAITI
FRENCH WEST AFRICA
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC COSTA RICA P.G.
EL SALVADOR NICARAGUA
UE LA
DUTCH GUIANA FRENCH GUIANA
IA
Galapagos Islands (Ecuador)
PANAMA
BRITISH GUIANA
MB
Canal Zone (United States)
VENE Z
COLO
HONDURAS
EC
UAD
SIERRA LEONE
GOLD COAST
LIBERIA
NIGERIA
SUDAN
CAMEROON RIO MUNI
OR
TORIAL Q UA HE EC AFRICA FR
JAMAICA GUATEMALA
LIBYA EG
Puerto Rico (United States)
BELGIAN CONGO NORTHERN RHODESIA
BRAZIL
ANGOLA
PERU
SOUTHERN RHODESIA BOLIVIA
ARGENT
PARAGUAY
AF RI CA
SOU
TH
CHILE
SOUTH WEST AFRICA (South Africa)
URUGUAY
INA Falkland Islands (Britian)
Map 1 The United States and the European colonial world: the inter-war period Adapted from Haywood, J. (1997) The Cassell Atlas of World History (pub Cassell).
Maps
xxiii
Belgian territory British empire and dominions Dutch territory French territory Italian territory
R U S S I A
T V I E S O
Japanese territory F
GEORGIA
AFGHANSTAN
TIBET NEPAL
YEMAN
PU
B
L
League of Nations mandate KOREA
I
Macao (Portugal)
Taiwan Hong Kong (Britain)
OP
IA
BRITISH SOMALILAND
Mariana Islands
Philippine Islands
SIAM
Goa
FRENCH INDO-CHINA
HI
Guam (United States) Palau Islands
Malay states Celebes
ITALIAN SOMALILAND BRITISH EAST AFRICA RWANDA-URUNDI TANGANYIKA
SUMATRA
Singapore (Britian)
DU
TC
Java
NEW GUINEA
H E AST IND ES I
Portuguese Timor
gas
IQ B
Mad a
M
SWAZILAND
Caroline Islands
BORNEO
ca r
UE
NYASALAND
Marshall Islands
Ceylon
FRENCH SOMALILAND
UGANDA
M OZA
United States territory
OMAN
EN AD
ERITREA
INDIA
Spanish territory
e
MA
Z EIA
Trucial Oman
NEJD
BUR
H
R
C
Palestine
RE
BHUTAN
Kuwait
ET
SE
Portuguese territory
Sakhalin
PAN
PERSIA
T
YPT
es
SS
JA
CHINE
AZERBAIJAN ARMENIA IRAQ
Jap an
MONGOLIA
TURKEY SYRIA
EASTERN
tion pa cu oc
UKRAINE
AR
North East New Guinea (Australia)
Soloman Islands (Britain)
territory of Papua (Australia)
Gilbert Islands (Britain)
Ellice Islands (Britain)
New Hebrides (Britain/France)
AUSTRALIA
BASUTOLAND
New Caledonia (France)
Tasmania NEW ZEALAND
Fiji Islands (Britain)
Lisbon
Tunis
D T E R
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LIBYA
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Cetinje A ALBANIA
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BULGARIA
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ROMANIA
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Bucharest
Athens
GREECE
SERBIA
Belgrade
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Crete
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EGYPT
Alexandria Cairo
Cyprus
O T T O M A N
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Jerusalem
Damascus
E M P I R E
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Moscow
BLACK SEA
A
Constantinople
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St. Petersburg
Map 2 European alliances, 1914 Adapted from O’Brien, P. (1999) Philip’s Atlas of World History (pub George Philip Ltd.).
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Rome
L
T
Stockholm
FINLAND
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
Vienna
BA
SWEDEN
IC
TUNISIA
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Sardinia
Corsica
Marseilles
Milan
Munich
A
M
Bern
I T
ALGERIA
Algiers
Bordeaux
FRANCE
GERMANY
Berlin
Hamburg
LUXEMBOURG
SWITZERLAND
BELGIUM
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam
NORTH SEA
Brussels Paris
London
UNITIED KINGDOM
Edinburgh
Christiania
NORWAY
S
N EA
MOROCCO
Dublin
Madrid
SPAIN
Future ally of Entente Powers
Ally of Entente Powers 1914
Future ally of Central Powers
Ally of Central Powers 1914
Triple Entente
EA
S
Triple Alliance
IA
P
AL
UG
RT
R AD
T
O
C
xxiv Maps
GRENADA
PUERTO RICO
FF
GR
E
O C E A N
PORTUGAL
SWEDEN
ITALY
N O R T H
MOROCCO
SPAIN
U
T
K UR
LIBYA
I C A F R
GREECE
ALB
POLAND N. CZ. B. W.GER. H. ROM. FRANCE YUG. BUL.
U.K
NORWAY
ICELAND
O C E A N
A R C T I C
E
A
IRAN
T I B E T S A U D I A R A B I A
IRAQ
A N
S KOOU R
I
R MA
AFGH A NIS T A N
S. VIETNAM
O C E A N
I N D I A N
EAST PAKISTAN
Map 3 Containment: the United States and the Western Alliance Adapted from Davies, P. et al (1998) The History Atlas of North America (pub Hungry Minds, Inc.), pp. 126–7. Cartographer: Arcadia Editions.
SOUTH AMERCIA
E S A T S T
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
BA
A T L A N T I C
A
NICARAGUA
GUATEMALA
O
CUBA
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X
E
M
ND
LA
IS
IN
O C E A N
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ND
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J A P
ISTAN
P A C I F I C
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IC ET SOCIA LIST REPUBL SOVI
ON OF Y
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USSR and allies
H T A E
PAK
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A N A D
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C TH
Western alliance
Maps xxv
Lisbon
OCEAN
ATLANTIC
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T
E
R
R
A N
Sardinia
Corsica
E A
SWITZERLAND
Bern
WEST GERMANY
Bonn
Rome
N
Y
S
L
E
A
AUSTRIA
Vienna
Tirana
YUGOSLAVIA
Belgrade
HUNGARY
Budapest
Prague C ZE C H O SL OVA KIA
Warsaw
POLAND
MO L
GREECE Athens
BULGARIA Sofia
Bucharest B
U
UKRAINE
BELARUS
ROMANIA
LITHUANIA
Map 4 Europe after 1945: political division and economic integration Adapted from O’Brien, P. (1999) Philip’s Atlas of World History (pub George Philip Ltd.).
D
FRANCE
LUXEMBOURG
BELGIUM
EAST GERMANY
Berlin
Copenhagen
LATVIA
ESTONIA
IA
E
Amsterdam
NETHERLANDS
Brussels
Paris
London
UNITED KINGDOM
DENMARK
SWEDEN
Stockholm
Helsinki
FINLAND
A L BA N
M
Madrid
SPAIN
IRELAND
Dublin
SEA
NORTH
Oslo
NORWAY
A
AL
IT
UG
A OV D
POR T
L
C K
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U
S E A
S
Cyprus
Ankara
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S
Iron curtain
R
R
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E Y
Comecon members since 1949 (East Germany leaving in 1990 and Albania in 1961)
EFTA countries 1959
The 1995 entrants
The 1990 entrant
The 1986 entrants
The 1981 entrant
The 1973 entrants
The original six members of the EEC in 1957
xxvi Maps
PART ONE
BACKGROUND
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CHAPTER ONE THE TRADITIONS OF US FOREIGN RELATIONS
C O O P E R AT I O N , C O N F L I C T A N D T H E N AT I O N A L I N T E R E S T
At the end of the ‘American Century’ the United States clearly considered itself a European power. Its relationship with the continent of Europe has usually been described as one of ambivalence; it has held both affection and disaffection towards the continent, or parts of it, throughout the twentieth century. The concept of Europe has changed dramatically during the twentieth century. It moved from a collection of imperial systems engaged in a balance of power, through internal division and catastrophic wars, the continental division in the Cold War and the loss of empires through decolonisation, to a more integrated Western Europe, first economically and now politically. The nations of Central Europe were dominated by Soviet power, which facilitated greater cooperation on security between the United States and the increasingly unified Western Europe. In the economic sphere, the West Europeans, retracted from their empires, rescued their ‘nationstates’ (Milward, 1992) and enhanced competition with the United States through integration and negotiating as a bloc, especially on agricultural issues. Conflict and cooperation have been constant themes in the US– European relationships. Tensions existed over whether Western Europe would be a subordinate in the transatlantic relationship or whether it would develop as an equal competitor to the United States. This theme of conflict and cooperation has run throughout the twentieth century and will be explored through an examination of some of the major issues individual nations have confronted. Often cooperation and conflict were pursued simultaneously. For example, while both continents complemented each other economically, they were in constant competition. Western, transatlantic security vied with that of the East. These issues of conflict and cooperation are also reflected in the changing balance of power over the century. As individual European powers declined, the United States rose to the status of a superpower, and though it obviously retained that status at the close of the century, an increasingly expanded European Union has 3
4
Background
altered the prevalent balance of power. Moreover, political culture has had a profound impact on the relationship. Even though the US economy has become more and more integrated and dependent on the European market, many in US political spheres have sought to remain isolated from the continent. The sub-themes of isolation and engagement have run throughout the century. US attitudes towards Europe remained ambivalent throughout the century as its interests changed over time, and as the conceptions and geographical realities of Europe changed. At times the US national interest meant greater engagement and at others Washington was more inclined to pursue unilateral objectives, though within the broad context US engagement increased over time. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the United States was conceptually hostile to the ‘Old World’ of Europe. It went to war with Britain not only for its independence (1776–83), but also in 1812. It considered itself a superior and exceptional socio-economic system that often defined itself in terms of opposition to European identities. With greater rapprochement in the late nineteenth century, it eventually fought as an associate power in the First World War and then as an Allied power in the Second. It stood together with the Western Europeans against the Soviet system for over forty-five years. War and security concerns have been central to maintaining the relationship and Washington’s influence in Europe. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed as a defensive pact between Washington and some of the Western nations in 1949. By 1999, an enlarged NATO undertook its first offensive action when it moved against Belgrade over the situation in Kosovo. On security matters the United States had clearly defined itself as a European leader. Economically, the relationship has been ambivalent too. The European empires were seen as closed and competitive economic systems before the Second World War. After it, European cooperation and integration was a double-edged sword. Clearly, the US financial system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944 intended greater integration and expanding markets for US business. But European integration, though desired by Washington in the early years, also became a worry when an increasingly unified, enlarged and cohesive Europe challenged US business and trade. Washington worried that it might be excluded or that the hegemony enjoyed by the United States since the Second World War might be eroded. Different perspectives on Europe as a wealthy trading partner or as an economic competitor have been a constant theme of US diplomacy throughout the twentieth century. Ideologically, at least at the formal level, ambivalence again is the most apt description of the relationship. Born through the process of decolonisation and a war of independence, Americans loathed the notions of empire, imperialism and the colonial systems that they associated with European powers. Against these, and especially under the presidency of Woodrow
The Traditions of US Foreign Relations
5
Wilson (1913–21), the United States championed itself as the supporter of national self-determination and democracy. At the outset of the Second World War it described itself as the ‘arsenal for democracy’ in its fight against German and Italian fascism and Japanese militarism. And no sooner had the ‘hot war’ ended than the United States became the cornerstone of ‘western’ defence against Soviet communism in the Cold War. By the late twentieth century the alternative ideologies of fascism and communism had been defeated. By 1989 US hegemony seemed so far advanced that one political commentator argued that the world had entered a period in which there was no further ideological development beyond that of liberal democratic capitalism (Fukuyama, 1992). Perhaps this argument was overstated but, as far as the more prosperous areas of Europe and the United States were concerned, there seemed to be something to it – even though there was resistance to the increasingly pervasive US culture. Yet simultaneously, as the West celebrated the end of the Cold War, the ‘end of History’ and the unification of Germany in 1990, various forms of nationalism were prevalent in the former central and southern European countries. The disintegration of Yugoslavia brought ethnic conflict back to the centre of US and European concerns. Tremendous cooperation and debates on trade, conflict and security, ideology and culture ran through US–European relations in the twentieth century. Towards the end of the Clinton presidency (1993–2001) many of these elements of the relationship were central issues. As Clinton toured Europe it was clear that the relationship had been enhanced. The European Commission President, Romano Prodi, indicated that Clinton was a worthy winner of the German Charlemagne Prize for enhancing European unity: ‘You belong to our family, really.’ Yet for all the shared values and interests, the ‘family’ obviously continued to disagree on central issues: there were still trade disputes over items such as bananas, beef and steel. The US development of the National Missile Defense (NMD) system caused concern in the West of Europe that states would not be protected by the space-based security umbrella, while Russian President Vladimir Putin offered alternatives and reminded the world of Russian nuclear power. Excluded from this vision of defence, Washington was still wary of European attempts to enhance a unified foreign and security policy outside the NATO structure. Washington overtly supported European initiatives; it encouraged Europeans to share the security burden. But now, as so often in the past, it preferred that Europe did not act alone. Washington was ultimately suspicious that it would be excluded or that NATO might be weakened (Ratnesar, Time, 12 June 2000: 34–5). In the late twentieth century Washington preferred European unity to enhance the strength and cohesion of ‘the West’ more generally. From its perspective, European developments were usually viewed within an Atlantic framework. European visions that
6
Background
excluded or limited US interests were considered divisive. As Henry Kissinger put it, ‘American policy has been extremely ambivalent: it has urged European unity while recoiling before its probable consequences’ (cited in Harper, 1996: 339). When President Clinton received the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen, Germany, he outlined his specific achievements: ‘We lowered trade barriers, supported young democracies, adapted NATO to new challenges and expanded our alliance’ (cited in Time, Ratnesar, 2000). While Europeans honoured these achievements, they also recognised that they had been at the centre of the US pursuit of its national interest throughout the century. Despite the various stages of cooperation and conflict, obviously the US pursued its national interest. Despite all the rhetoric and the celebrations of their difference and their exceptionalism, like any other power, the nationstate and the national interest are at the heart of US foreign policy. The US national interest has been broadly defined. During the twentieth century Washington defined its interests in terms of the external world with a heavy emphasis on Europe. By the end of the nineteenth century the physical security and the threats to the nation’s existence had largely passed. The nuclear stand-off during the Cold War and the post-11 September 2001 environment, however, did cause some reconsideration of US territorial security. In the twentieth century US policy-makers conflated a number of interests. These included ‘the pursuit of prosperity, identified diplomatically with the acquisition and retention of foreign markets for trade and investment; the defense and promotion of democracy and associated American values and institutions (not least among them, capitalism); and national security…’ (Brands, 1999: 239–40). The conflation proved highly effective. Washington constantly juggled its various interests, never allowing one to pull too far in any direction in fear it may undermine the entire set of US interests. To preserve and enhance US hegemony and power these interests had to be maintained. Where mutual benefit was feasible; cooperation ensued. Where interests diverged, competition characterised the relationship. The traditions of US foreign relations have further shaped twentieth century US–European relations. Questions of spheres of influence were evident in the division of Europe through the Cold War, questions of ‘empire’ by imposition or by integration characterised US post-war policy, and the pursuit of economic opportunity remained a constant throughout the century. The background to these traditions will be discussed in the remainder of this chapter.
The Traditions of US Foreign Relations
7
SPHERES OF INFLUENCE: THE MONROE DOCTRINE
The concept of Europe has changed in the official American mind over time. These changing conceptions have been politically opportunistic. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there were several shared cultural identities as Europeans emigrated to the United States, but these disparate groups shared little in terms of common experience. The problem of identity was a persistent one since US independence. Not having a common stock of stories or shared experience, Americans frequently defined their identity in opposition to some external concept or entity. Europe provided an early focus. The United States was born with little collective memory of old hierarchical political structures (to say nothing of their own stratification). The vast and increasing size of the United States held the potential for both tremendous growth, but also for disintegration. As Stephanson writes, ‘this huge federation of states … had to confront the question of identity, what the national self might mean and how it might be projected’. Symbols were used to unite the nation, to provide the people with a common past and to provide direction for the future. The revolution was monumentalized, the Founding Fathers deified and the values associated with the Declaration of Independence had a profound impact on future US diplomacy (Stephanson, 1995: 20). As the preamble to the Declaration of Independence pointed out, ‘all men are created equal’, they have ‘unalienable’ rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that to secure these, ‘Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed’. Moreover, Americans tended to assume that their values were universal and not open to question; the Declaration, after all, had asserted that these truths were ‘self-evident’ [Doc. 1]. Although the preamble set out US ideological aspirations and the substance of the Declaration outlined the grievances against the British Crown, the most significant and enduring statement on Europe came nearly fifty years later. The message delivered to Congress by President James Monroe (1817–25) on 2 December 1823, later known as the Monroe Doctrine, is considered one of the most important US state papers. It has been referred to as the ‘diplomatic declaration of independence’ (Perkins, 1993: 169). It is essentially a statement to the European powers concerning their ideological differences and their various objectives towards Latin America. By the 1820s the Spanish were slowly relinquishing their control of the Latin American continent following the Napoleonic Wars. At that time the United States had expanded west of the Mississippi, having bought a vast tract of land from the French under the Louisiana Purchase. It had acquired Florida from Spain in 1819, but had yet to acquire Texas, half of Mexico,
8
Background
or the west coast. The British were still a real presence in the north and in the Oregon Territory, the Russians were actively trading along the west coast, and potentially the Spanish or the Holy Alliance threatened to recolonise or colonise parts of Latin America. Washington’s primary objective was to limit the European presence in the Western Hemisphere and preserve the independence to act unilaterally and conquer and settle the remaining parts of the west. Hence, President Monroe, following the advice of his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, rejected the British offer of a joint declaration and unilaterally announced to Congress and the world that ‘the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power’, and that the United States would ‘consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety’ [Doc. 3]. The significance of the message should not be underestimated. Various elements of it were intermittently present in twentieth-century US–European relations. First, the message reaffirmed US exceptionalism. Monroe argued that Americans had more ideological affinity with the movements that were seeking political independence in Latin America than they had with the European powers: ‘The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America.’ The identity of the New World was now ideologically separated from that of the Old World. The New was characterised as the bastion of republican democracy in opposition to the Old World, which was associated with monarchy, authoritarianism and religious rule. Second, it created the basis for an enduring tendency in US diplomacy to conduct a policy based on geographical and ideological spheres of influence. At the level of broad conception the spheres were divided somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. The European political systems were not supposed to intervene or extend their powers to the Western Hemisphere. The pragmatic considerations of their national interest and the limits of their power, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, often limited US universalism. Even though President Wilson (1913–21) advocated the application of the Monroe Doctrine for the world in 1918, he was limited by European empires and by the growing strength of communism and domestic opposition to his diplomacy. Perhaps more significantly, the Truman Doctrine of March 1947 was seen as a global application of the Monroe Doctrine, now taking the Western sphere to the dividing line identified by Winston Churchill as the Iron Curtain between Stettin in the Baltic and Trieste in the Adriatic. The combination of policies based on spheres of influence coupled with universal aspirations and ideologies has both confused and enhanced the strength of US diplomacy.
The Traditions of US Foreign Relations
9
Third, the doctrine enhanced the image of the United States as a power that supports decolonisation. While it warned Europeans not to consider ‘future colonization’ in the Western Hemisphere, the United States itself was free to colonise the west. The ultimate settling of the rest of the continent facilitated the vast growth of the United States in the late nineteenth century following the Civil War. The size of the US continental empire is vital to its power in the twentieth century. The success of federalism and the failure of the South to secede meant that US economic development took place in a huge area and internal market. The economies of North and South were integrated and industrialised, and resources were plentiful (Reynolds, 1992: 252–6; McKercher, 1999: 2–5). Even though the British had offered President Monroe a joint declaration, and even though former presidents Madison (1809–17) and Jefferson (1801–09) urged Monroe to accept the offer, and even though the United States did not have a navy to implement the doctrine, Adams convinced Monroe to declare his message unilaterally. Adams had calculated that the various European powers would prevent each other from attempts at recolonisation because the prospect would alter the European balance of power. Moreover, if the continental Europeans did not check each other, the British Navy would prevent their expansion in pursuit of their own national interests. Opportunism, unilateralism or ‘independent internationalism’ was a fourth characteristic derived from the doctrine (Hoff, 1999: 285–319). Fifth, the doctrine enhanced the tendency to extend national security interests beyond mere survival. Monroe indicated that European powers moving into the west would be considered ‘dangerous to our peace and safety’. Throughout the twentieth century, as the US sphere of influence in Europe, the ‘West’, extended, so too did US security concerns and the national interests associated with them. E M P I R E A S A WAY O F L I F E : M A N I F E S T D E S T I N Y A N D IMPERIALISM
The unilateral declaration of the Monroe Doctrine cleared the way for US expansionism across the continent. The potential joint declaration with Britain would have inhibited any further territorial expansion by any of the continental powers. Already in possession of vast tracts of land following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the United States acquired Florida from the Spanish in 1819 and, under the presidency of James Polk (1845–49), more or less acquired the land now associated with the United States. Immediately before Polk’s inauguration as president, Congress voted to annex the tenyear-old independent state of Texas. He soon after laid claim to the Oregon Territory, risking war with Britain, but acquired the land in 1846. Then with the north-west secured through peaceful settlement, Polk initiated war with
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Background
Mexico in 1846 to conquer over half its territory. The continental empire was finally completed with the Gadsden Purchase (1853), adjusting the borders between the United States and a much-contracted Mexico. Territorial conquest and border colonisation characterised the process though Americans preferred to term their expansion and the removal of European powers and Native American tribes ‘Manifest Destiny’. The term ‘border colonisation’ refers to an ‘extensive opening up of land for human use, pushing a “frontier” into the “wilderness” for agricultural purposes or to attain natural resources’ (Osterhammel, 1997: 5). The process required settlement. Agricultural interests, especially the southern tobacco crop, required new lands. Expansion was assisted by an ideology that imputed that ‘confinement and inactivity were … the national nemesis’. Expansion was therefore the answer to the vexed question on the degeneration of republican democracy. As historian Michael Hunt put it: ‘Vigor in acquiring new agricultural lands was essential to sustain a republican political economy in which individual opportunity, autonomy, and virtue might flourish. Without the addition of new lands, a territorially confined republic with a growing population would degenerate’ (Hunt, 1987: 30). Following the turmoil in Europe – the Napoleonic Wars, revolution, intensified industrialisation – the United States became the recipient of over four million immigrants from Europe, who transformed US city life and spread into the west, encouraged by a belief in Manifest Destiny to colonise North America. The belief was further perpetuated and sustained by the growing number of popular narratives on the glories of the expansion. With little in common, US nationalism, emerging simultaneously with European nationalism, took very different routes. In the United States ‘the people’ shared an imprecise vision of opportunity. Their orators often identified the ‘imagined community’ in terms of opposition to European identities. What ‘one shared was a sense of an entirely new kind of country, uniquely marked by social, economic, and spatial openness’ (Stephanson, 1995: 28, original italics). US nationalism had two strands to it. It became associated with the new ideologies that were informed by the narratives associated with the Founding Fathers, and perhaps most particularly with Thomas Jefferson’s ideas on liberty, democracy and self-determination. Another vein of US nationalism, Louis Hartz wrote in the 1950s, was associated with the territorial state, strong and expansionist, which often contradicted the ideals and ideas associated with founding ideologies (Hartz, 1955: 189–90). The combination of the two, sometimes contradictory, sets of nationalism provided US statesmen with the option of referring to two traditions in its diplomacy: ideals and expansionism. Both of these attributes are present in US relations with Europe in the twentieth century. Despite the abstract contradictions, despite the near destruction of the Union during the Civil War, despite questions of identity brought on by
The Traditions of US Foreign Relations
11
increased immigration, despite the removal and destruction of the Native American nations, the success of the United States, relative to that of the Soviet Union, and to that of Europe (united or not), was that it held together a nation the size of a continent (Reynolds, 1992: 256). In certain respects, by the turn of the nineteenth century various sectors of the US economy were not just rivalling their counterparts in certain European countries, they were rivalling the industrial output of the entire European continent. After the Civil War the United States was in a position to exploit its vast landmass for agriculture, raw materials and technological innovation. US growth following the Civil War was a phenomenon. Between 1865 and 1898 ‘wheat production increased by 256 per cent, corn by 222 per cent, refined sugar by 460 per cent, coal by 800 per cent, steel rails by 523 per cent’, and so on (Kennedy, 1989: 312–13). Paul Kennedy suggests that there was an inevitability about the rise of US power. The United States enjoyed all the advantages with fewer disadvantages of the divided and nation-based economies of Europe. Of course what this sort of productivity meant, especially prompted by the financial crises of the 1870s, was that Americans believed that they would have to compete with the European imperial powers for access to and acquisition of foreign markets. By the winter of 1884–85 the European powers met at the Berlin Conference on West Africa. Primarily they settled the regional boundaries and those of the Congo, but they also considered issues of navigation and trade. Though the United States was not actively involved in the territorial discussions it did have interests in the discussions on trade. ‘In many ways,’ Kennedy writes, ‘the Berlin West Africa Conference can be seen symbolically, as the zenith of Old Europe’s period of predominance in global affairs’ (1989: 249). Even though the United States attended the conference, its views were not considered seriously and it did not participate in great power diplomacy until the 1890s. The tremendous industrial output of the post-Civil War period pushed prices downward in the US economy, leading to what McCormick (1989) terms the ‘Long Depression’ of the 1880s and the 1890s. Government and ‘Big Business’ believed in the overproduction thesis, which suggested that a permanent industrial surplus in excess of the purchasing power of the domestic market would result in industrial strife which would in turn have to be met with state violence against worker unrest. As a result the state became increasingly active in the search for overseas markets to relieve domestic problems (McCormick, 1989: 18). Domestic US labour unrest, the so-called closing of the ‘American Frontier’ and the disappearance of foreign markets through European colonialism in Africa and Asia, impelled a more active US foreign policy towards the end of the nineteenth century. The Spanish–American–Cuban War of 1898 projected the United States on to the world stage. In a very short period it had become an imperial
12
Background
power, acquiring the control of the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico and a number of Spanish islands. During the 1890s US tariffs had put acute pressure on the Cuban economy. Led by José Martí, Cuban nationalists who opposed the Spanish were put down and gathered into concentration camps, which engendered US sympathy. Cubans trying to induce further US involvement attacked US property. By February 1898 the USS Maine moved into Havana Harbor, ostensibly to protect US interests and its citizens. On 15 February the Maine exploded and the jingoistic US press assumed that the Spanish were responsible. By April 1898 the United States was at war with Spain. Action first took place in the Philippines and later in Cuba. Ultimately the Spanish surrendered on 17 July and left Cuba in August 1898. US overseas imperialism was immediately controversial. It tainted the ‘exceptional’ identity of the United States and compromised their ideologies associated with liberty, democracy and self-determination. The anti-imperial movement argued that the US Constitution and traditions had been violated. Americans could not rule others without their consent. Some feared that the US acquisition of the Philippines would draw them into further conflict in a distant land that could not be easily protected; the United States would be dragged into conflict with the Old World. Racist arguments suggested that Filipinos should not be admitted because the significant ethnic diversity would undermine the cohesion of the Union. Despite the vigorous objections, the Anti-Imperial League was largely ineffective in the long term. It was a diverse movement of congressmen, expresidents, industrialists, authors and educators. Moreover, the key objections were to direct US colonialism and the acquisition of territory. Beyond the Philippines, which the United States maintained as a colony till 1946, the United States was prevented from acquiring further territory through the Teller Amendment to the Declaration of War on Spain. Still, within US culture there was considerable sympathy, and indeed business pressure, for further expansionism. It is somewhat ironic that economic expansion was widely viewed in US culture as an antidote to direct US imperialism. Culturally, imperialism and formal colonialism were not attributes that Americans like to possess, though economic expansion was generally considered favourably. O P E N D O O R S : E X PA N D I N G T R A D E
Having hitherto lived a life and constructed ideologies predicated on the availability of vast stretches of land and seemingly unlimited minerals, the United States had to face some harsh realities towards the close of the nineteenth century. The so-called closing of the ‘frontier’ brought about the end of a period of history in which expansion seemed to solve the
The Traditions of US Foreign Relations
13
various social ills and domestic unrest in the United States. The new frontiers would have to be foreign if the United States wanted to remain faithful to its ideologies. Industrialists, intellectuals, businessmen and government officials were lured by the attraction of solving domestic problems through US expansion abroad. By the turn of the century the United States had undergone a period of hyper-productivity; exports had far outstripped imports. Under-consumption and frequent domestic recession brought about a demand for an active overseas policy of US economic intervention. In 1898 the State Department argued that ‘enlargement of foreign consumption of the products of our mills and workshops has, therefore, become a serious problem of statesmanship as well as of commerce … and we can no longer afford to disregard international rivalries now that we ourselves have become a competitor in the world-wide struggle for trade’. The ‘promotional state’ was induced into assistance and helped create an international environment hospitable for US business (Rosenberg, 1982: 38–54). Geographically, US government and business had reason to be wary of the European imperial powers. From 1880 to 1900 they embarked on a new period of obtaining and forming colonies. The ‘great powers’ were engaged in what appeared to be a race for economic expansion. China, Japan and Siam (Thailand) opened up their economies under European pressure, Egypt and the Ottoman Empire too succumbed to more intense pressure. The European powers divided Africa at the Berlin Conference in 1884–85. The diamonds and gold discovered in South Africa in 1867 and 1886 intensified what became known as the ‘Scramble for Africa’. The British, French and the Portuguese had a more limited presence elsewhere on the continent, but at the conference they agreed to respect each other’s colonies. The actual partition and occupation of the land followed in time (Osterhammel, 1997: 33–4). The intensity of European colonialism symbolised by the Berlin Conference and the intensified interests in China formed the backdrop to another of the most enduring traditions in US diplomacy: the struggle to open markets around the world. Prosperity was a key US national interest, and given the configuration of circumstances both domestic and external, Washington pursued a vigorous policy and began the process that would ultimately characterise its period of hegemony in the mid-twentieth century. Given the domestic backlash against the US colonisation of the Philippines, the McKinley administration (1896–1901) pursued what Howard Zinn identified as ‘a more sophisticated approach to imperialism than the traditional empire building of Europe’ (Zinn, 1980: 294). While US culture had rejected colonialism as a betrayal of American traditions and ideologies, there was no such reticence over expansion. The China market was not as lucrative as US businesses had hoped, but
14
Background
it probably had an enduring effect on the culture because it provided some psychological relief to the pent-up feelings of domestic malaise. The Open Door notes became the basis for an ideology in US foreign economic policy. By the end of the nineteenth century, crowded out of markets in Asia and Africa, and with the prospect of a unified China coming to an end given the political weakness of the Qing dynasty, US traders did not want to see the partition of the country among the European colonial powers and the Japanese. McKinley’s Secretary of State, John Hay (1898–1905), circulated a set of notes to the British, French, Italians, Germans, Russians and the Japanese. Hay’s circular letter of 6 September 1899 called for the ‘equality of treatment of all foreign trade throughout China’ [Doc. 4]. The second set of notes in July 1900 reiterated the desire to protect ‘lawful commerce’ but also emphasised the desire to ‘preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity’. Even though the Europeans were not pleased with the method of US diplomacy, they were not in a position to argue. Britain would benefit commercially, but it was too busy with the Boer War to engage in the colonisation of China. Germany and Russia had the most to lose. They had recently acquired territory and sought further spheres of influence, but neither wanted to upset the precarious European balance of power through further conflict in Asia. Like the diplomacy preceding the ‘Scramble for Africa’ the Chinese were not consulted throughout the process. The enduring effects of the Open Door notes were that the United States championed an economic environment that John Hay essentially described as ‘fair field and no favor’. Indeed, the long-term effects of the Open Door notes were perhaps more psychological and ideological in that they suggested that the United States consistently stood for free and equal economic access (Crabb, 1982: 56–106). With the inclusion of the passages on self-determination, Washington was able to occupy the moral high ground, presenting itself as an anti-colonial power, preserving the selfdetermination and independence of China. Chinese self-determination, however, was incidental to US strategy. The Chinese bitterly complained that they were given little voice and little latitude in determining their own fate. The Europeans recognised US opportunism. While the United States was promoting open and equal access in Asia (where the European powers had the upper hand), they enhanced their increasingly exclusive sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed within decades, when the Japanese sought to maintain a Monroe Doctrine in the East, Washington rebuffed them (Crabb, 1982: 96).
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T H E T U R N I N T O T H E A M E R I C A N C E N T U RY
Since the 1890 Naval Act the US Navy had grown to the extent that it provided the nation with a new-found confidence that could be exerted beyond the North American continent. Washington asserted its power twice against the most formidable European sea power, Britain. In the 1895 and 1902 Venezuelan crises, Britain eventually deferred to the views of the United States. As time passed the British response became more placatory and indeed, following the dispute and British engagement in the Boer War (1902), London had come to the conclusion that war with the United States was increasingly unlikely. By 1902 the British had moved their fleet away from the Western Hemisphere, both because defence against the United States was not considered necessary and because Britain was increasingly isolated among the other European powers. By 1907–8 the US ‘Great White Fleet’ had sailed ostentatiously around the world displaying its new-found sea power. At the turn of the century the United States felt secure on its continent and ceased to define its national interests in terms of an external attack or its continued existence (Brands, 1999: 239). It increasingly became aware that it was now a major economic competitor among the great powers, vying for access to the minerals and markets of the world. As it promoted the Open Door policy in China and its derivative principles elsewhere, it increasingly sought to protect the Western Hemisphere as an exclusive preserve. For both commercial and security reasons, Theodore Roosevelt extended the Monroe Doctrine to exclude European powers from interfering in the West and collecting the debts that the various Caribbean governments had incurred. Despite the European recognition of the increased US influence, the United States was still considered a regional power. Nevertheless, within the Western Hemisphere Theodore Roosevelt’s injunction to ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’ had considerable symbolic influence. As the United States increasingly interfered in Central America and the Caribbean for the sake of maintaining law and order – as understood by Washington – European powers more often deferred to it within the Western sphere. Moreover, hemispheric protection was seen as vital during the period in which the Panama Canal was constructed (1904–14). Not only would the canal provide for increased US security by cutting down the time the Navy needed to move from the Caribbean to the Pacific, but it also provided a highway for the still-predominant US commercial interests in the Western Hemisphere, an area on which the US economy depended. Theodore Roosevelt’s ideological declarations fused well with US security and commercial interests. His ideas were tremendously influential throughout the twentieth century as he proposed to bring order to a chaotic world. They were important because even though in practice they were
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Background
regionally confined, the European powers increasingly deferred to them after the promulgation of his Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Roosevelt’s ‘civilisation’ was borne out of an imperial world in which the nations vigorously competed to secure and extend their interests, coupled with an attitude to race that placed the Anglo-Saxons on top of a simplistic hierarchy. Roosevelt’s America aspired to create order, enhance progress, educate and uplift the other peoples of the world, to fill the ‘waste spaces’ with civilisation and trade, to live up to the so-called ‘white man’s burden’ (the phrase taken from a poem Rudyard Kipling dedicated to Roosevelt). Roosevelt himself pursued an aggressive policy, declaring that ‘unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail’ (Hunt, 1987: 126–8; Ninkovich, 1986: 222–30). All three predominant strands of the US national interest come together in the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine of 1904–5. The United States could at once limit the remaining European powers from the Western Hemisphere, could tighten its grip on the commercial interests of the region, and could promote the progressive identity of its foreign policy. Key sections of the Corollary spoke of the US exercise of ‘an international police power’ to prevent ‘chronic wrongdoing … which results in general loosening of the ties of civilized society…’ [Doc. 5]. With a new self-confidence, a naval power that could rival that of Britain’s and the other European powers, and with rapidly expanding economic power, the United States moved into the twentieth century on its ascent towards a hegemony over Europe.
PART TWO
THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WARS
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CHAPTER TWO WILSON’S ORDER AND EUROPEAN POWER
T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S A N D I M P E R I A L E U R O P E
By the end of the first two decades of the twentieth century the United States stood in a decisive position, its forces tilted the balance in the First World War and President Wilson (1913–21) proposed an ambitious agenda for the peace. In the next two decades, during the 1920s and 1930s, the United States retreated from these visions of engagement in world affairs, largely as a reaction to the proposed Wilsonian order. The retreat from political engagement ushered in a period of isolation, conventionally understood, even though US trade and culture remained international. In fact, during the age of competing empires commercial engagement was considered an absolute necessity. Still, Wilson’s political ambitions were defeated by the European powers at Versailles and by his Republican opponents in the United States. But in the first two decades of the century, and especially during the Wilsonian period, Washington exercised a decisive impact on the immediate situation and introduced diplomatic concepts that ultimately provided shape to US diplomacy throughout the twentieth century. The Wilsonian period was the first significant US attempt to influence the future shape and direction of Europe. It was also an attempt to extend the US sphere of influence, and pursue its economic opportunity. Washington’s decisions throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century reflect the ongoing concern with enhancing their national interest, as previously outlined. The pursuit of prosperity and a concern for expanding the US access to markets, the promotion of self-determination and democracy and the maintenance of US security were the key messages that Wilson put forward. Though selectively applied, Wilson’s vision and policies were an ambitious attempt to enlarge US influence in Europe. However, forces, both domestic and foreign, limited his aspirations. It was not until after the Second World War, after the United States passed through a period of political isolation and economic depression, after its economic and military power proved decisive in war, that a tempered and more ‘realistic’ Wilsonian vision guided US policy-makers. Nevertheless, the inter-war period was one 19
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The United States and the World Wars
in which European powers declined dramatically relative to the rising stock of the United States. In the early part of the twentieth century the great powers were still predominantly European: Britain, France, Russia, Germany, AustriaHungary and Italy. The United States did not enter European politicians’ consciousness as a great power until the decisive contribution in the closing stages of the First World War. Of the European powers, Spain and Portugal, still imperial European nations, were not treated with the same gravity as the other great powers. Spain’s reputation as a fighting power had suffered considerably after its decisive defeat by the United States. Even the British were considered to be somewhat on the ‘downgrade’ because they could not decisively put an end to the Boer War in South Africa. The United States drew great confidence from such circumstances, but still its diplomacy prior to the Great War remained regional and parochially concerned with its commercial interests in the Far East (Gardner, 1984: 26). The world of European empires was coming to an end even though the European protagonists did not recognise the impending changes. With the rise of trade unionism and liberalism, the key agendas of the most powerful European states became dominated by domestic reform. In many ways the costs of such reform were funded through overseas expansion and the consolidation of colonial arrangements. As the historian Lloyd Gardner put it, ‘to liberal imperialists on both sides of the Atlantic, domestic reform and foreign expansion went together’ (Gardner, 1984: 20, 25). The European balance of power was crucial to international stability, yet an increasing – if informal – compact between the United States and Britain was changing the conditions that had characterised the nineteenth century. Germany was the anomaly to the imperial network in the first half of the twentieth century. Imperialism provided European powers and the United States with a safety-valve for their domestic pressures. Yet German attempts, twice in the twentieth century, to expand its political influence through the acquisition of territory, to match its economic power, brought the world to points of catastrophe. Africa, Latin America, China and East Asia had become the colonies and domains of the other great powers. One of the twin features of the twentieth century has been the concurrent rise of German and US power. The German economy has risen to prominent positions three times. Once after unification in 1871, again under Nazi Germany and then again after the Second World War (Hobsbawm, 1994). After the turn of the century British businessmen were aware of the growth of a major German commercial and economic rival. Even though France still operated a vast colonial empire, it was intrinsically concerned with the reoccupation of Alsace and Lorraine, which Germany seized in 1871. France implicitly drew closer to Britain, to minimise imperial rivalry because its European interests were paramount. After the Boer War, Britain too culti-
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vated a closer relationship with Washington. The new Anglo-American relationship permitted the British to remove their strategic power from the Western Hemisphere and also undermined the assumption on the part of nineteenth-century European statesmen that there would always be problems in the British-American relationship (Kennedy, 1989: 323). Territorial colonialism and economic power were vital constituent parts of the great power diplomacy of the twentieth century. British hegemony was increasingly challenged by both the United States and by Germany. While Britain and the United States had expanded territorially, the British occupying vast portions of Africa and Asia and the Americans vast sections of the North American continent, the German challenge tried to incorporate both colonialism and continental conquest in the twentieth century (Arrighi, 1994: 58–60). As European rivalries played themselves out to their tragic end, the United States benefited considerably in relative terms with the decline of British and German power. The United States existed as a continent, it had a relative abundance of resources and an active state policy of assisting business abroad, maintaining open doors to trade where possible and closing their own market to competitive foreign products. ‘By the time the struggle for world supremacy began, the US domestic economy was well on its way to being the new center of the world economy’ (Arrighi, 1994: 61). The internal US capacity, coupled with the inter-European destruction, brought one of the most decisive changes to the structure of world power during the early twentieth century (Arrighi, 1994; Kennedy, 1989: 249–52). Throughout, US national interests were enhanced through the pursuit of economic opportunities, ideological ambitions and security concerns. The First World War was significant. The US economy boomed as a result of war orders, President Wilson promoted US ideologies in an attempt to shape the peace, and US security concerns were addressed through their participation in the war. T H E F I R S T W O R L D WA R : P R E L U D E T O I N T E RV E N T I O N , 1 9 1 4 – 1 6
The literature on the origins of the First World War is huge. Needless to say there is no space here to expand on the issues (see Martel, 1996). Suffice it to say that, generally, German instability and perceived encirclement created tensions with the Allied Powers (Britain, France and Russia) and the Austrian rivalry with Russia over the Balkans provided the tinderbox for the war. On 28 June 1914 Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. Within a month Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Days later, on 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia in the east and invaded Luxembourg and Belgium on 2 and 4 August respectively. Britain, as a guarantor of Belgian neutrality, immediately declared war on Germany. Essentially, Europe divided between the Triple Alliance of France, Britain
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The United States and the World Wars
and Russia and the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Washington observed as Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire soon joined the Central Powers. The Allies found support from Italy, Greece, Romania and Portugal. Japan entered the war, but stayed in the east, absorbing the former German colonial possessions. Within months battle lines had been drawn where the advancing armies met each other and dug trenches. Tragically, as Hobsbawn relates, ‘they did not shift significantly for the next three and a half years’ (1994: 24–5). When war broke out Washington wanted no part of it. The pursuit of the various US national interests changed American attitudes towards the war over time. It is ironic that Wilson, elected on a largely domestic platform of reform, ended up as a ‘foreign policy’ president. With little knowledge of foreign affairs and perhaps because of his Presbyterian background and reformist inclinations, Wilson adopted a high moral tone to his foreign policy rhetoric. Despite his adventures in Mexico (1914–17), Wilson preached doctrines of self-determination, free trade, democratic expansion and the respect for law. The European sphere, however, was different. When war broke out there Wilson was quick to request of Americans that they be ‘neutral in fact as well as in name’ and be ‘impartial in thought as well as in action’ [Doc. 6]. Ideally, Americans should not conduct any activities that favoured one side or the other, or that caused offence; otherwise the United States might be drawn into the war. Besides that, Wilson’s electoral base was too precarious to upset substantial minorities within the United States. Though the vast majority of Americans favoured the Allies and especially the British, Wilson could not afford to alienate the substantial population of GermanAmericans (some eleven million), or the Irish- or the Scandinavian-Americans who also harboured grievances against the British and the Russians. The divisions over neutrality within the Wilson administration reflected the larger American social divisions on the US stance on the war. Though Colonel House and Robert Lansing advocated a more pro-British position, US opinion only changed as the more frequent and ‘uncivilised’ behaviour of the German U-boats was seen as detrimental to US interests. Americans had to be persuaded that the United States was playing a crucial role in the war, despite the official claims of neutrality. The war was having a dramatic impact on US culture and its economy. Eventually, the American public would come to accept and believe that their nation’s power necessitated involvement in, and the leadership of, Europe. Wilson clearly intended to extend the US ideas associated with the progressive agenda. As Iriye puts it, reformers supporting Wilson ‘considered the war a rare opportunity to carry on the task, for war required national unity and mobilization, an ideal condition for reorganizing domestic affairs’. New ideas on ‘economic planning, public service, and public education on international events’ were
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introduced (Iriye, 1993: 26–49). Thus, culturally, the United States was being drawn out of its traditional belief in isolation from the ‘Old World’ of Europe. Now there was a clear opportunity for America to extend its sphere of influence to encompass Europe, and US culture and ideology had to adjust to this new opportunity. Initially, Wilson adhered to George Washington’s advice in his farewell address of 1796: ‘in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible’ [Doc. 2]. American neutrality did not mean breaking relations with Europe during wartime. Commercial activities continued and opportunities were sought after. Financial transactions were completed; goods were transported on ships that flew the American flag. None of these activities was seen as a violation of the rights of the neutral United States. Indeed, they were considered beneficial. As the United States was experiencing a period of economic recession, they provided opportunities for growth and the extension of US business and finance into Europe. The United States took full opportunity. It entered the period of the First World War with a debt of $3.7 billion and surfaced in 1918 with a credit of $3.8 billion (LaFeber, 1989: 273). Whatever the thoughts or intentions of the Wilson administration, neutrality made little sense under the circumstances. The German successes had hitherto been quite remarkable. Its troops were well into France and across Belgium, its armies had defeated Russian forces, and its U-boats were imposing considerable hardship on Britain through sinking supplies as they crossed the Atlantic. The sheer size of the US industrial capacity, the billions of dollars of Allied war orders, and the ability of the United States to produce the merchant ships that were rapidly being sunk made all the difference. US ‘neutrality’ favoured the Allies in terms of supplies and finance by a margin of ten to one (LaFeber, 1989: 273). The Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, took exception to the pro-Allied type of neutrality that Wilson practised. He argued against the loans to the belligerents, but Wilson realised that the war was good for American prosperity and the national interest required such economic recovery. Bryan was in the minority within the cabinet. Most were on the Allied side culturally as well as materially, and British navel power swung the balance. It ‘cut US exports to Germany from $169 million to only $2 million annually’ and during the first two years of the war US sales to the Allied powers quadrupled, alleviating the effects of the recession in the United States (Bagby, 1999: 23). By 1915 Britain had blockaded Germany and the Germans in turn declared that the waters around the British Isles were a war zone. They began using U-boats to interdict merchant and passenger ships bound to replenish Allied supplies. The US insistence on its rights as a neutral state to sail through war zones unimpeded brought it into diplomatic conflict with
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The United States and the World Wars
both Britain and Germany. Anglo-American relations were close to breaking point when Germany sunk the British passenger liner the Lusitania off the southern Irish coast in May 1915. With over 1,000 casualties, of which 128 were American, the United States insisted on German reparations and its renunciation of submarine warfare. Germany was quick to issue its regrets, fearful of drawing the United States into the war. Secretary of State Bryan resigned because the United States insisted on neutrality rights in such circumstances. Still, the incident was not enough to bring the United States into war. Internal disagreements persisted over the morality of the German U-boat activities and the attempt by the British Navy to starve the German nation into submission. Aware of the effects of its U-boat activities on the US administration and public opinion, Germany refrained from sinking passenger liners for a brief period of time between the sinking of the Arabic in August 1915 to the sinking of the Sussex in March 1916. Following Bryan’s resignation the issue began to fade. The new Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, was much more pro-British than his predecessor was, and thus there was little further dissent within the cabinet. The United States edged closer to Britain. US opinion, too, changed in reaction to German tactics, aided by an extensive British propaganda campaign that convinced most Americans that the Central Powers were undemocratic enemies of civilisation. In the movement towards Britain, Wilson employed the services of his friend and advisor, Colonel Edward House, who did not hold any official position within the government. In the spring of 1915 House travelled to London to promote certain terms for the peace. Yet his limited suggestions were considered inadequate given the millions that had died to date. By February 1916 House signed the House–Grey Memorandum with the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. The gist of the memorandum was that the United States would call a peace conference at a time of its convenience, benefiting the Allied Powers. If the Germans refused to participate, the United States would enter the war on the side of the Allies. If the Germans accepted, but then did not accept the terms at the conference, the United States would again enter the war on the side of the Allies. In either eventuality the United States indicated that it would ‘probably’ join the Allied cause. Still, Wilson had to remain somewhat cautious. 1916 was an election year and he could not afford to alienate the significant Irish or German vote. His administration campaigned on the slogan: ‘He kept us out of war’. As it was, Wilson’s victory was narrow. But once returned to office in November 1916, the shackles of public opinion were removed and his administration was free to determine the US course towards war. By the turn of the year three significant developments led the United States closer to war. First, in January, Germany announced its resumption of
Wilson’s Order and European Power
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unrestricted U-boat activity and promptly began sinking both British and American ships. Wilson was convinced that the German Admiralty had greater influence over the government and that they probably would not turn to the negotiating table voluntarily. Such militarism had to be defeated (Iriye, 1993: 40). Second, Washington obtained an intercepted message from the German Foreign Secretary, Alfred Zimmerman, to the Mexican government, offering to form an alliance and the possibility of recovering half the Mexican territory that had been lost to the United States in the 1846–48 war. The publication of the telegram helped to galvanise US public opinion in support of the war effort. Finally, in March 1917 the Russian Revolution removed the tsarist regime, which was replaced by a reformist government under Alexander Kerensky. With the removal of the tsar the autocrats of Europe were clearly in opposition and on the side of the Central Powers. Wilson could now present the war in much more grandiose and universalistic terms. During the initial years of the war, Washington benefited economically through the disproportionate trade with the Allies, which served the US economy and began to lift it out of recession. The legalistic position adopted on neutrality preserved a semblance of US security interests for a time, but also allowed them to position themselves above the war. However, should the United States remain out of the war, the opportunity to extend its sphere of influence in Europe would be similarly limited. U S I N T E RV E N T I O N
In January 1917 Wilson called for ‘a peace without victory’. In a speech before the US Senate he outlined his vision for a just and lasting peace. He argued that there could not just be a return to the old order: ‘… only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organised rivalries, but an organized common peace.’ The speech heralded a shift away from the realism and systems of alliances that characterised nineteenth-century European diplomacy to a system that has come to be known as Wilsonian internationalism, ushering in collective security. In January 1917, he argued, somewhat prophetically, that a peace of the victor against the vanquished would not endure: ‘Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only upon quicksand’ [Doc. 7]. Yet, within months, Washington had thrown its power on to the side of the Allies and participated in that very outcome. The United States did not enter the war as an Allied Power, but as an ‘associated’ one. Even though after the revolution Russia could be considered a democratic state, the European Allies were still colonial powers,
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The United States and the World Wars
which Wilson objected to in principle. Moreover, he shared Vladimir Lenin’s belief that the war in Europe was an attempt to maintain capital within Europe and their various colonies in Asia and Africa. So, despite siding with the Allies, in his war address to Congress, Wilson articulated the US differences as well. The war was cast as an attempt to reshape the world order. On 2 April 1917, Wilson informed Congress and the American people that neutrality had not been enough. Now the Germans had initiated unrestricted U-boat activity and Americans were increasingly among the victims. Though the war was against Germany and its government, Wilson pointed out, ‘we act without animus, not in enmity towards [the German] people…’. Wilson used the message to introduce concepts that would affect the subsequent debates on international relations throughout the rest of the century. It would be a war for the ‘liberation of [the world’s] peoples’, ‘for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy.’ Wilson went on to explain that the United States was not serving its selfish ends; it sought ‘no conquest, no dominion’, or any indemnities or material compensation, but ‘we are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind’ [Doc. 8]. Wilson’s vision seemed somewhat extraordinary to the European leaders grounded in realism and the pursuit of their national interests. David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, and Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister, found US rhetoric rather odd, though they appreciated US assistance in terms of the material supplies and its forces. They surmised that their differences could and would be sorted out later around the negotiating tables of Versailles. Wilson’s vision has had an enduring impact not only among US policymakers, but also among many of the international institutions that have existed through the latter half of the twentieth century. His ideas were especially influential in the creation of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, which have promoted a certain conception of an international liberal economic order. In 1917 Wilson promoted selfdetermination, recognising that nationalism was a powerful sentiment. Indeed, nationalism would almost immediately bring down the Ottoman, Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, and it would also contribute to the demise of the European colonial empires after the Second World War. It was an irony of US foreign relations, however, that Wilson’s vision of selfdetermination was largely limited to the European world. When a young nationalist, later known as Ho Chi Minh, approached the Wilson delegation in Paris searching for support for Indochinese self-determination against French occupation, he was rebuffed. Further, Wilson believed that democracy was the only form of legitimate government and that US policy should promote it. He assumed democracy
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and capitalism were mutually beneficial and reinforcing concepts. In addition, he believed that an increased respect for international law was necessary, that the global economic order would need to be characterised by non-discrimination and an open, anti-protectionist market and, finally, that a system of collective security, instead of the balance of power, was needed to maintain a lasting peace (T. Smith, 1994: 85–6). In short, Wilsonian ideology projected a stable, orderly, liberal-democratic internationalism that sought to avoid the extremes of revolution and reaction. It was a new and global ideology that sought a middle road through European imperialism and the revolutionary activities of Russia, Mexico and China. There was a considerable delay between the announcement of war against Germany and the actual arrival of US forces. Prior to the US declaration of war it had benefited enormously from the increased orders from Europe – an economic situation that in fact pulled the United States out of debt. The preparations for war increased economic activity and prosperity. The emerging symbiotic relationship between business, government and the military cast long shadows throughout the twentieth century. Mobilisation enhanced these relationships, where Wilson had earlier sought to limit them. The war saw increased production throughout the economy. African-Americans moved north to fill the factories and women moved increasingly into employed labour to meet wartime requirements. The war boosted profits and wages. It benefited the progressive political economy. It ‘strengthened the cooperative planning ethic within business and government. It also sped the transformation in civil–military relations that modern warfare made necessary and introduced the idea and practice of industrial preparedness’ (Koistinen, 1997: 297). US entry into the war clearly served its national interests, defined around the three areas of economic opportunity, ideological influence and enhanced security. THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
Initially the Russian Revolution pleased Washington and served its national interests concerning its position in the war, but as the revolution became increasingly radical and as Russia withdrew from the war, US antagonism rose. Wilson applauded the Russian Revolution shortly after the tsar abdicated on 15 March 1917. As the Russian Constituent Assembly began its meetings, the broad indications of greater democracy suited Wilson’s ideological ambitions. The war effort could be presented henceforth as a fight between the democracies and the autocrats of Europe. Effusively, Wilson asked whether ‘the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening’ in Russia did not give all Americans assurance and hope for the future. A-historically, he proceeded, ‘Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits
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of her thought … and [now] the great, generous Russian people have added in all their naïve majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honour’ (Wilson, quoted in Shaw, 1924: 379). Wilson saw Russia as vitally important for the post-war order. The democratic states could enhance international justice and outmanoeuvre the European colonial powers. Advisors urged Wilson to recognise Russia formally. Its psychological impact would be tremendous; America would outstretch ‘a welcoming hand to the world’s newest liberal revolution from the oldest’. In fact Washington was the first to recognise the Provisional Government on 22 March 1917. The recognition, however, was delayed until it was certain that the Russians would stay in the war (Gardner, 1984: 133–4). Economic aid was provided too, but only $188 million of the $450 million allocated was used before Alexander Kerensky was overthrown in November (Gaddis, 1990: 61). As Washington sought further engagement with Russia through aid and efforts towards further integration, Kerensky was losing control. In midJune Russian forces began an offensive in the south, yet a widespread refusal to obey orders by the Russian troops undermined Kerensky. General Lavr Kornilov insisted that the offensive be curtailed and was appointed the commander-in-chief of the Russian forces. Days later, in early July, another offensive was launched in the north. Initial success soon turned to failure. The consequent social unrest and rioting was put down forcefully by troops loyal to Kerensky. Having arrested and hounded the Bolsheviks through the summer, Kerensky was forced to rely on their support by late summer to avert a coup from the right organised by Kornilov. The Kornilov Affair provided the Bolsheviks with greater power. They obtained a majority in the Moscow Soviet by late September. Leon Trotsky became chairman of the Moscow Soviet in early October and the Bolsheviks initiated an armed rising. By 7 November 1917 the Bolsheviks seized power. Land was transferred to the people, factories were seized and handed over to the workers and the moderate left was suppressed. Kerensky fled to the United States. Germany and Russia began negotiations in Brest-Litovsk on concluding a separate peace. Lenin and Trotsky’s radicalism alarmed and divided Washington. Their call for world revolution and Trotsky’s suggestions that self-determination would not be granted to the Allies’ colonies created divisions and frustrated the attempts to convince the Russians not to sign a separate peace with the Germans. The success of the revolution depended in large part on extracting Russia from the war. The Bolsheviks were manoeuvring the Wilson administration into what seemed to be a difficult choice. Either the war was fought for self-determination, which should be universally applied, or it was not. Yet on the other hand Wilson abhorred the Bolshevik take-over and the lost hopes of his vision for a liberal democratic order. The Bolshevik revolution
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was considered chaotic and anarchic, the antithesis of Wilson’s conception of order. Wilson’s advisors were divided on how best to respond. Secretary of State Lansing wanted to send in US troops, yet Colonel Edward House urged keeping the Russians in the war. Bolshevik rhetoric was widely considered an attack on civilisation in Wilson’s inner circles. The prospect of world revolution was anathema to Washington. Reacting to Trotsky’s pronouncements on self-determination of late December 1917, Lansing wrote to Wilson that ‘the document is an appeal to the proletariat of all countries, to the ignorant and mentally deficient, who by their numbers are urged to become masters. Here seems to me to lie a very real danger in view of the present social unrest throughout the world’ (quoted in Gardner, 1984: 161). The famous Fourteen Points announced by Wilson on 8 January 1918 was an attempt both to restate US war aims and counter the Bolshevik appeal and to form the specific terms of peace for any subsequent negotiation. They were also designed to keep the Russians from concluding a separate peace with the Germans. The key points included advocating ‘open covenants of peace’ and ‘no private international understandings of any kind’, and ‘absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas’. Point three was crucial for US commerce and economic integration: it called for ‘the removal … of all economic barriers and the establishment of equality of trade conditions’. Point four proposed guarantees of arms reductions. Point five alarmed the West European powers, calling for ‘a free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims’. Point six was crucial for keeping the Russians in the war, requesting an evacuation of all Russian territory. The remaining points dealt mainly with issues of territorial integrity and control. Finally, the fourteenth point, Wilson’s cherished idea, called for ‘a general association of nations’ or the basis of what would later become the League of Nations [Doc. 9]. The ideological rivalry between the United States and Russia that characterised the rest of the ‘short twentieth century’ began in earnest during this period. As Cassels writes, ‘to the war weary millions Lenin and Wilson appeared as alternative messiahs, and indeed since 1917 each had been projecting himself as a saviour from outside Europe’ (1996: 139). In many ways these ideologies were replacing the conceptual notions of European monarchy and absolutism. But with the ideological competition between Wilsonianism and Leninism there was also the battle for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the world at large. The ideologies were anti-imperial, both sought peace and promoted self-determination, and they both promoted a form of national development based on their own experiences (Clark, 1997: 64). Despite these similarities the differences were obviously stark as well. Soviet socialist economic structures were anathema to the United States, and their ideological conceptions of democracy were obviously very different. In fact, the similarities could really only be considered in terms of opposition
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to the old autocracies of Central Europe and the colonial systems of Western Europe. Even though Lenin allowed Wilson’s points to be widely circulated in Russia, they did not have the desired immediate effect. On 3 March 1918 Russia concluded the much-interrupted negotiations and signed the BrestLitovsk Treaty with Germany. With it Russia withdrew from the war, which allowed the Germans to transfer more troops to the western front. Nevertheless, German forces continued to capture territory from the Russians and by July 1918 Wilson sent US forces into Russia to assist the White Russians in the civil war. US battalions were sent in through Murmansk in the north and Vladivostok in the east. US–Soviet hostility remained a defining context for Washington’s relations with the rest of Europe until 1991. THE WESTERN FRONT AND WESTERN PEACE
American forces began to arrive in Western Europe in the summer of 1917 and engaged in relatively minor actions until the summer of 1918 when they launched offensives at Aisne-Marne in July, and St Michel and MeuseArgonne in September. The US productive capacity, however, made a crucial difference. It provided the Allies with billions of dollars and abundant material assistance. It provided the ships (merchant and naval), equipment, food and eventually a force of fresh men. For Paul Kennedy, ‘In terms of economic power, therefore, the entry of the United States into the war quite transformed the balances, and more than compensated for the collapse of Russia at the same time’ (Kennedy, 1989: 349–50). The American Expeditionary Force complicated the failed final German offensive after the spring of 1918. During the summer of 1918 the fruits of nationalism and self-determination were evident in the Allied recognition of Czechoslovakia, which contributed to the crumbling Central European empires by that autumn. Yugoslavia gained independence in October and an armistice was signed with the Ottoman Empire on 30 October; on 3 November an armistice was signed with Austria-Hungary. During October the Germans had explored the opportunities of laying down their weapons on the basis of Wilson’s Fourteen Points. In the west they had not been clearly defeated on the field of battle: their armies remained within France until the eventual armistice was signed at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, when they began to march home. Though Wilson put forward the Fourteen Points as the terms of peace, they were far too general to address the specifics in Europe and they met with resistance from both the British and the French. Moreover, before the United States would accept the German surrender, they insisted that the Kaiser abdicate; they would not negotiate unless there was a republican
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government. Though William II initially balked, Germany eventually proclaimed a republic on 9 November 1918. Wilson and Lenin were seen by many in Europe as the new saviours from the east and the west. Indeed, when Wilson arrived in Europe he was greeted everywhere with adulating crowds. He was seen as one of the most popular men in Europe. The British had been wary of the new American power for some time. In 1916 the British Chancellor of the Exchequer thought ‘by next June, or earlier, the President of the American Republic would be in a position, if he wishes, to dictate his terms to us’ (Kennedy, 1989: 346). And in Washington there was a similar sentiment. In 1917 Wilson told House: ‘When the war is over, we can force [England and France] to our way of thinking, because by that time they will be financially in our hands’ (LaFeber, 1989: 297). But these visions of grandeur turned out to be illusions. The British resisted the point on the freedom of the seas and the French resisted the idea of a peace without victory. They were intent, having suffered the most casualties, to disarm Germany and incapacitate its military power. So even before the peace negotiations commenced Wilson was beginning to encounter resistance. The United States, after all, had not endured the same suffering as the Europeans. With some ten million dead and another five million wounded, the Europeans were bound to pursue their national interests, their national security and realpolitik over and above what appeared to be Wilson’s idealistic points. Wilson had prepared badly for Paris. The Democratic campaign in 1918 was counterproductive, handing a majority to the Republicans in the Senate. Henry Cabot Lodge, no friend of Wilson’s, now chaired the key Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Moreover, for such a momentous set of negotiations, Wilson did not take any senior Republicans to Paris, yet they were dominant in the body that would have to ratify the treaty that he obtained around the negotiating table. In addition, his prolonged stay in Europe undermined Wilson’s domestic political support. In Paris the negotiating process with twenty-seven states was too large and unwieldy to make progress. It was soon limited to ten members, the ministers or presidents and their secretaries from the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan. Eventually even that group was considered too big so the Japanese left and the secretaries were dismissed. The key negotiators were Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau and Vittorio Orlando. Here Wilson got into trouble. The British economist, John Meynard Keynes, later wrote about his relative slowness compared to the others. His attention to detail was inadequate; he constantly wanted to discuss the League of Nations, which was not that important to the Europeans compared to the real issues of disarmament, reparations, dismemberment of the empires, and Germany’s acceptance of responsibility for the war. Wilson’s ambitions did not fit comfortably with European realpolitik [Doc. 10].
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Slowly, Wilson saw his Fourteen Points being eroded. Self-determination was fine in the vanquished areas. It was applied to Central Europe and granted to the nations emerging from the collapsed German and AustroHungarian empires, but in the Middle East it was delayed for the areas formerly under Ottoman control. Britain and France ruled the new nations of the Middle East under the mandate system of the League of Nations. But self-determination was inadmissible in the British and French empires. The advantages of empire, for Britain and France, especially, were not just in the prestige they brought, but in the protected trade that they sought. Here too Wilson’s point on the open door and impartial trade was severely limited. And as noted above, the British resisted the idea of freedom of the seas. Russia was a constant non-presence at the conference. Even though it had not been invited to Paris, its ideological appeal yielded tremendous influence and the spectre of more communist governments in Europe loomed. Following the collapse of the German Empire socialists were in power. They also gained control in Hungary. Wilson and the Allied leaders worried that they may gain further ground in Western Europe. In Germany, an attempt was made to impose a Leninist-style government, led by Karl Leibknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Socialist movements were also increasingly popular throughout Europe, which threatened the US agenda and the extension of its national interests. Wilson clung to his precious notion of the League of Nations, giving up almost all the other Fourteen Points. Even the League suffered as a result of US domestic politics. Henry Cabot Lodge led the defeat of ratification in the US Senate following Wilson’s return to the United States in the summer of 1919 [Doc. 11]. Two groups, ‘the Irreconcilables’ and the ‘Reservationists’ did not want to compromise US unilateralism. They argued that the League and its obligations, especially Article XI, which required economic isolation of a belligerent power and a military response, not only tied the United States into unnecessary obligations, but also compromised the congressional power to declare war. Under the League of Nations the United States would be bound to act, even if its national interests were not at stake. Moreover, these groups argued that the United States would lose its privileged position as the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere which it had assumed under the Monroe Doctrine. The League of Nations had not carved out separate spheres of influence in the world. These points, coupled with Senator Lodge’s personal animosity towards Wilson and the partisan politics of defeating an incumbent president, led to the defeat of the treaty in November 1919. Wilson’s diplomacy had come to nought, yet Wilsonianism had an enduring legacy in US foreign policy.
CHAPTER THREE THE INTER-WAR SYSTEM TO THE SECOND WORLD WAR
During the inter-war period US power and influence continued to rise. Clearly there had been a tremendous shift in the balance of power on both sides of the Atlantic. The Central European empires, tsarist, AustroHungarian and German, had collapsed. France and Britain too suffered considerably as a result of the war. Even if they had not been broken, they had to recover from the wartime destruction and, furthermore, they were in debt to the United States. On the other hand, Washington presided over a burgeoning country: the economy was expanding; Americans were the creditors to European debtors; Washington shaped the security arrangements that characterised the next decades; and its ideology was increasingly influential and offered an alternative to European visions. The US national interest still juggled its economic objectives, security concerns and ideological ambitions. During the 1920s economic stability was considered of paramount importance. It was widely believed that unless stability and prosperity ensued, peace would be problematic. US security concerns were addressed through a series of conferences that limited the munitions of the principal powers and, as the Second World War erupted, Washington promoted its ideological objectives through the Atlantic Charter and subsequent declarations. US power during the First World War clearly accelerated its influence and engagement. Though there remained widespread cultural inclinations towards isolation, given the US interests in European stability and prosperity, there was little prospect of Washington retreating into a hermetic shell. A number of issues kept them engaged with European affairs for a period, though increasing isolation became evident after the Wall Street Crash and during the Depression. During the 1920s Washington remained engaged with Europe. The key transatlantic engagements revolved around the US–British rivalry for the control of the seas. Concurrently, US financial influence was decisive in relieving the growing tensions on German war guilt and the Germans’ ability to meet the reparation payments. With the Wall Street Crash in 1929 33
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and the subsequent Depression, the relative isolation of the United States from the European sphere occurred at a time when European political tensions were mounting, with the rise of authoritarian governments. Further complications eventuated with the breakdown of the international trading system. European countries concentrated on more exclusive trading practices, both within their states and with their various colonies and spheres of interest. As the United States concentrated on its domestic situation, the 1930s were the decade in which it lost its opportunity to shape European affairs. However, such isolation and economic fragmentation did not serve longterm US interests. The Second World War and the years immediately prior to it afforded the United States another chance to become actively engaged in world affairs. R U L I N G T H E WAV E S ?
Although the United States had rejected involvement in the League of Nations, its power and influence was decisive in the post-war search for security. The cultural sentiment for political isolation remained strong in one respect. Yet, one historian, William Appleman Williams, maintained that the term ‘isolationist’ could really only be applied to a very small minority of conservatives who advocated a concentration on domestic affairs, allowing the US example to influence others around the world. The ‘legend of isolationism’, however, remained a strong factor in the subsequent interpretations of US affairs in the 1920s (Williams, 1959: 105–7). The United States remained engaged and even took the lead on several international issues, ranging from multilateral arms control to bilateral debt renegotiations. Washington used a combination of ‘unilateral and cooperative actions’ through the 1920s, thus ensuring that its voice and power was heard in European affairs. Hoff’s term ‘independent internationalism’ is an apt description of US policy (1999: 289). The United States and Britain were the two principal powers to emerge from the war and to assert their influence in the 1920s. German historian Erich Marks commented at the time that there was a prospect of an ‘AngloSaxon world dominion rising on the horizon’ (Marks, quoted in Dimbleby and Reynolds, 1988: 76). Still, there were tensions between these two powers. Their main disagreements centred on economic spheres, decolonisation, naval power and disarmament. Germany, of course, was disarmed immediately and strict limits were placed on the number of ships and men it was permitted to maintain. But crucially both Britain and the United States continued to expand their navies in the post-war period. Despite the fourth of Wilson’s Fourteen Points on general disarmament, the US Navy continued to commission
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battleships. The war had transformed the United States into a formidable naval power that threatened British control of the seas. Washington’s key fear was that Britain would remain supreme in the Atlantic, while the Japanese became a formidable power in the Pacific. Moreover, since 1902 these powers had formed an alliance which, although aimed principally at Russia, could be turned against the United States should hostilities break out. It was therefore imperative to act during 1921 when the treaty was due for reconsideration. In November 1921, under the presidency of Warren G. Harding (1921–23), the US Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, opened the Washington conference on naval limitations with an unexpected call for a ten-year moratorium on building certain classes of ships. The British were alarmed at the prospect and opposed such restrictions, as did the various shipbuilding lobbies. The famous ratio of 5:5:3 was eventually worked out and the Washington Treaty was signed in February 1922 [Doc. 12]. This meant that the US and British navies would seek parity while the Japanese navy remained at 60% of the size of the US and British fleets. In turn, France and Italy were limited to 30% of the size of the two principal navies. The Americans had to destroy 30 of their 48 ships, the British 25 of their 45 and the Japanese 17 of their 27. The limitations did not restrict US independent internationalism. Small craft had not been covered in the treaty so construction continued and the imperial policies of the great powers were hardly inhibited. The issue of smaller vessels was left unresolved until 1927, when President Calvin Coolidge (1923–29) reconvened the conference in Geneva. The French and the Japanese refused to participate. Open animosity characterised the British and American delegations between June and August as they refused to agree on the freedom or control of the seas. Relations became so tense that the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, cancelled an official visit to the United States, as Coolidge supported the construction of more US ships. Nothing changed until both governments were replaced. President Herbert Hoover (1929–33) took office in 1929 and in Britain Ramsay MacDonald became the Labour Prime Minister. The 5:5:3 ratio was extended to the auxiliary craft and an arms race between the two principal naval powers was avoided. The British fleet remained larger than the American one, but now, in principle, the United States could build up its fleet to match the strength of the passing world power. Despite its power, politically Washington remained aloof. Without US engagement in Europe the French grew increasingly insecure on the possibility of Germany retaking Alsace-Lorraine. France occupied a special position in the US security concerns for Europe. The arms limitations did not necessarily guarantee French security against German hostility. However, Washington and Paris could not agree on what French security
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entailed. Various propositions were advanced: French hegemony in Europe, an acceptance of the post-Versailles system, or reconciliation with Germany. France only accepted the Versailles system after strong Anglo-American diplomatic pressure and financial inducements. Yet the system of German reparations continued to cause tension. In Washington the politicians were caught in a bind. Arms limitations did not guarantee French security and yet there was little support for the idea that the United States should provide such guarantees. Washington was aware that it could not support the status quo if that meant the perpetuation of the much-resented treaty provisions and French military dominance. Washington was increasingly interested in a tranquil Europe, which would see reconciliation between the French and the Germans and bring on the benefits of their trade (Leffler, 1974: 436–8). In the 1920s US influence was insufficient to bring about such an outcome and it would eventually take another world war before Franco-German reconciliation ensued. The so-called ‘German question’ remained central to peace in Europe. By 1922 the French became increasingly alarmed as the Germans signed an agreement with Russia at Rapallo, Italy, that initiated diplomatic relations and economic trade. French relations with Britain deteriorated over the French insistence on obtaining reparations from Germany. They were especially troubled when France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr in 1923. Eventually Franco-German relations improved, as the Ruhr occupation proved futile and US financial assistance offset some of the difficulties associated with reparations. By 1925 the Locarno Treaty formalised the borders between France, Belgium and Germany and provided guarantees against attack. The French attempts to link the United States to its alliance system ultimately produced one of the most utopian pacts in the twentieth century. The French Foreign Minister, Aristide Briand, and the US peace movement initiated the process. Briand called for a treaty between the United States and France that would outlaw war between them. The State Department and President Coolidge were not part of the negotiations. In fear of being bypassed, rather than signing a bilateral treaty with France, they agreed to enter a pact that was multilateral, that outlawed war altogether, and that urged the pacific settlement of international disputes. The Kellogg–Briand Pact, signed in August 1928, was approved by the Senate in early 1929 and eventually 63 nations signed it [Doc. 13]. Its real impact was negligible given that the causes of war remained unchanged. The pact represented a wave of cultural internationalism that characterised US attitudes towards Europe during the 1920s. The ‘ideology of peace’, as Iriye describes it, set the tone for the diplomacy that linked the maintenance of domestic order to a pacific world order. Not only were a number of international organisations set up, but academic and cultural exchanges
The Inter-war System to the Second World War
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across the Atlantic became more frequent. Moreover, culturally, Europe became more Americanised. The United States already enjoyed a period of relative prosperity, and increasingly produced the cultural artefacts and media that Europeans absorbed (Iriye, 1993: 103–15). Such cultural exchange furthered the ideas and ideologies associated with the American lifestyle and US power. ECONOMIC ENGAGEMENT WITH EUROPE
Despite the limited isolationist sentiment, US economic initiatives were crucial to European stability during the 1920s. The British economist and delegate to Versailles, John Meynard Keynes, wrote a scathing attack on the conference procedures. In The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1920) Keynes argued that a revitalised German economy was essential for a stable and prosperous Europe. The prospects of a liberal international economy were marginal without full German participation. In turn, Americans understood that stability and prosperity in Europe were essential to continued US economic prosperity. However, at Versailles the French in particular had insisted that Germany repay the entire costs of the war, while other Allied powers demanded significant reparations. Coupled with these demands and in part to justify them, the ‘war-guilt’ clause, which charged that Germany was responsible for the war and had to pay undefined reparations, was written into the treaty. Eventually, in 1921, the amount was fixed at 132 billion gold marks. Most European countries had financed the First World War by extensive borrowing. France and Britain were in debt to the United States. It was assumed, as in previous wars, that the vanquished would be made to pay reparations, which could be used to pay the Allies’ war debts to the United States. But Germany was in no position to make the sorts of payments demanded of them. The French occupied the Ruhr region of Germany in 1923 on the pretext that Germany refused to pay. When German workers went on strike there was little point to the occupation. Tensions rose between the West Europeans and the United States as Europe refused to repay the US loans unless Germany paid the reparations. Washington refused to admit the connections between German reparations and Allied loans to the United States. The Americans argued that while Europeans had received territory and some reparations the United States had not made such direct gains. If the Europeans did not repay their debts, American taxpayers would have to foot the bill and since the loans were purely a business transaction, any default would undermine the confidence in international banking. In 1924 President Hoover formed a commission to overcome the impasse. It eventuated in the Dawes Plan. By reintegrating the economies
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and by extending the necessary credit to Germany the economic system was allowed to function for a time. The initiative provided several lessons for the post-Second World War period. The Dawes solution was to arrange a $100 million loan from J. P. Morgan to Germany and a reduction of the annual reparations, which eased the situation in Germany and allowed the cycle of reparations and repayments to the US banks to resume. Washington applied considerable pressure on Morgan to provide the loans, which belied the idea that these were private solutions. The interactive relationship between bankers and the state emerged into patterns of symbiotic relations that enhanced US foreign policy and business opportunities. Corporations benefited extensively from what Rosenberg characterises as the US ‘co-operative state’. US integration and finance assisted German development and reconciliation. From the Dawes Plan to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 Germany was the most attractive place for US investors, providing about ‘80 percent of the capital borrowed by German credit institutions’ (Rosenberg, 1982: 150–1). The ‘co-operative’ spirit extended to further banking arrangements with European states as the three Republican administrations urged other banks to act as stabilising forces in Europe. With the short-term solution to the German reparations problem and the restoration of confidence aided by the other banks, most Europeans moved back to the gold standard between 1925 and 1928. The struggle between Britain and the United States over whose currency would be the premier unit of exchange in international commerce continued, however. Economic stability was all-important and the Coolidge administration regarded the banking initiatives in the national interest. Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, argued that the return to the gold standard would stabilise the economies of Europe and increase their purchasing power, which ‘means a greater demand for our surplus products’ (cited in Rosenberg, 1982: 153). E C O N O M I C F R A G M E N TAT I O N : T H E WA L L S T R E E T C R A S H A N D T H E G R E AT D E P R E S S I O N
Though the United States remained somewhat politically isolated from Europe throughout the inter-war period, its economy turned from its internationalist engagement through the post-war decade to an inward-looking nationalism after 1929. Economic internationalism accentuated the boom of the 1920s. By that time the United States accounted for 40% of global industrial production, 16% of international trade and 50% of its gold reserves. This vast disproportion between the development of the United States and that of Europe meant that Washington and New York continued to act as a stabilising force for European economic recovery. In June 1929 the Young Plan provided for further reductions in German reparations and
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European repayments, but it no sooner came into effect than the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 undermined its stabilising efforts. As thousands of banks closed, businesses went bankrupt and unemployment rose from 1.5 million to 12 million between 1929 and 1932, US exports and imports dropped dramatically by some 70%. Given the continental size of the United States, Americans did not rely on external economic connections to the same extent that the European powers relied on the transatlantic trade, not to mention trade with their colonies. The sheer differences in size and the European dependency meant that the crash and subsequent depression had considerable effects throughout the world (Iriye, 1993: 116; Hobsbawm, 1994: 99). With little US capital available for foreign investment the liberal internationalist capitalist system collapsed. Multilateral trade shrank dramatically, currency convertibility and the relatively free capital movements virtually ceased, bringing economic growth to a standstill. President Hoover reacted tardily to the crash. He believed in the free market and business solutions, not governmental intervention. Nevertheless, the economic crisis pushed Congress to seek national economic solutions. In an attempt to bolster US businesses in 1930 Congress passed the Smoot–Hawley tariff, in effect building an economic wall around the United States. By 1931 European tariff rates were raised by 66%. World trade shrank from $30.3 million to $20.3 million simultaneously. Hoover imposed a moratorium on repayments for a year, but the action was still not sufficient to regain market confidence and soon Germany foreclosed on its reparations and Britain and France ceased debt repayments to the United States. By 1932 several European countries, and crucially Britain, abandoned the gold standard (Iriye, 1993: 118; Brands, 1994: 104). In 1933 the sixty-four nations convened at the London Economic Conference searched for a formula that would restore the international economy by stabilising currencies, renewing loans and renegotiating debt payments. President Roosevelt (1933–45) refused to address this question, arguing that it suited the European nations more than the United States. The economic nationalism that characterised the rest of the decade was cemented when Roosevelt rejected the proposal of currency stabilisation and convertibility, which scuttled the London Conference. Instead, in June 1934, Congress passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act, which created a series of bilateral agreements in which tariffs would be reduced on certain products. Over the next few years the world economy fragmented into a series of closed blocs. Each state chose to protect its own economy first, which further exacerbated the decline in trade. These blocs raised high tariff barriers against their competitors and sought to restrict trade within the bloc, thus alleviating the costs associated with external trade and the free
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currency convertibility. They engaged in economic exchange often through barter to avoid the declining terms of trade, especially for the extraction and manufacture of raw materials. East European states reacted to the Depression by introducing protectionist measures and resorting to barter as the only viable form of trade. Their markets had disappeared, they were heavily in debt and they had no access to international credit. The US tariffs of 1930 signalled an international trend that impacted on Europe: protect the domestic economy first. By 1932 the British compounded the situation by setting up the imperial preference system in Ottawa, making US trade with Britain or its colonies less attractive and impractical. Germany’s economic system focused inward under the Nazis as they withdrew from the fragmenting world economy, engaged in barter, and created a more exclusive economic area with the Central and East Europeans. German economic independence was confirmed in 1936 with its Four-Year Plan. Soviet Russia too had formed a closed bloc, but unlike the rest of Europe it enjoyed considerable economic growth rates, averaging around 10%. Such growth at the height of the western economic depression severely challenged the philosophical assumptions that underpinned the capitalist system. When Franklin Roosevelt took office in March 1933 his inauguration made clear that the US focus would be inward. ‘International relations’ were deemed important, but not the key priority. His primary focus would be to establish ‘a sound national economy’. Unlike his predecessor, Roosevelt believed that further state intervention was absolutely necessary to bring the United States out of depression. Some Republicans and internationalists considered his New Deal heretical to both business and individualism. Former President Hoover even wondered whether the New Deal had been infected from the ‘original stream of fascism’ (Gardner, 1993: 25). The United States finally extended diplomatic recognition to Russia in 1933. Previously it had refused to do so because of the dictatorial characteristics of the government and because it refused to repay tsarist debts. However, in a time of depression, recognition promised increased trade, although few benefits resulted. WA S H I N G T O N A N D T H E R I S E O F FA S C I S T E U R O P E
At the same time as Joseph Stalin rose to power in the Soviet Union, a series of fascist movements gained influence and then power from the early 1920s into the 1930s, which appeared to threaten war between the various blocs and challenged US ideas of liberal-democratic capitalism. In 1923 Benito Mussolini acquired dictatorial power following a struggle with the Italian Communists. Though Italy had fought on the Allied side in the First World
The Inter-war System to the Second World War
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War, it had not benefited from the war and fascism seemed to provide the answers through increased production, military spending and promises by Mussolini to restore the might of Italy around the Mediterranean, rejuvenating the Roman Empire. In Germany, by 1932 the Nazis had gained the greatest number of seats in the Reichstag and by January 1933 Adolph Hitler had assumed power as Chancellor. Hitler was bent on restoring Germany’s reputation and power after the First World War. He did not accept the war guilt clause or, indeed, that Germany had lost the war. He pulled Germany out of depression through the rapid introduction of public works, re-militarisation and by dramatically increasing industrial output to rival and eventually surpass that of Britain. Finally, in 1936, General Francisco Franco initiated the Spanish Civil War against the government that lasted into 1939. Troops from Italy and arms from Nazi Germany assisted his forces. These three fascist governments in Europe (together with the rise of Japan in Asia) threatened the US vision of reviving the international economy by maintaining closed blocs and by their anti-liberal politics. Germany and Italy addressed their economic grievances through territorial expansion. They considered themselves great powers, but unlike the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France, German colonial possessions had been taken after the First World War. Now they believed that they had inadequate areas under their control to develop resources, exploit markets and trade. The Americans had the continent of North America, the Soviets had East Asia, and the French and British had colonies all over the world. Hitler looked for lebensraum or living space to achieve his vision of a German Reich that would last, he said, for a thousand years. Washington increasingly saw a threat from these powers as they began to occupy larger areas of Europe and Asia. Such moves contracted markets and the economic living spaces for the British, French and Americans. From 1935 Italy moved into Ethiopia and in 1936 it formed the Axis with Germany, which then also began its expansion into vast areas of Europe. US national interests eventually demanded a response. European conflagration threatened US security and economic prosperity, and the rise of fascism presented yet another ideology with which to contend. U S I S O L AT I O N ?
The United States under Roosevelt initially maintained a somewhat isolationist stance towards European affairs. In 1934 the Nye Committee, which was investigating the causes of US entry into the First World War, concluded that it was bankers, arms manufacturers and propaganda that had brought the United States into war, not the violations of neutrality or the attacks on US ships. US public opinion wanted very little to do with
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European affairs; Americans did not want to be duped into a second major war. Between 1935 and 1937 Congress passed three Neutrality Acts which severely restricted the options open to Roosevelt [Doc. 14]. To avoid another situation such as that of the First World War, arms could not be shipped to belligerents. In 1936 this was extended to loans and credits. Though he later overcame the provisions of the Acts, in his first term in office he adhered to the isolationist sentiment and his response to Axis expansion remained verbal. Roosevelt abhorred Nazi Germany and criticised its treatment of Jews and the policies on race more generally. But even as the American government condemned such German policies the United States refused to increase the immigration quotas for Jewish people (Iriye, 1993: 144) and US business remained intimately tied to Nazi Germany. During his second term in office Roosevelt sought more freedom from the Neutrality Acts and increasingly realised that the United States could not remain aloof from the impending war. In 1937 Roosevelt invited British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to Washington to explore the possibilities of cooperation. Chamberlain’s now infamous rejection indicated: ‘It is always best and safest to count on nothing from the Americans but words’ (Iriye, 1993: 157). Nevertheless, Roosevelt continued his attempt to re-engage US power in the increasingly threatening atmosphere. His speech of October 1937, calling for a quarantine against the ‘epidemic of world lawlessness’, signalled the beginnings of a more active policy that would eventually lead to the visions encapsulated in the Atlantic Charter of August 1941 (Hunt, 1987: 147). Between Chamberlain’s dismissal of the American assistance in 1938 and Churchill’s signature of the Charter in 1941 lay a series of manoeuvres that brought the United States out of political isolation from European affairs to the position, as Roosevelt described it, as the ‘arsenal of democracy’. First, Chamberlain grew increasingly worried about US intentions. Roosevelt had called for a consideration of the ‘inequities’ of the Versailles Treaty that enraged Hitler. Chamberlain was worried that the United States was again trying to bring about a multilateral economic agreement, possibly without the British, if the Axis powers accepted. Moreover, any reconsideration of Versailles would include a German demand for the return of its colonies. Chamberlain viewed this attempt at multilateral appeasement as a threat to British commercial and colonial interests and chose instead to follow a policy of bilateral appeasement in September 1938. As Gardner explains, ‘Appeasement … might rescue Britain from unwanted entanglements across the Atlantic’ (1993: 18), but the British were not about to abandon the imperial preference system or redraw the colonial map to suit US and German interests. So in September 1938 Chamberlain opted for ‘peace in our time’. At the Munich Conference Britain and France agreed that Hitler could occupy a part of Czecho-
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slovakia if the remaining territory was respected. Given that the United States was still experiencing the Depression, it did not want to begin hostilities with Germany and thus, following Munich, Roosevelt sent a very brief cable to Chamberlain: ‘Good Man’ (Schulzinger, 1990: 164). Ironically, it was ultimately the war, and wartime production, rather than the New Deal, that pulled the United States out of depression. Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia within the year, leading future politicians and historians to draw the ‘lessons’ of Munich: that aggression should never be appeased and should be countered immediately. By May 1939 Roosevelt initiated the idea of ‘cash and carry’. He proposed that European belligerents be allowed to purchase US goods so long as they paid in cash and sailed to the United States to collect them; this would benefit the Allies yet keep the United States out of the war. Nevertheless, the Senate, believing that Roosevelt’s proposal would draw the United States into the war, initially rejected it. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 and Britain and France declared war, there was a slight shift in United States sentiment. Though most Americans favoured the Allies, there was still very little public inclination to join the war. Ultimately, in November, Congress passed the cash and carry proposal, which obviously favoured the Allies, given the disparity of power in the merchant and marine fleets of the belligerent powers. T H E S E C O N D W O R L D WA R
The traditional interpretation of the Second World War hides many of the divisions that existed among the Allies. Of course the primary objectives were to defeat the Axis powers in both Europe and Asia, though divisions among the Allies were rarely far beneath the surface. First, between 1939 and 1941, there were attempts to induce the United States into the war while still maintaining the exclusive British economic system and the European colonial empires, both of which Washington opposed. Beyond the specific war aims of seeking the total surrender of the Axis forces, there was considerable acrimony on the future shape of the post-war world order. Second, the traditional interpretations of the Second World War as the ‘Good War’ have tended to ignore the US reaction to the Holocaust and the pursuit of its national interests during the war. Third, there were considerable disagreements on the grand strategies to be employed in the war. The results of the particular set of strategies chosen had a deep impact on the subsequent Cold War. And last, the importance of the war and its boost to the economy, finally pulling the United States out of depression, needs to be more fully acknowledged, because of the impact on subsequent US strategies in Europe. By the time Paris fell to the Nazis in June 1940 Roosevelt was intent on
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assisting the Allies with material aid, though Congress was still reluctant to join the war. Roosevelt realised that the world was shrinking and that the vast oceans to its east and west no longer provided adequate security in the impending age of airpower. Such spatial contraction limited US options to remain ‘isolated’ from European affairs. He understood and explained this during his pan-American address on 14 April 1939: ‘Beyond question, within a scant few years air fleets will cross the ocean as easily as today they cross the closed European seas. Economic functioning of the world becomes increasingly a unit; no interruption of it anywhere can fail, in the future, to disrupt economic life everywhere’ (Commager, 1963: 414–15). By January 1941 his State of the Union speech linked US security, democracy and business with ‘events far beyond our borders’. The most immediate task was to become the ‘arsenal for democracy’ based around the Four Freedoms: of speech, of worship, from want and from fear. The principles were largely incorporated in the Atlantic Charter of August 1941 [Doc. 15]. After the tripartite pact between Germany, Italy and Japan had been signed in September 1940 Washington grew more alarmed. By early 1941 Roosevelt’s solution to British requests for aid came in the form of the Lend-Lease Bill, in which the United States would lend Britain US destroyers in return for the lease of islands for US military bases across the British Empire. The bill was passed with significant majorities in Congress in March 1941. The $7 billion programme had to be protected from German U-boat activity and so US warships were deployed across half of the Atlantic without congressional approval. The US fleet engaged in search missions for the Royal Navy. By April the United States had included Greenland as a US protectorate as well as the tiny islands in the Azores group off the west coast of Spain. By July US troops were moved into Iceland, not only to ensure further security for sea lanes of communication, but to relieve the British troops who could be deployed elsewhere (LaFeber, 1989: 376–7). Secretly, the United States had become an active participant in the war even before any formal declarations were made or the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Hitler was cautious not to provoke the Americans. If they entered the war, he thought the Japanese would keep them occupied in the Pacific. The Japanese war with the Soviets and the Nazi-Soviet Pact kept Stalin’s forces at bay for a time. But in April 1941 the Japanese signed an agreement with the Soviets. Hitler’s short-term strategies came to nought. In June 1941, in what many regard as his primary mistake, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, taking some pressure off the western front and allowing the Allies time to regroup and receive further US aid. US and European power contracted in the east as the Japanese moved south and pushed the French out of Indochina, the British from Malaya and Singapore and the Americans from the Philippines prior to their strike at Pearl Harbor.
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Despite its cultural affinity with the British in particular, the United States could not fight on the side of colonial powers, whose conduct went against US ideologies and its assumed traditions. Although the main goal of the war was to defeat the Axis powers, Roosevelt also wanted to set out the agenda for the post-war world order, and to cast a more positive light on US involvement in the war. Thus, in August 1941, when Roosevelt and Churchill met off the coast of Newfoundland to agree on war aims, Roosevelt used the meeting to announce US ideological interests to the world. Churchill expected an immediate US entry into the war and the maintenance of British interests. The resulting eight-point charter included three points with references to political self-determination: territorial adjustments should not be made without the consent of the governed and that all peoples should have the right to choose the form of government under which they would live. This, coupled with the fourth point that all states should have equal access ‘to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity’, roused Churchill’s ire. He eventually managed to insert the phrase ‘with due respect for their existing obligation’ to exempt the British Empire, but Roosevelt was also able to insist that India become a signatory to the Charter [Doc. 16]. Despite these disagreements, Churchill was assured that Roosevelt would participate in the war in an increasingly provocative manner without actually declaring war. Roosevelt told Churchill that ‘everything was to be done to force an “incident” that could lead to war’ (LaFeber, 1989: 382). Though unrelated to the provocative US efforts in the Atlantic, the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor solved Roosevelt’s problem. The following day the British and the Americans declared war on Japan, and on 11 December Germany and Italy in turn declared war on the United States. The Grand Alliance, formed in early 1942, brought the United States together with a range of European nations. The combination of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union formed an alliance of liberaldemocratic capitalism, British imperialism and communism. Their only common purpose was to destroy Hitler’s New European Order. US productive capacity made a decisive difference. In spite of Japan’s initial successes, it was bound to be defeated in the long run, and in the West US material and munitions eventually tipped the balance in favour of the Grand Alliance. ‘Manufacturing output doubled between 1940 and 1943’, US arms production rose by eight times ‘to a level nearly that of Britain, the Soviet Union, and Germany combined’. The figures for the production of ships and aircraft are similarly impressive; the supply of trains and vehicles ran into the hundreds of thousands, shipped to Britain and the Soviet Union under lend-lease. By the end of the war the United States accounted for half of the world’s industrial production (Sherry, 1995: 69). Despite Roosevelt’s assertion that the United States would become the ‘arsenal for democracy’,
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George Kennan rightly noted that the Alliance included a totalitarian state. Thus, the inclusion of the Soviet Union compromised the ideals of the Atlantic Charter and Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (Kennan, 1951: 66–7). British imperialism similarly challenged Roosevelt’s ideas. These differences were the centre of historiographical controversy in the immediate post-war period as the Cold War further defined and polarised the interpretations of both powers’ war aims. However, it is also fundamentally important to remember the key differences between the United States and the European colonial powers – the Belgians, the Dutch, but principally the British and the French. Colonialism was an issue that Roosevelt loved to loathe; he was a fierce critic of it when given the opportunity. His ideological opposition flowed naturally with the cultural assumptions that linked the Declaration of Independence to the Monroe Doctrine through to Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Ideologically, the United States stood for anti-colonialism and selfdetermination (despite its colonisation of vast tracts of the North American continent in the nineteenth century and its colonisation of the Philippines until 1946, and its neo-colonial relationships with many regimes around the Caribbean and Central America). Roosevelt raised the issue with national leaders throughout the war and indicated US support for post-war selfdetermination. He criticised colonialism with simple characterisations. He chastised French rule in Indochina, and of British colonialism he stated that it was ‘the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life. … The natives are five thousand years back of us. … The British have been there for two hundred years – for every dollar that the British have put into Gambia, they have taken out ten. It’s just plain exploitation of those people. … Those people, of course, they are completely incapable of self-government’ (Kimball, 1991: 129–45). He raised the issue with European leaders and especially with Churchill, but muted his opinion as the war progressed. Still, the language of the Atlantic Charter created a momentum and a context in which nationalist leaders could test US intentions. Washington was primarily interested in maintaining the cohesion of the Grand Alliance and if that meant compromising on issues of decolonisation, it was regarded as a short-term necessity. As Warren Kimball explains: ‘Whatever his personal distaste for colonialism on moral and humanitarian grounds, his fear that it would disrupt any peace settlement motivated his wartime actions. But the requirements of alliance politics restricted his freedom of action’ (Kimball, 1991: 128). Although Roosevelt advanced his plans for a system of post-war Trusteeship, wherein the decolonised or liberated areas would be placed under the United Nations, Britain and France had no intention of giving up their imperial possessions. Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill, protecting the passing European system, joined together to resist Roosevelt’s
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pressures. The struggle within the Grand Alliance of the ‘Anglo-French … against the United States over colonialism strained allied unity and forced Roosevelt, ever eager to avoid direct confrontation, to pursue postwar decolonization circumspectly’ (Kimball, 1991: 129). As the intentions of Article VII of the Lend-Lease Bill and point four of the Atlantic Charter indicate, US ambitions relating to decolonisation involved more than just promoting self-determination. Decolonisation afforded the United States the opportunity to gain access to the raw materials and resources of those areas closed-off by the European imperial systems. Following the ‘lessons’ of the 1930s, Washington did not want a return to the isolated economic systems that eventually led to economic depression and then to war. Washington’s objectives included a multilateral economic system. Still, despite these ambitions and the compromises that Roosevelt made with Churchill and de Gaulle during the war, Rooseveltian idealism was not eclipsed by Rooseveltian realism. FDR was a standard-bearer of anti-colonialism even as he sought to secure the future of the United States’ relations with Britain and France. He was already looking towards a new period in world history in which colonialism was an historical anachronism. (Orders, 2000: 79)
Thus the Grand Alliance united around the common purpose of defeating Hitler’s Germany, but divisions between the United States and the Soviet Union on strategy and ideology tempered the cohesion, as did the divisions between the United States and Britain and France over colonialism. The prominent works on decolonisation and US strategy capture the US–European tensions in titles such as Allies of a Kind (Thorne, 1978) and Ambiguous Partnership (Hathaway, 1981). Ambiguities lay at the heart of the Alliance strategy throughout. Negotiations on the ‘Grand Strategy’ in the early years of war took place in twos rather than as a combined effort of the ‘big three’: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. It was agreed early at the Arcadia conference that a Europe first strategy should be adopted. Germany was considered the prime enemy that should be defeated prior to a concentration on Japan. Moreover, the Soviets, having signed an agreement with the Japanese, were more intent on bringing Britain and the United States into the war, opening up the second front in northern Europe. Until January 1943 strategic discussions created suspicion and some animosity because hitherto it was largely an AngloAmerican discussion. The Soviets constantly pushed for the opening of the second front which, though promised earlier, did not actually take place until Operation Overlord brought the Anglo-American forces on to the coasts of Normandy in June 1944. Throughout the delay, the Soviets bore the brunt of German force, from Hitler’s invasion in June 1941 to the turning point after the Battle of Stalingrad and the Soviet counter-offensives
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through the winter of 1942–43, which incurred millions of casualties. Not only were the arguments between the Soviets and the Western Allies acute, but disagreements between Washington and London also plagued the Grand Strategy. Churchill and Roosevelt opted for the ‘peripheral’ strategy that postponed the second front. Rather than relieving Soviet forces by engaging the Germans in northern Europe, British and Commonwealth forces advanced in French North Africa in late 1942, and the Americans launched their offensive in Italy in the summer of 1943, eventually securing British hegemony in the Mediterranean and access to the Middle East and South Asia through the Suez canal (Edmonds, 1991: 267–85). In fact the resources used in Operation Torch precluded the option of the second front in 1943. General George Marshall objected to the plans on the grounds that the British had become nervous of directly confronting the Germans after 1940 and that the peripheral strategy dispersed forces too widely rather than using the US military preference for a concerted concentration of force. Roosevelt, however, overruled his military advisors for two reasons. First, he felt that some action was necessary in 1942 for political reasons, to demonstrate that the Soviets were not alone (Wood, 1987: 60–1), but secondly, because the peripheral strategy would incur fewer US casualties than the option of the second front. More controversial is the suggestion that the North African option facilitated the projection of US power into the Mediterranean and allowed the two principal contenders for European hegemony, Germany and the Soviet Union, to exhaust themselves in the east prior to the concerted Anglo-American intervention in the west. As Operation Torch began in late 1942 and the invasion of Italy took place in 1943, the initiative diverted German forces in favour of the Soviets in the east. McCormick (1989) argues that the shift was now decisively westward, and it was a key question of how far the Soviets would or could advance. Torch meant that the US–British forces could not now enter the war through France till 1944. The key debates over strategy had a profound impact on the later origins of the Cold War, given the spheres of influence that were carved out through the Second World War. Washington avoided post-war political issues until its bargaining powers were increased through the implementation of Operation Overlord in June 1944. By that point US objectives differed from those of the British, who proposed a swift strike to capture Berlin as a symbolic victory. The United States instead opted for a more viable and rewarding strategy of capturing the Ruhr–Rhine economic core of Germany, ensuring Soviet dispossession and laying the groundwork for potential German industrial integration (McCormick, 1989: 37–8). The narratives of the ‘good war’ and the ‘Nuremburg consensus’ need also to be offset against the US response to the Holocaust, especially after 1942, when the extent of Hitler’s attempt to eliminate East European Jewry
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was fully realised. From the mid-1930s US media were reporting on the Nuremburg Laws, the burning of the Great Synagogue and Kristallnacht in 1938. Roosevelt initiated a conference to discuss the plight and destination of Jewish emigrants, but limited the numbers that the United States would accept during times of economic depression. As news of the concentration camps and the numbers deported to them reached Washington, Roosevelt withdrew the US ambassador from Berlin but did not break economic ties to Nazi Germany. Secretary of State Cordell Hull argued that economic interaction was essential to improving political relations. Stories of the camps appeared in the US media and by late 1942 Roosevelt confirmed that two million Jews had been killed. Washington did not increase its immigration quotas for European Jews considerably, nor did it attempt to bomb the camps or the railways, as suggested by the World Jewish Congress, to disrupt the slaughter. LaFeber posits four reasons for US inaction: Americans did not want large numbers of immigrants during a time of economic depression; the death camp stories were treated with suspicion in the wake of the propaganda generated in the First World War; top US officials were anti-Semitic and refused to deal with the immigration quotas in any meaningful sense; and the Jewish community was divided – the rescue of European Jewry might distract the State Department from its efforts to create a Jewish state in Palestine (Gilbert, 1981; LaFeber, 1989: 367–8).
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PART THREE
THE UNITED STATES, EUROPE AND THE COLD WAR
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CHAPTER FOUR THE DIVISION OF EUROPE, 1945–56
Far from retreating back to a limited political isolation, as Washington had after the First World War, its extraordinary and disproportionate power during the war and in the years immediately afterwards placed the United States at the heart of planning the post-war European order. Washington intended to seize the initiative, exert its leadership and integrate politically, economically and through shared systems of security with Western Europe. The United States, and Roosevelt in particular, were determined not to repeat the political mistakes made by Wilson. Shunning the isolationist option this time, Washington tried to shape an order that served its national interests and spread US ideologies, goods and culture throughout the world. Such visions necessitated creating a liberal internationalist economic order that would serve US interests and contribute to its growth, and at the same time gain access to the West European colonial areas and limit the extent of the Soviet system. Interpretative debates on the US role are widespread. The basic arguments range from the traditional aims of containing Soviet influence and rebuilding Europe to the revisionist arguments that Washington tried to create an empire of sorts in Western Europe. There is no argument, however, that the post-war US integration with European affairs was crucial to its national interest. Its security could be defined around events and issues in Europe; indeed, its post-war political and security doctrines were defined around the ‘containment’ of Soviet influence and its ‘expansive tendencies’ in Europe. The ghosts of the 1930s and the need to rejuvenate, but more importantly to integrate European markets, propelled its economic interests. Finally, Washington was in a position to gain at least institutional acceptance of its preponderant ideologies, and conceptually create a unified entity, ‘the West’. The onset of the Cold War lead to greater cohesion among Western powers. The transatlantic differences were therefore necessarily subsumed within this broader context.
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P L A N N I N G T H E P O S T- WA R O R D E R
Several roots of the Cold War lie in wartime planning for the post-war European order. There was a clash of visions between the US liberal internationalist optimism, British imperial strategies and the Soviet attempts to build a communist sphere of influence. While Washington attempted to promote a liberal economic system, there was considerable resistance from the British, who struggled to retain their colonies and their former world standing. The Soviets, too, advanced their communist agendas and spheres of influence in opposition to the US visions and the Americans’ pursuit of their national interest. Compromises had to be made at the meetings of the ‘Big Three’ – Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin – between 1943 and 1945. The principal charge of compromise against Roosevelt following the Tehran Conference in late November 1943 was that he had sold out the Baltic States: he conceded that the Soviet Union could maintain control of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Roosevelt was determined not to repeat Wilson’s mistake of pursuing policies that were too idealistic, and he realised that compromise both in war and in the post-war order would be necessary to keep the Alliance together. From 1942 onward, Roosevelt increasingly opted for a ‘spheres of influence’ system rather than a universal one. His initial ideas of creating an Anglo-American police force to maintain postwar order shifted to include both the Soviets and the Chinese by 1942. Though the objectives were aimed at policing the various areas under universal principles, in practice everyone understood that this amounted to a ‘sphere of influence’ deal. Britain and the Soviet Union were not averse to the formula because they could maintain their separate spheres, in the colonial world and in Eastern Europe. Both Britain and the Soviet Union were wary of the United States. In addition to the ideological differences, the Soviets were annoyed at the delayed opening of the western front and at their exclusion from the war in North Africa and Italy during 1942 and 1943. Britain too was increasingly wary of US attempts to pressure them on decolonisation. To that end, and to facilitate the spheres of influence agreement, Churchill and Stalin met in Moscow in October 1944, to defend themselves against what Lloyd Gardner has called ‘American do-goodism or American imperialism’ (1993: 196–202). Churchill and Stalin negotiated the westward shift of the Polish borders and what later became known as the ‘percentages agreement’. The countries of south-eastern Europe were listed on a piece of paper and percentages indicating the relative control of either Britain or the Soviet Union were placed next to them. Significantly, US influence had been omitted. So, for instance, Britain obtained 90% control in Greece and the Soviets 10%, in Romania the reverse was imposed and in Yugoslavia and Hungary Churchill and Stalin split influence 50–50, and so forth. At the end of
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the meeting Churchill enquired whether it ‘might be thought rather cynical if it seemed we had disposed of these issues, so fateful to millions of people, in such an offhand manner?’ Though Roosevelt did not participate in the meeting, Washington thought the process would expedite further agreements. Poland remained at the centre of the final meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin held at Yalta, on the Crimean peninsula in February 1945. The ‘Big Three’ also negotiated the ‘Declaration on Liberated Europe’, which not only advanced the idea of a free and liberated Poland, but more generally asserted their desire to see the ‘free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people’ [Doc. 17]. Roosevelt placed US foreign policy in an invidious position. His rhetoric throughout 1944 led Americans, and especially the important Polish constituencies, to believe that elections would take place. Yet his diplomacy also left the Soviets with the clear impression that Eastern Europe fell within their sphere of influence. The language in the document signed at Yalta reflected the US ideals and the kind of rhetoric Roosevelt used in the 1944 electoral campaign. However, Roosevelt was principally concerned with maintaining the Alliance and realised that Soviet power was necessary for a stable post-war order; a sphere of influence deal could not be avoided. Soviet preponderance in these areas was the price paid for the delayed second front and the adoption of the peripheral strategy. As Soviet power was eventually consolidated and elections failed to materialise in Eastern Europe, Americans increasingly felt outraged and blamed Roosevelt for the situation. But as Leffler points out: The men who made US policy were anything but idealists. They cared little about human rights and personal freedoms inside the Soviet Union and the Soviet orbit. They were concerned with configurations of power in the international system and how these configurations affected US interests abroad and, more important, the American political economy at home. (Leffler, 1994: 49)
Given the importance of the Soviet military capacity, the rhetoric on elections appeased the domestic US constituencies even though Washington knew any elections would be fixed. Beyond the political negotiations in July 1944 Washington and its principal ally, Great Britain, laid the cornerstone to the post-war economic system at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. In an attempt to avoid the economic depression of the 1930s, Washington sought a more integrated and stable world economy. To do this they created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and set an agenda for creating stable currency exchange rates and other mechanisms for an international liberal economic system. The US Under-Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, wanted
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to increase domestic prosperity through a ‘constantly expanding trade with other nations’. While forty-four nations signed the agreement, the Soviets remained somewhat peripheral to the negotiations and ultimately moved towards a relatively closed economy (LaFeber, 1991: 9–12). By this mechanism initial attempts were made to contain the Soviet Union through economic integration. By making it a key player among the great powers, its ambitions could be limited by the intended rules of the game set up at Bretton Woods, the UN Charter and the Declaration on Liberated Europe. By the time Roosevelt died in April 1945 he had not resolved the tensions between the universal aspirations of US rhetoric and a world based on spheres of influence. Peace of a cold sort required the latter. As Gardner contends, Washington could not have managed economic recovery of the West without the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Congress would not have funded the Marshall Plan without the Soviet ‘threat’. Moreover, if the entire continent of Europe had joined the plan, funds would have been thin, and the project would have been overwhelmed by its size and scope given the wartime destruction. And without the image and presence of a common enemy how could Washington persuade Britain and France, and France and Germany, to put aside their old rivalries to build the American system? Soviet opposition was crucial to uniting the West. ‘Spheres of influence provided – at heavy cost, to be sure – temporary security for political developments in the West, and even in the East’ (Gardner, 1993: 263). E M E R G I N G C O L D WA R I N E U R O P E
By 20 April the Soviet Army reached Berlin; ten days later Hitler committed suicide and a week later Germany surrendered unconditionally to General Eisenhower. The following day, Victory in Europe (V-E) Day (8 May 1945), German forces also surrendered to Marshal Georgii Zhukov. Germany was divided into four occupation zones, administered by the principal powers France, Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States. Later, at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, it was agreed that Germany should function as an economic unit, even though it was divided into these four zones. Europe had been devastated by war. Millions had died, its industrial base was destroyed, its communications networks were inoperable, and there was widespread hunger and poverty. US aid was imperative given the poor state of the economies, and the much devalued state of European currencies. In such circumstances, Washington worried about the growth and the openness of the European economies, fearing a retreat into autarchy, as experienced during the 1930s. Further, it also was concerned about the influence of the left in Europe during this period. Stalin’s speech of 9 February 1946 alarmed Washington, as did the popularity of the socialist and communist parties in Western Europe. As each power made prepar-
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ations for further defence, the others considered them threatening, and in turn bolstered their defences, resulting in a ‘security dilemma’. Soviet and Western rhetoric exacerbated tensions, reducing the prospects of accommodation, even though the tough rhetoric was often intended for domestic audiences. After Stalin’s Five-Year Plan speech, George Kennan’s influential telegram, and Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech there was little hope of settlement (Cohen, 1993: 27–8). Reacting to Stalin’s speech, the assistant to the US ambassador in Moscow, George Kennan, wrote what he later referred to as ‘a preposterously long telegram’. In it he basically characterised the Soviets as expansionist and aggressive. There could be no long-term cooperation with Moscow; the suspiciousness and aggressiveness of its leadership derived from ‘basic inner Russian necessities’, not from any ‘objective analysis of the situation beyond Russia’s borders’. Compromise was pointless, because ‘we have here a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with the US there can be no modus vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken if Soviet power is to be secure’ [Doc. 18]. Kennan did not envisage the military containment that eventuated in the late 1940s, but the use of political and economic leverage to contain the Soviets. In Washington his message was well received and began to create a consensus on the Soviet threat to US global interests and ambitions and the necessary US response. Within ten days the logic of bipolarity, the division of Europe, the threat of Soviet expansion and the need for Western democracies to stand together was enunciated very publicly by the former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, at Fulton, Missouri. He described the descent of an ‘iron curtain’ across the continent from ‘Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic’ [Doc. 19]. President Truman’s (1945–53) presence at Churchill’s side lent the occasion an official US blessing. Stalin soon after characterised the speech as a ‘call to war’. Eastern Europe was central to the origins of the Cold War. The Soviets quickly asserted their influence after the war. By 1948 Czechoslovakia, Poland and East Germany were generally under their control. These areas were not of intrinsic value to the United States, though they were of essential value to the West European economies and that in turn made them essential to the US economy. This situation, coupled with the Soviet insistence that Eastern Europe acted as a buffer zone from attack from the West, eventually led to a forty-five-year Cold War. The immediate Soviet threat to the United States was negligible. Soviet policies were ‘confused and contradictory … the links between the Kremlin and the Communists abroad were intermittent and inconsistent’, but Washington feared the connections between the Soviets and communists in Western Europe, as well as their control over Eastern Europe (Leffler, 1992: 5–7).
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Such fears, misperceptions and wilful misrepresentations deepened the atmosphere of Cold War. Throughout 1946 attitudes hardened and compromise became increasingly difficult. By the end of the year the Soviets were pressurising Turkey on access and influence over the Dardanelles. In Greece, the British too claimed Soviet interference and the US aid mission to Greece reported on the possibility of the Soviets extending their influence into the Mediterranean either directly or through the use of insurgents. Most historians agree that the Soviets were not supplying the Greek insurgents and that the latter had limited ties to Moscow. It is an historic irony of vast proportions that Stalin had mostly kept to his percentage agreement with Churchill on Greece; it was Yugoslavia’s Josep Broz Tito, the communist president, who was supplying the Greek insurgency. Nevertheless, the myth of a monolithic communism prevailed because within the mindset of official Washington, Truman believed that ‘all communists took their orders from Moscow’ (Paterson, 1995: 71). On 21 February 1947 Britain informed Washington that it could no longer meet its commitments to the Greek government. Loy Henderson, the Director of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs, identified the importance of the message and the opportunity for Washington. After 150 years and two world wars, Britain was exhausted and the end of Pax Britannica was in sight. It was not only withdrawing from India and Burma, but also from Greece and Turkey. The new US Secretary of State, George Marshall, referred to the British ‘abdication’ from the region as having important consequences for its successor. Dean Acheson argued that should Greece fall to the insurgents this would not only have a psychologically destabilising effect on the region, particularly on Turkey, but throughout Europe. US credibility was on the line. Within days President Truman engineered support in Congress for an aid package of $250 million for Greece and $150 million for Turkey. His alliance with Senator Vandenberg was crucial to the passage of the bill. Vandenberg argued that Truman could not present his bill to Congress unless there were indications that it involved a Soviet threat. Moreover, the appeal had to be universal and avoid particulars; Washington could not be seen to be propping up a Greek monarchy. It had to be presented as a fight between democracy and communism. The bottom line was that if Truman wanted the money, they would have to ‘scare hell’ out of the American people (LaFeber, 1991: 53). Truman’s speech of 12 March 1947 took up the conceptual imagery of Churchill’s iron curtain, and drew another conceptual line across the continent, if not the world. His speech defined two ways of life and the necessity of making a choice at that moment in history. In the West there was freedom, elections and the will of the majority. And in the East there was terror and oppression, fixed elections, and the suppression of freedoms [Doc. 20].
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US congressional committees reported extensive violations of civil liberties by the Greek government and that only about one-tenth of the insurgents were communists. Washington knew that the Greek insurgents were not receiving aid from the Soviet Union, that the Greek government was repressive and inept, but they were looking at the potential for the United States not only in Greece, but also throughout the Middle East. The Truman Doctrine acted as an announcement that the United States intended to extend its sphere of influence into the former British sphere in the East Mediterranean and into the Middle East (Cohen, 1993: 79). T H E M A R S H A L L P L A N : I N T E G R AT I N G E U R O P E
While the Truman Doctrine extended US political interests, the Marshall Plan formed its economic counterpart. Though it was largely designed by and for West European politicians it could not be divorced from US Cold War strategy. Marshall decided to proceed with the European economic programme with or without the Soviet Union. At Harvard University on 5 June 1947 Marshall set out his economic programme arguing that it was not aimed against any particular country, but at alleviating ‘hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos’ and at reviving the ‘working economy in the world’ [Doc. 21]. Marshall’s rhetoric provided the latitude for all Europeans to participate, given that Europe had not been explicitly divided, and that Washington did not want to appear as the instigators of the division; but it was clear to all that the plan was exclusively, if implicitly, designed to revive the economies of Western Europe. Internally, Kennan made it clear that aid would not be advanced to countries that did not open their economies to US exports. As he indicated, ‘the Russian satellite countries would either exclude themselves by unwillingness to accept the proposed conditions or agree to abandon the exclusive orientation of their economies’. But the Soviets had made it clear that they intended to pursue exclusive five-year plans and their pressure on the ‘satellites’ in their sphere ensured that Eastern Europe would not participate in the Marshall Plan (Kennan, quoted in Crockatt, 1995: 78). The economic situation in Britain, France, Italy and Germany was desperate. Productivity had reached pre-war levels by 1947, but there was a shortage of US dollars to purchase US goods. Moreover, inflation was high, distribution was poor, and visions of potential unrest and advances by the European left grew in the Washington mindset. Communism was perceived to thrive on fear, desperation and chaos, and so the plan was conceived in part to negate the appeal of the left. The British and the French were the first to accept the initiative. Their respective Foreign Ministers, Ernest Bevin and Georges Bidault, began discussions in Paris. Following pressure from the French Communist Party, the Soviets were extended an invitation. Soviet
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Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, arrived at the conference indicating a serious intention to consider the plan. His ultimate response was that each country should fashion its own plan and present it to Washington. But Britain and France, in line with US instructions, stressed that the plan had to be Europe-wide, integrating the economies of the continent. Molotov left the conference warning that the United States would undermine European sovereignty, that Germany would be revived and that the continent would be divided, creating new difficulties. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania were still interested in participating, although ultimately Stalin pressurised them into withdrawing. A revived Germany, as the industrial powerhouse of Europe, was very much within Washington’s plans. Molotov soon after initiated a plan for the East. The remaining sixteen nations ultimately requested $28 billion over four years. Washington countered with an offer of $17 billion. The requests languished in the US Congress until the impetus for action was found after the Czech coup of February 1948 which got rid of the last non-communist government of Eastern Europe. Momentum increased in two weeks in March, assisted by Senator Vandenberg’s rhetoric suggesting that the plan was a ‘calculated risk’ to ‘help stop World War III before it starts. … The Iron Curtain must not come to the rims of the Atlantic either by aggression or by default’ (Ambrose, 1988: 90–1). On 15 March the US Senate endorsed the plan and the following day the Brussels Treaty was initiated. Truman initially received $5.3 billion for the European Recovery Plan (ERP), and eventually, between 1948 and 1952, spent $13 billion. Though the US aims included a revived West European economy that could be integrated into the US economic sphere, much of the detailed planning was handed over to the Europeans themselves, whose own agendas therefore also had to be accommodated. The British resisted currency convertibility, which would drive down the reserves of sterling and jeopardise Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s Labour welfare programmes. The French were particularly concerned about German remilitarisation. For the United States, the plan provided an economic side to containment, stimulated greater productivity, and mitigated the development of national capitalist programmes or ones that Europeans developed with their colonies at the exclusion of the United States. For Europeans, it served to bridge the dollar gap and contain Germany. Maier refers to the relationship as one of ‘consensual hegemony’ (Maier, 1994: 154–74). Or, to use Geir Lundestad’s formulation, Washington created an ‘empire by integration’ (Lundestad, 1998a). The father of European integration, Jean Monnet, indicated that it was 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’ (Lundestad, 1998a: 3). Washington wanted to keep the revived Europe within a wider Atlantic
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community, and at that point felt that such an economic plan was necessary, even though Europe was to become a third force in world politics later (Lundestad, 1996: 2–4 and 1998a: 29–39). Within the ‘community’ each state was wary of the others’ intentions. The Marshall Plan may not have so much as rescued European economies as ensured that they became integrated into the US economic system. The financial crisis of 1947 forced an abandonment of the US economic system crafted at Bretton Woods. The Marshall Plan was an attempt to reintegrate and revive the fortunes of the faltering vision. It was essentially a response to the ‘dollar gap’ and the European payments problem, which basically meant that Europeans did not possess enough dollars to trade effectively and integrate with the US economy. Between 1946 and 1947 the dollar gap increased from $8 billion to $12 billion. If the trend continued, European countries would be forced to trade within their economic spheres rather than across the Atlantic, as Washington desired. Without German productivity West Europeans did not have enough dollars to import US goods and keep that economy healthy. The ultimate US aim was to sweep away the European nation-state and integrate Europe into one economy and eventually a political union, firmly within an Atlantic setting. Yet European plans were different from those of Washington. The structures of European recovery were found in the European Payments Union and the European Coal and Steel Community. European ideas ultimately frustrated US ambitions and led them to pursue their own schemes of integration, rescuing their nation-states in the process (Milward, 1984: 462–74; McCormick, 1989: 73–80). Despite some limitations on US ambitions, the results were still acceptable to Washington. It considered that the wealth generated would eliminate ideology from politics and reduce the appeal of the left in Europe. The economies were more or less integrated, unilateral capitalist growth had been averted, and US exports found homes in European economies. Such economic development and integration averted Soviet subversion or the appeal of the left and mobilised Europeans to support the post-war rearmament programmes. Cooperation among the corporate elite created ‘an interdependent unit large enough to reconcile Germany’s recovery with France’s economic and military security’. Thus, the United States created an empire through collaboration (Hogan, 1987: 427–31, 443–4). Though the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was set up to handle the Marshall Aid and to promote further integration of trade, which increased rapidly, there was also a political and security dimension to integration. In the spring of 1948 the origins of the Council of Europe emerged through a conference of Europeans searching for further integration, especially in political and economic matters. Britain, of course, dragged its feet, worrying about limitations on its sovereignty, its ‘special
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relationship’ with the United States and its colonial empire. The Belgian Prime Minister, and first president of the Council, Paul-Henri Spaak, pushed for further integration. As the Cold War progressed and spread into Asia, it became clear that in order to move more US forces from Germany to Korea, German rearmament became necessary. Further European integration was seen as a way in which Germany could be locked into Europe and the revival of a strong German state could be tolerated. Thus, by 1950, the French architect of the 1947 modernisation plan, Jean Monnet, extended his ambitions to pool Europe’s coal and steel resources. Monnet and the French Foreign Minister, Robert Schuman, put forward ideas on the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1950. Given French dependence on German resources, integration not only served economic interests, but also allayed French fears of German revival. Konrad Adenauer saw the ECSC as an opportunity to reintegrate and begin to claim an equal role in European and international relations. By 1952 the ECSC was set up with France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) in participation. The absence of Britain ensured that European integration would occur on the continent first in a more cohesive manner. Britain did not join for a further two decades. The ECSC was the first supranational European organisation. As Rappaport explains, it reflected the need to reintegrate Germany, yet maintain some constraints on its independence. It demonstrated the kinds of problem Europe encountered with Britain as London refused to surrender any aspect of its sovereignty, clinging instead to the Empire and Washington. It revived French prestige after the war, and it demonstrated that Washington wanted to create a strong Europe that could stand alone, yet one that remained within the Atlantic framework and did not threaten the United States (Rappaport, 1981: 121). C R I S I S I N B E R L I N A N D T H E F O R M AT I O N O F N AT O
German revival was absolutely essential to US plans and caused considerable worry in London, Paris and of course Moscow, as Molotov predicted. As a result, the Plan was closely linked to an emerging security framework to obtain British and French acquiescence. Washington accepted Bevin’s Western Union and accepted that the United States was associated in the emerging system of Atlantic security. The need for dual containment of both the Soviet Union and Germany necessitated arms build-ups in Britain and France. Soviet retaliation was inevitable, which General Omar Bradley recognised as the cause of the Berlin crisis in 1948. Marshall argued that the crisis in Berlin ‘is brought about by loss of Russian face in Italy, France and Finland. … It is caused by Russian desperation in face of the success of the ERP’ (Leffler, 1992: 182, 218–19).
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For the United States the phenomenal power of Germany could not be overlooked. It had risen to power twice since its unification in the 1870s, and would do so again during the Cold War. Since 1946 the Four Power Allied Control Council struggled with its different intentions for Germany. The Russians wanted a neutral and demilitarised Germany, after they had stripped their eastern zone of industrial reparations. Yet Washington, as noted, wanted a revived Germany as a central component of a revived West (it was considered essential to West European prosperity and political stability). If a united Germany could not be rejuvenated because of Soviet objections, Washington insisted that the US, British and French zones must be rebuilt and integrated. To allay fears of German militarisation, France and Britain signed the Dunkirk Agreement on 4 March 1947, which promised mutual assistance in the face of German aggression. In February 1948 the Soviets clamped down on Czechoslovakia, imposing an exclusively communist government and eventually, in June, Clement Gottwald took over. The Czech coup accelerated US interest in Europe, sped up the approval of Marshall aid and initiated covert operations run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), created in July 1947. Such was the fear of increased leftist influence that in the 1948 Italian elections, the CIA ran operations that ensured that the Christian Democrats clenched victory under Alcide de Gasperi. In March 1948 Britain and France were joined by Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in signing the Brussels Treaty Organisation. Days later, the Soviets left the Allied Control Commission over a dispute about plans for a unified currency for Germany. By the end of March they imposed restrictions on Western access to Berlin, and by 24 June the Soviets imposed a total blockade of land access to the city. The irony of the crisis was that though it is portrayed as a Soviet challenge to the West in much of the literature, it followed a period in which Moscow sought negotiations with the West to resolve differences. Kennan, aware that the Soviets were looking for a way out of the crisis, reported that ‘Russia is extremely anxious for a relaxation of tension’. But such relaxation would undermine the incentive for the US Congress to fund the European economic and military programmes and a neutral Germany would undermine US objectives. The Truman administration quickly killed the ‘peace scare’ by increasing pressures on West European governments and notching up his belligerent rhetoric on the Soviet Union. US officials were aware that the Soviet policy was reactive. General Bradley sent a message to Eisenhower indicating that ‘the whole Berlin crisis has arisen as a result of two actions on the part of the Western Powers. These actions are (1) implementation of the decisions agreed in the London Talks on Germany and (2) institution of currency reform’ (Leffler, 1992: 218–19; see also Kofsky, 1993: 216–31). The termination of land access to Berlin in June 1948 initiated a huge
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US response. For almost a year, till the Soviets lifted the blockade on 12 May 1949, supplies were airlifted to the city. Truman was determined that US and Western credibility would not be undermined, even though the two superpowers were close to war. Stalin’s bargaining chip to induce negotiations and prevent the French zone being incorporated into the Anglo-American zones backfired. During the crisis Washington ensured that one of its strategic objectives of the Second World War, to integrate the Ruhr–Rhine industrial area of Germany, was achieved. With the imminent prospects of German revival and the tensions with the Soviets, the crisis stimulated military integration. Washington insisted that the Brussels Pact signed in 1948 was enlarged to include Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Portugal and Italy, thus diluting the power of the core European states. On 4 April 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed, introducing a system of collective self-defence: if one member was attacked all would be obliged to respond [Doc. 22]. NATO was the essential military corollary to the Marshall Plan. It provided an umbrella that allayed European security concerns with both the Soviet Union and Germany. The Soviet equivalent to NATO, the Warsaw Pact, was not formed until May 1955, days after West Germany was admitted to NATO. The Berlin crisis sped up the integration of the Western zones and led to the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany on 21 May 1949, ten days after the crisis ended. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the Christian Democrats formed the first West German government in a coalition that excluded the Social Democrats from power and effectively negated their programmes of nationalisation. The Soviets responded by creating the German Democratic Republic in October, under President Wilhelm Pieck. The emerging European community was formed both with the United States and against it (Hobsbawm, 1994: 240–1). The US dominance in issues relating to security and its initial hegemony in the economic sphere were never fully accepted and as European power and independence grew during the 1950s tensions were also never far beneath the surface. THE END(S) OF EMPIRE
US relations with Western Europe were not just bilateral affairs. In some cases, especially with Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, US and European planners had to factor in the colonies. The disbursement of Marshall aid was made to the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), formed in April 1948, and the programme was then administered by the European Cooperation Administration (ECA). As Robert Wood argues, ‘the European recovery Program was not simply about either Europe or recovery; it was much more ambitious than that’
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(Wood, 1994: 203). The plan included formulae that would create a new international order that would move beyond the Atlantic relationship to integrate the United States, Europe and the Third World through various colonial relationships. From the outset Washington looked to the colonial world as a vital element in mitigating the move towards unilateral European capitalist development. When the Europeans could not earn enough US currency to bridge the dollar gap, John Orchard of the ECA indicated that ‘the overseas territories hold more promise of contributions to closing the dollar gap than the countries of metropolitan Europe’ (cited in Wood, 1994: 208). They provided the markets for Western Europe, especially after those of Eastern Europe had been cut off. Colonial resources could be sold to the United States to earn further dollars, given that European goods faced high US tariff barriers. In many ways European colonies and their struggles for independence became caught up in the Cold War, not only because the United States resisted nationalist forces that happened to be communist, but also because these areas were vital to the US vision of an integrated Europe and an integrated world economy. As attitudes hardened on issues of security and the Cold War increasingly became the dominant US framework of analysis, US support for decolonisation and self-determination suffered. Often intense anti-Americanism grew in colonial areas as the United States championed political freedom, yet formed strong alliances with the European colonial powers and inhibited genuine national self-determination, especially in the economic realm (Hunt, 2000: 208). Decolonisation became an awkward phenomenon that could at once bolster US political traditions against Soviet oppression and also make these areas more vulnerable to Soviet influence, but Washington opted for the primacy of the European relationship and the cohesion of the Atlantic relationship. It was an historic irony that just as the United States achieved the power to oppose imperialism, its anti-colonial position was abandoned as it formed alliances with the greatest European colonial powers. It was ironic, too, that Washington portrayed the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe as colonial (see Kent, 2000: LaFeber, 2000). Neither European colonial powers nor the colonies completely trusted Washington. Washington was unprepared for the nationalist revolt across Asia and could not see that these forces were also, at times, communist (McMahon, 1989: 343). Its response was ineffective. When Ho Chi Minh declared independence in 1945 the United States was conceptually bound to support him. But this short-lived support gave way to a more central concern for France. The question of whether Ho was an Asian Tito troubled Washington for a time, but as Lloyd Gardner writes, ‘while one Tito demonstrated that even Communists could not tolerate Stalin’s heavy-fisted rule, two Titos would suggest that the idea of a world Communist conspiracy needed serious re-examination’ (Gardner, 2000: 133–4). Besides, Washington also
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accepted the logic advanced by Dean Acheson that ‘all Stalinists in colonial areas are nationalists’ (Williams et al., 1989: 93–7). Moreover, the metropolitan centres of Europe were not averse to blackmailing Washington for further support. The French demanded retention of Indochina for reasons of prestige and economy, and within the Cold War context they obtained US support. On one occasion de Gaulle informed the US ambassador in Paris: ‘If the public here comes to realize that you are against us in Indochina there will be terrific disappointment and nobody knows to what that will lead. We do not want to become Communist; we do not want to fall into the Russian orbit, but I hope that you do not push us into it’ (Williams et al., 1989: 61–2). It is no wonder the nationalists felt betrayed when Washington sided with the French on Indochinese independence. The dilemmas on whether to support the European colonial powers or the struggling independence movements troubled Washington for a time, though support within the context of the Cold War was usually given to the Europeans. Washington had to balance its relationship with the Europeans with the colonies’ desire for decolonisation. It considered ‘premature independence’ as harmful to American interests as the perpetuation of colonialism. It could not afford to let colonies turn to Moscow for independence, yet nor could it afford to be indefinitely associated with European colonialism. And for good measure, Washington considered it necessary to ‘emphasize through all appropriate media the colonial policies of the Soviet Union and particularly the fact that the Soviet colonial empire has continued to expand throughout the period when Western colonialism has been contracting’ (National Security Council, 1957: 9–10). PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE?
The late 1940s and early 1950s did not bode well for peace in Europe. The Cold War grew increasingly tense as the Czech coup of February 1948, the ‘loss’ of China to communism and the Soviet explosion of an atomic bomb concentrated the minds of Truman’s strategists. By 1949 NATO was established, and following perceived Soviet advances, Washington responded with National Security Council Paper 68 (NSC-68), by which the US policy of containment was universalised. The document recommended ‘a rapid and sustained build-up of the political, economic, and military strength of the free world … to wrest the initiative from the Soviet Union’ [Doc. 23]. The war in Korea (1950–53) moved the Cold War from a largely European phenomenon to an Asian one, and thereafter to a global one. In the first year of war the frontline moved up and down the Korean peninsula but eventually settled around the thirty-eighth parallel. President Dwight Eisenhower (1953–61) was elected partly for promising to bring the Korean War to an end, but also because it was thought that he would be a
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good candidate to stand up to Stalin. Under Eisenhower there was increased talk of the possibility of using nuclear weapons within limited theatres, and his early defence review, the New Look, provided the option of ‘massive retaliation’ against the Soviet Union. The more activist foreign policy was also pursued by his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, who initiated covert programmes throughout Eastern Europe and talked of liberating the first city from behind the iron curtain and ‘rolling back’ the Soviet Union. Dulles characterised the Cold War as an ‘irreducible conflict’, but the death of Stalin in March 1953, within weeks of Eisenhower entering the White House, created an opportunity for reconciliation. Georgi Malenkov’s brief assumption of power changed the character of the Cold War. With the rise of Nikita Khrushchev, Malenkov’s influence waned, but the option for a ‘peaceful coexistence’ remained. The Kremlin suggested that peaceful solutions should be found to the differences between the United States and the Soviet Union. A renunciation of military force was suggested, while competition on economic and ideological issues was expected to continue. The Soviet strategy was to take advantage of the disagreements within the West, especially on the European Defence Community. If overall East–West tensions were reduced, that might give the Western allies more room to disagree and divide over particular issues. The Soviets were facing similar problems from within their own sphere of influence. With the death of Stalin, Mao was challenging the Soviets for the leadership of the communist bloc, and a workers’ uprising in Eastern Germany had to be put down with force in June 1953. As both superpowers had developed the hydrogen bomb by 1953, the Europeans called for a superpower summit, but the Eisenhower administration refused, arguing that such a move would confer legitimacy on the Soviets. The pressures grew from Europeans as the United States increasingly moved towards rearming the West. Since 1950 there had been US pressure on Europe to develop forces to resist a possible Soviet attack. It was thought that if the Soviets moved into Western Europe, US forces would be diverted from Korea. By October 1950 the French Prime Minister, René Pleven, suggested a unified European Defence Community (EDC). By 1953 US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, regarded EDC as the means of both integrating Europe and rearming Germany. He sought nothing less in the long run than a United States of Europe. His involvement in and lessons from Versailles taught him that the only hope for stability and peace in Europe was through integration. Germany divided and unarmed, or united and armed but outside the Western sphere, were unacceptable outcomes. France, however, was wary of a revived and armed Germany and Prime Minister Churchill refused to play a greater continental role, which the French sought to offset potential German power. By 1953 French Prime Minister René Mayer and his Foreign Minister Georges Bidault placed
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conditions on their ratification. They sought clarification on the protocols for interpreting the agreement, greater British participation in the continent, a settlement of the Saar dispute with Germany, and US support for their position in Indochina. The French eventually became the main stumbling block to their own plans. In Washington, French intransigence was greeted with the threat of seeking alternatives that may exclude them, by perhaps signing a pact with Britain and Germany. Dulles eventually threatened that ‘if France and Germany remain apart so that they will again become potential enemies then there would indeed be grave doubts as to whether Continental Europe could be made a place of safety. That would compel an agonizing reappraisal of basic United States policy’ (Steininger, quoted in Immerman, 1990: 83–6; Winand, 1993: 25–63; Lundestad, 1998a: 46–8). By 1954, after their withdrawal from Indochina, the French were not inclined to place their forces in the EDC, further eroding their prestige. Prime Minister Pierre Mendès-France worried that the EDC was too antiSoviet and the move towards European supranationialism was too fast. In 1954 both the British and the French refused to participate in the EDC despite considerable US pressure. The US proposals for a German force – to bolster Western forces against the East – could therefore only be handled by introducing them into NATO through the Western European Union (WEU). Under the arrangements French security was assured through the stationing of British troops on the continent. West Germany entered NATO in May 1955. US–European manoeuvres over Germany were accompanied by the neutralisation of Austria through a treaty signed in May 1955. Such an outcome obviated the same sort of political division between the Soviets and the Western powers. Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to remove their troops and neutralise the country. The Soviets hoped that it would provide a model for German unification, though the United States refused to entertain the prospect of an unarmed and neutral Germany.
CHAPTER FIVE THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE URALS? 1957–72
By the late 1950s Western Europe increasingly challenged US power and foreign policy on a number of issues. There was disagreement in most of the key areas of US national interest. Most prominently on issues of security, France challenged Washington’s leadership of the Western Alliance and sought a more independent role. On economic matters, Washington worried about the more cohesive six European countries that formed the European Economic Community (EEC), and the possibilities that they would become more competitive. And ideologically, during this period, Western Europe made moves to break out of the Cold War framework and move towards détente with the East. In each case Washington advanced options that would serve its national interests. Europe was divided in many ways during this period. Not only were there the obvious divisions between East and West, but there were also tensions and divisions within the East which erupted most prominently in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. In the West, as the EEC moved towards integration, seven outer European countries formed the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). These divisions facilitated US influence and interests. As Britain almost constantly looked across the Atlantic to secure its ‘special relationship’, slowing the depth of integration, Germany and France initiated Ostpolitik with the states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, which also challenged the Cold War context of US policy. The key issues for Washington during this period related to whether it could impress upon West Europeans the importance of the Atlantic framework rather than any autonomous European alternatives, and whether it should enhance European independence or independently extend its own engagement with the East Europeans and the Soviet Union. US national interests, be they economic, security related or ideological, demanded that Washington remain an influential power in Europe and Washington continued to pursue policies through which it could assert its ‘leadership’.
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B Y S TA N D E R S : E A S T E R N E U R O P E A N D H U N G A RY
Despite the universal rhetoric and ambitions of post-war US foreign policy there was little the Americans could do to assist the liberation of Eastern Europe without running the risk of initiating another world war with the Soviets. US efforts were largely limited to covert actions. Yet the Truman administration’s Policy Planning Study (PPS) 13 recognised that ‘the danger of war is vastly exaggerated in many quarters. The Soviet Government neither wants nor expects war with us in the foreseeable future’ (PPS 13, 6 November 1947, in Etzold and Gaddis, 1978: 90–7). They realised too that the Soviets would protect their interests in Eastern Europe, especially after Tito’s Yugoslavia challenged Soviet hegemony and was expelled from Comintern. In June 1948 President Truman authorised the use of covert operations throughout Eastern Europe. Such operations included ‘[p]ropaganda, economic warfare; preventative direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anticommunist elements in threatened countries of the free world (Prados, 1986: 28–9). Under President Dwight Eisenhower (1953–61) and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles there was little further action in terms of subversive covert operations, other than extensive propaganda (Lucas, 1999). Dulles talked about ‘liberation’ and rolling back the communist regimes of Eastern Europe. But when the opportunity arose, little was done. Following Stalin’s death and the threat of ‘peaceful coexistence’, the situation in Eastern Europe remained unpredictable. Riots broke out in East Berlin in 1953. There were clear messages from East European capitals that the Stalinist emphasis on development through heavy industry left people’s living standards far below their expectations and far below the living standards of the West. By the time Khrushchev consolidated his power, at considerable risk, he pushed reforms forward by denouncing much, but not all, of what occurred during the Stalinist period. At the Twentieth Party Congress of the Soviet Union in February 1956, Khrushchev charged Stalin with the murder of party officials and the officer corps, which left the Soviet Union vulnerable. He argued that Stalin pursued misguided policies in industrial and agricultural development, he mishandled Tito’s removal of Yugoslavia from the Soviet bloc, and laid out numerous other charges. The reverberations around Eastern Europe were rapid. By April Cominform was dissolved, sending the signal that ideological conformity was no longer required. From here on in several different roads to socialism could be pursued; even various national forms of socialism might be tolerated. There was slightly more freedom in the Eastern bloc, but the bottom line
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was that they remained in the Warsaw Pact set up in May 1955. Khrushchev reaffirmed this message of greater freedom at a meeting with Tito in June 1956. Days later riots filled the streets of Poznan. The Poles demanded more freedom and more food. They brought about the end of collectivisation in agriculture and set up workers’ councils in industry. But crucially, their new leader, Wladyslaw Gomulka, recently released from prison, ultimately convinced the Soviets that their reforms were limited and they did not intend to leave the Soviet bloc. Hungarians were a bit more ambitious and therefore more threatening to Soviet hegemony in East Europe. Riots erupted in Budapest in June 1956. They were encouraged by the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. Their demands were similar to those of the Poles, including a more liberal leadership. But while the Poles had made it clear that they would remain in Moscow’s orbit, the Hungarians threatened to break out of the Soviet sphere. Since 1953 Hungarian Prime Minister Imré Nagy followed Malenkov in loosening economic controls. Further intellectual freedom allowed Hungarians to begin expressing desires for greater national independence along the lines Yugoslavia had followed. As Malenkov lost influence in Moscow, Nagy’s plans were soon curtailed. He was replaced by Rakosi, whose hard-line response troubled the Kremlin. Hungarians insisted that Rakosi be replaced, only to get another pro-Soviet figure in Ernö Gerö. He differed little from Rakosi. Ultimately, the tension turned to revolution on 23 October 1956 when the Hungarian police fired on demonstrators. Gerö’s request for Soviet military intervention discredited the Party and communism further. By 28 October Nagy had formed a new government with Janos Kádár, and by 31 October he had withdrawn Hungary from the Warsaw Pact and requested UN protection. Hungarian troops joined in the popular demands, and Moscow realised that such independent spirit threatened the stability of the entire region. The revolution was crushed. Washington was preoccupied with the Suez crisis, but the events also demonstrated the limits of US power and influence. The Cold War had clearly demarcated their sphere of influence, and their national interests dictated that beyond propaganda they could or should do little in Hungary or for East Europeans more generally. US and Western security concerns, not the promotion of their ideological beliefs, took precedence. The Soviets allowed some liberalisation, but to challenge the cohesion of the Eastern bloc, so soon after its inception, was intolerable. T R A N S AT L A N T I C D I V I S I O N : S U E Z
The Suez crisis of October–November 1956 strained transatlantic relations considerably. The British and the French were the key US allies in Europe, but resisted taking a subordinate position to Washington for as long as
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possible. Washington accepted their global colonialism, secure in the knowledge that it was regressing over time. Similarly, Washington encouraged further European integration but wanted to keep it within the Atlantic framework. However, tensions erupted over US and then Anglo-French intervention in the Third World. The British and French governments had been quite critical of Washington’s CIA, which overthrew the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954. The Eisenhower administration remembered that the British and French had argued that the case against Arbenz should be heard in the United Nations instead of at the Organisation of American States, which was dominated by US influence. Dulles instructed Ambassador Lodge at the UN, to ‘let the British and the French know that if they take [an] independent line backing the Guatemalan move in this matter, it would mean we would feel entirely free without regard to their position in relation to any such matters as any of their colonial problems in Egypt, Cyprus …’ (G. Smith, 1994: 84). When the British and the French did take independent action in Egypt in 1956, the United States demonstrated that their independence was limited. The transatlantic relationship cannot be described as one of control, but in the case of the Suez crisis the allies were brought quickly into line (Brands, 1993: 58). Washington could not be seen to support such colonial-type action at the time when Third World nationalism was rising and nationalist support was crucial to securing US interests and strategic objectives in the Cold War. British informal control over Egypt suffered following the coup that removed King Farouk in 1952, and eventually brought Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser to power in 1954. By July 1956, as a result of Nasser’s procurement of Czechoslovakian weapons and because the US Israeli lobby opposed the project, the United States withdrew funding for the construction of the Aswan Dam. Nasser immediately nationalised the Suez Canal Company, indicating that its tolls would be used to compensate for the financial loss. Apart from the immediate implications, Nasser’s control of the canal also threatened the flow of goods and commodities, especially oil, to and from the European economy. By early November, British, French and Israeli forces invaded Egypt to reclaim control of the canal and attempted to undermine Nasser’s pan-Arabism and anti-Israeli objectives. Nasser sunk ships in the Suez Canal, disrupting European supplies. Furious at not being consulted, Washington curtailed oil supplies from the Western Hemisphere, which exacerbated the European predicament, especially as winter approached (LaFeber, 1991: 188–9; Little, 1995: 479–84). Apart from the lack of consultation, Washington did not want to be regarded by Third World regimes as siding with European colonial powers. Moreover, with an imminent US election and the Soviet invasion of Hungary, Washington did not want to lose the propaganda opportunity that these events provided. Eisenhower blocked the British by selling sterling, under-
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mining its value, and then blocking British access to IMF funds. The British withdrew in humiliation and months later Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned. The Suez crisis had a deep psychological impact on the British. They now understood that they could no longer exercise power independently if the United States opposed them. Eden’s decision to invade with France and Israel was an attempt to act alone; it ‘was a final attempt to establish that Britain did not require Washington’s endorsement to defend her interests’. In this attempt to restore equality Britain paid the ‘price of permanent subservience’. Washington’s interests could not risk the potential destabilisation or alienation of other Middle Eastern regimes, especially Saudi Arabia (Lucas, 1991: 324–30). The US interests were not that different from those of the British. The transatlantic crisis resulted more from the methods used and the timing of the Anglo-French intervention. Had they considered the US election and the Hungarian situation the outcome might have been quite different. Washington was not averse to covert action per se. The Americans had toppled Mossadeq from Iranian power in 1953 and Arbenz in 1954. Selwyn Lloyd’s deathbed conversation with Dulles suggests that had different methods been used Washington’s response may not have been so dramatic. Dulles asked Lloyd: ‘Why did you stop? … Why didn’t you go through with it and get Nasser down?’ Lloyd replied: ‘Well, Foster, if you had so much as winked at us we might have gone on’ (Yergin, 1991: 493; see also Lucas, 1991: 326–7). Anglo-American hostility had not been so heated since the nineteenth century. By the end of November suggestions were made that Britain might withdraw from the United Nations and the Americans would be asked to leave their military bases in England. Ultimately, with the evacuation of British troops from Egypt, oil and finance became accessible, and when Prime Minister Harold Macmillan came to office in January 1957, relations improved considerably. A number of cooperative ventures were agreed upon in a series of meetings beginning in Bermuda in March 1957. Britain and the United States moved towards closer military and nuclear cooperation. The British accepted US intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), and allowed US bases for early warning systems and submarines to be established in Britain. In return, the British were given greater access to US missile technology and ultimately Eisenhower and Macmillan agreed to the sale of US Skybolt missiles to Britain.
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EUROPEAN UNITY
With the United States’ role in the termination of the Suez crisis, and the humiliation of Britain and France, Konrad Adenauer remarked to the French Prime Minster, Guy Mollet: ‘Europe will be your revenge.’ A united Europe could slow the decline of the former great powers and maintain the influence of some key European leaders. European integration provided a process through which Washington’s influence could be held at bay. Yet the European option and the Atlantic option were not mutually exclusive. There was a large degree of overlap, shared interests and values. Washington had worked hard to integrate with Europe since the Second World War. Still, considerable tensions remained among Europeans over the extent to which they should allow the United States to determine or influence events in Europe. As noted, Britain quickly mended its relations with the United States. It had more of a shared experience, it was not defeated in the war and was therefore more reluctant to give up on issues of sovereignty than its continental neighbours, who constantly worried about ‘the German question’. Moreover, the British were not that dependent, relatively speaking, on trade with continental Europe, and pursued strategies that looked across the Atlantic and outward towards the Commonwealth (Reynolds, 2000: 128–30). For France, however, after their defeat at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina in 1954 and the increasing loss of empire, the prospect of a united Europe provided an opportunity to retain its place as a world power after Suez. Throughout the 1950s Washington supported European unity. First Truman, then Eisenhower and Dulles realised that unity would be beneficial to the West. Under Truman it was important as a method of reconstruction, and later unity was seen as an essential part of Western economic strength that could withstand pressure from the East. But crucially, the US conception of a united Europe always lay within an Atlantic framework. It was considered an essential component of an overall Western alliance. Eisenhower referred to Europe as ‘the third great force in the world’, but the emphasis was always on Atlantic integration, most certainly in the military sphere, somewhat in the economic, and less so in political relations (Lundestad, 1998a: 54–5). French politicians were likely to take a more independent line. National interests may not have diverged that much in the fundamentally important areas, but issues of sovereignty and prestige were still important. Washington had a tendency to lead without sufficient consultation, and often took Western Europeans for granted. While Americans thought of Europe as the ‘third’ force, Maurice Faure, a French delegate to the EEC negotiations, argued that it was a fiction to describe Britain and France as part of the Big Four: ‘there are not four Great Powers, there are two: America and Russia.
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There will be a third by the end of the century: China. It depends on you whether there will be a fourth: Europe’ (Reynolds, 2000: 129). There were several conceptions of ‘Europe’ at the time. The Soviets and Eastern Europe were bound together in Comecon. Western Europe, to use a well-worn phrase, was at ‘sixes and sevens’. The Six – Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy – were the initial states to form the European Economic Community through the Treaty of Rome in March 1957 [Doc. 24]. The productive successes of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) prompted further negotiation towards greater integration. The three Benelux countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) had already formed a customs union in 1948. The aim now was to extend that customs union to the members of the ECSC, and then to extend it further to cover all industrial and agricultural products. Led by Paul-Henri Spaak, the negotiations at Messina in 1955 resulted in a common tariff among the states. The eventual aim was to be in a position where Europe could compete with the United States. The integration of the Six obviously did not include Britain, which caused some concern. Prime Minister Macmillan’s external economic focus was more explicitly aimed at Atlanticism and the Commonwealth, thus the Six were constantly wary of London’s other links. The long-term benefits of European and Atlantic integration outweighed the short-term costs of dealing with European economic tariffs, so Dulles supported the integration of the Six, in advance of dealing with the British. Hence Washington urged the Six to form the community before they entered into negotiations with the British, who might weaken the unity and therefore the utility of the Common Market. Washington assumed that the EEC member states could be influenced through the overarching structure of NATO, of which they were also members. And besides, few questioned US ‘leadership’ in the Cold War at that time. But the momentum of US support for integration was somewhat halted by the US balance of payments problem with the Six, unlike Britain. The support was further tempered in 1958 when Charles de Gaulle increasingly began to question US leadership (Lundestad, 1998a: 51–2). The Seven – Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and Austria – in 1959 formed the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). EFTA removed trade barriers between the Seven, forming a loose economic group whose main connections were their various trade relationships with Britain. Since Washington had initially rebuffed Britain’s Atlanticism, the grouping offered a modicum of defence against the integration of the Six. But trade with the other members of EFTA was of secondary concern. The United States, the Commonwealth and the Six were still more important. Macmillan worried about the tariff barriers that impeded British exports to
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the Six. When Washington realised the importance of some of the Six and Seven in terms of economic and security concerns, it tried to advance transatlantic relations. After Dulles’s resignation due to ill health and replacement by Christian Herter, Atlanticism was once more emphasised, just at the time when Britain under Macmillan was preparing to make an application to join the Six (Dobson, 1995: 122; Lundestad, 1998a: 52). KENNEDY’S GRAND DESIGN
Though US supremacy had largely been taken for granted, there was an underlying tension between the options of an Atlantic framework and a more independent European line. To further economic integration in late 1958 Washington proposed another round of GATT negotiations, named after the Under-Secretary of State for economic affairs, Douglas Dillon. The round lasted into 1962, during which time Washington wanted to reduce tariff barriers because Europe was becoming an increasingly important market for US exports. However, the negotiations were slow, each item was considered one at a time and eventually Washington had to contend with the EEC’s protectionist Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and with a US Congress protecting industries and agriculture in their various constituencies. At the institutional level, the Eisenhower administration ultimately strengthened the Atlantic framework through a transformation of the OEEC into the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The US and Canada were included in the new organisation and it, along with NATO, was seen in Washington as the key institution to guide policy formulation and the direction of the Atlantic ‘community’. Moreover, Washington also considered that the OECD would be a good place to negotiate differences between the EEC and EFTA, with more US influence. As Lundestad argues, with this framework, ‘it was evident that Washington did not really see Western Europe as an independent actor’ (1998a: 52–4). In November 1958 crisis erupted in Berlin when Khrushchev announced that the Soviets would give control of East Berlin to East Germany, and possibly sign a treaty with East Germany which would force the West to renegotiate access rights. Khrushchev imposed a six-month deadline for a Western response. Congressional Democrats urged Eisenhower to increase troop deployment to Western Europe and Berlin, but Eisenhower did not want to undo the military cuts that he had already made. He simply avoided the issue by denying there was a crisis. Rather than confronting the Soviet Union over the ultimatum, Eisenhower tried to defuse the situation. When Dulles resigned as Secretary of State, Eisenhower became ‘noticeably friendlier’ to Moscow and sought to enhance peaceful coexistence with Khrushchev.
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Coexistence would not be tolerated by the cold warriors in the Kennedy administration (1961–63), and by the time another crisis erupted in Berlin in 1961, resolve or recklessness replaced prudence. Politically wounded by the Bay of Pigs episode, Kennedy met Khrushchev in Vienna on 3 and 4 June 1961 in a summit that degenerated into a defence of hardened ideological positions. Khrushchev threatened to sign a treaty with East Germany, while Kennedy berated him for his promotion of ‘wars of national liberation’ in the Third World. Eventually, Kennedy’s televised response forced Khrushchev to back down. On 25 July 1961 Kennedy announced that Western access to Berlin was not negotiable and that the United States would increase its conventional forces by 25%, expand the draft and partially mobilise the reserves [Doc. 25] (Beschloss, 1991: 223). West Berlin was not intrinsically important to the United States, except as a political symbol. But if the United States did not preserve its position ‘the shock would loosen the Federal Republic of Germany from its mooring in the West’, the Germans would feel betrayed by Washington, and ‘America’s power and credibility in Europe, and in much of the world, depended on keeping the Germans upright and facing West’ (Costigliola, 1989: 39–42). Moreover, Washington did not want to see further regional instability that could result in popular uprisings. The previous East German or Hungarian revolts demonstrated Western impotence. While Khrushchev climbed down, he still had to stop the flow of refugees leaving the East through Berlin. On 13 August 1961 wire and barricades were erected to stem the exodus. Ambrose writes: ‘It was... brutal and unprecedented. Never before in human history had a wall been built around a city to keep people in. Immeasurable human tragedy resulted’ (Ambrose, 1988: 190–1). Kennedy’s officials were privately relieved. The Wall had been erected without instigating a revolt or limiting Western access. The impact of the Berlin Wall exposed the ‘pretence’ that Konrad Adenauer’s policy of linkage to the West would result in German reunification, and this period ‘marked the beginning of West Germany’s slow turn toward Ostpolitik’. The West Germans felt betrayed by US inaction. Even though Kennedy ‘employed melodramatic symbols of solidarity’, culminating in his 1963 proclamation by the Wall, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’, which won him more public sympathy, Adenauer grew increasingly dissatisfied with Washington. The trade-off of continued Western access at the expense of increasing German rearmament caused such hostility between Kennedy and Adenauer that, after their November 1961 meeting, they decided to burn the minutes. Relations deteriorated to the point when, in May 1962, Adenauer tried to subvert US–Soviet talks by exposing Washington’s position (Costigliola, 1984: 241; Costigliola, 1989: 42–5). With growing European resentment of the United States, most prominently among de Gaulle and Adenauer, and in the face of a relative US
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economic decline, Kennedy attempted to regain consensus in the Western Alliance. On 4 July 1962 he stated: ‘the United States will be ready for a declaration of interdependence, that we will be prepared to discuss with a United Europe the ways and means of forming a concrete Atlantic partnership, a mutually beneficial partnership between the new union now emerging in Europe and the old American union founded here 173 years ago’ [Docs 26 and 27]. Kennedy’s Grand Design envisaged a Britain within the European Common Market, increased US exports resulting from the reduction of transatlantic tariff barriers, an attempt to place more of the defence burden on Europeans, especially in the area of conventional forces, and an attempt to control nuclear weapons through the Multilateral Force (MLF). Costigliola characterises the design as an attempt ‘to bolster the American position by making Western Europe a unified, faithful helpmate’ (Costigliola, 1984: 228, 250–1). De Gaulle was increasingly wary of Washington’s suffocating embrace. He was outraged in the autumn of 1962 when Washington took unilateral decisions during the Cuban missile crisis, which in de Gaulle’s view was an Alliance matter. He castigated Washington with the ironic statement, that he did not want to be annihilated without representation, recalling the colonial disgruntlement of pre-independent America. De Gaulle was further convinced that Britain was a US satellite after Washington scrapped the Skybolt deal in exchange for the Polaris missiles. In December 1962 de Gaulle met with Macmillan in an attempt to initiate a European missile system to replace the ditched Skybolt, though Washington had warned Macmillan against ‘such an “unholy alliance”’. Macmillan soon obtained the sale of the Polaris to Britain from a reluctant Kennedy who wanted to phase out Britain’s nuclear independence. In a disingenuous attempt to appease de Gaulle Kennedy then offered the Polaris to the French, knowing they did not have delivery systems for the missile. The French reaction was swift. Within the month, on 14 January 1963, de Gaulle’s veto of the British entry to the Common Market signalled the loss of US hegemony in Europe and the failure of Kennedy’s Grand Design. Within a week Adenauer and de Gaulle signed a friendship treaty. US nuclear policy during this period was directed at containing European independent initiatives. As Costigliola’s succinct analysis demonstrates: The Kennedy Administration was shaken. The President became ‘extremely concerned’ over intelligence reports (later shown to be false) of a Franco-Russian deal to shut the United States out of Europe. Officials feared the strong-willed general might shape the Common Market into an autarchic bloc, closing out American business through discriminatory tariffs and investment policies. The nation’s ‘world leadership’ appeared to be under attack. (1989: 27, 49–51)
Kennedy soon brought Dean Acheson back into planning discussions. Acheson indicated that the Germans needed to be reminded ‘again the feel
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of our contempt’. Further, Adenauer should be reminded that US–German relations depended on the latter’s commitment to NATO, the MLF, and British accession to the EEC. De Gaulle wanted to carve out a more independent role for a united Europe, with France at its centre. This necessitated British exclusion because it was considered too compliant to Washington’s interests and de Gaulle worried that the EEC ‘would be a colossal Atlantic Community dependent on America and directed by America, which would not take long to absorb this European Community’ (Grosser, 1978: 200–1; see also McCormick, 1989: 131). Washington favoured the British entry into the EEC as a way to get the Six to look across the Atlantic and move away from its more protectionist measures. Washington was also relieved that its support of the 1961 British application undercut the British ideas of taking all of EFTA into the EEC. The prospect of a protectionist Europe made up of thirteen states, without US leverage, was disturbing. It could hamper US trade and could truly become an independent ‘third force’ outside US hegemony. After Britain put in its applications the Under-Secretary of State, George Ball, told Kennedy that the neutral states in EFTA, Sweden and Switzerland, should not be able to weaken the Western bloc. Even though the problem of the neutrals was avoided, it was precisely because of the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ that British entry and Kennedy’s Grand Design failed (Dobson, 1995: 126–7). D E G A U L L E A N D E U R O P E F R O M T H E AT L A N T I C T O T H E U R A L S
Charles de Gaulle had seen off the immediate British Trojan Horse full of US power, but his ambitions were much wider. The Franco-German Treaty truly alarmed Washington, especially because of the form that it took. Washington had earlier supported the treaty, considering French–German rapprochement beneficial to the entire continent. But it was always assumed that it would be within the Atlantic framework and under the auspices of NATO. Washington warned West Germany that it might have to choose between France and the rest of Europe and the United States. Kennedy went so far as to remark that the treaty was an ‘unfriendly act’. Suggestions were made that if Bonn persisted with such diplomacy, Berlin might not be protected indefinitely. The implications for German security were obvious. In February 1963 Kennedy pressed Adenauer to confirm that its allegiance belonged to the West. Adenauer’s determination to maintain the treaty with France remained firm. But ultimately it was watered down by the preamble to the treaty, which indicated that Bonn had primary obligations to its ‘multilateral treaties’ rather than the bilateral agreement with France. Adenauer ultimately resigned in October 1963, replaced by the more US-friendly Ludwig Erhard (Lundestad, 1998a: 72–4).
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Besides the Franco-German Treaty, de Gaulle struck out for a more independent Europe, outside the dominant relationship with the United States. He did not want to be in a relationship in which European allies were ‘informed’ rather than ‘consulted’ by Washington. He envisioned a Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals and a more cohesive Six, with their CAP and Common External Tariff (CET) as key components in asserting independence from Washington. Further, by 1960, France exploded its first atomic bomb; it began to develop the force de frappe and argued for a more independent European deterrent capability. In turn, Washington tried to limit de Gaulle’s ambitions. The Dillon and then the Kennedy rounds of GATT were designed to undermine potential European independence in the economic sphere, while in the military sphere Washington proposed the development of the multilateral force (MLF) that envisaged greater European participation in the nuclear deterrent, albeit under NATO with a preponderant US voice. Moreover, Washington argued that Europeans could increase their share of the defence burden through larger contributions of conventional forces while Washington concentrated on its nuclear superiority. De Gaulle sought more independence. He did not seek to withdraw from the alliance, but from the type of integration dominated by NATO and the United States. Washington promoted the idea of the MLF because it grew increasingly wary of the independent European nuclear capabilities. De Gaulle considered the MLF to be a US attempt to maintain its influence over Europe through Germany, now that its British option had been blocked in 1963. By 1964 de Gaulle worked hard to undermine the MLF and by November of that year Washington decided to move away from the idea. De Gaulle remained a central concern to the Johnson administration’s (1963–69) European policies. Though Washington was obviously preoccupied with the war in Vietnam, here again de Gaulle was seen as a disloyal member of the Alliance. He had called for the ‘neutralisation’ of Vietnam and then later of the entire region. He strongly objected to the war and argued that the costs of the war were being passed on to Europeans. The US dollar had been set against a certain value in gold, and as Johnson was determined to fight the war and build his ‘Great Society’ the only way he could pay for the two was to print dollars. The uneven value of the dollar in the United States and in Europe meant, in effect, that the Europeans were being taxed to help pay for the war. De Gaulle aggravated the situation by demanding gold from the United States, brought back by Air France, in exchange for the dollars. In 1965 he cashed in $300 million, demanding that gold replace the dollar as the international standard (Gardner, 1994: 266). On 7 March 1966, de Gaulle took the most dramatic step in pulling France out of NATO’s command structures and demanding that foreign
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forces be removed from French soil. Though the Johnson administration reacted calmly, internally it worried about the break-up of NATO and the possibility of a neutral France at the centre of Europe (Gardner, 1994: 274). The move was far more of a political act than one of significant military consequence. De Gaulle wanted to make the distinction between the Alliance, to which he remained loyal, and the organisation, which he saw as dominated by Washington. Thus he argued that France needed to adapt with the changing balance in the Atlantic relationship and ‘regain on her whole territory the full exercise of her sovereignty … diminished by the permanent presence of Allied military elements’ (de Gaulle, in Grosser, 1978: 214). US forces were removed and the headquarters of NATO was moved from Paris to Brussels. Germany did not want to be forced into a position to choose between Paris and Washington, with the tremendous continental consequences that this involved. Within the year, after Britain submitted its second application to join the EEC, de Gaulle questioned Prime Minister Harold Wilson extensively on Britain’s relationship with the United States on matters of defence and regional security. Within days of Britain’s official candidacy, de Gaulle yet again vetoed British entry to the EEC, arguing that it would ‘lead to the creation of an Atlantic zone which would deprive our continent of any real character’ (Grosser, 1978: 217). Wilson later wrote that he had not passed the economic tests ‘for entry to the anti-American, anti-liquidity gold club’ (Grosser, 1978: 213–17). Beyond the NATO issue de Gaulle searched for greater European independence. He insisted that European division and German division were European questions and should be settled by Europeans. From 1966 France initiated a period of détente with the East. In June 1966 de Gaulle made a high-profile visit to Moscow, and during the same period French Foreign Minister Couve de Murville visited Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. In the next couple of years de Gaulle visited Poland and Romania. His initiatives served as a precursor to the more widespread détente between the United States and the Soviet Union, but it is important to note that European détente with Moscow began before the US détente and lasted much longer. Indeed, when the Cold War returned in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many Europeans were reluctant to follow the route that Reagan’s rhetoric led them (Garthoff, 1994a: 123–4). Johnson initiated a policy of ‘bridge-building’ with Eastern Europe and the Soviets from 1966 to alleviate NATO’s crisis and offset de Gaulle’s manoeuvres. It was an attempt to move détente into the Atlantic framework. Dean Acheson even spoke of developing a ‘good neighbor’ policy towards the Warsaw Pact. Johnson’s decision not to confront France and make détente a more attractive option if the United States was included infuriated Acheson. He admonished an advisor, after Johnson had distanced
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himself from one of Acheson’s attacks on de Gaulle, saying: ‘You made the greatest imperial power the world has ever seen kiss de Gaulle’s ass’ (Costigliola, 1994: 195). O S T P O L I T I K , C Z E C H O S L O VA K I A , D É T E N T E
While French initiatives got the ball rolling they were not enough to solidify détente. The West German political scene was also divided between the ‘Gaullists’ who sought greater European independence and flexibility and the ‘Atlanticists’ who looked to Washington. While Adenauer, as chair of the Christian Democrats, and former Defence Minister Franz-Josef Strauss emphasised their links with France and the European option, the new German Chancellor, Ludwig Erhard, and his Foreign Minister, Gerhard Schröder, maintained the US connections. Though tentative moves were made during the mid-1960s, it was not until Willy Brandt became ViceChancellor and Foreign Minister in 1966 that Ostpolitik or Eastern Policy really took off. Brandt recognised that the ‘Hallstein Doctrine’ of nonrecognition of states that recognised East Germany was outdated and hindered West German options, and independence from the Atlantic framework. The doctrine was abandoned in 1967 and relations were established with Romania, where Nikolai Ceauçescu was demonstrating greater independence from Moscow. Others in Eastern Europe showed interest in establishing relations with West Germany, but Moscow insisted that further recognition of West Germany would be withheld until Bonn recognised East Germany (Garthoff, 1994a: 125). Ostpolitik was essentially a pragmatic response to the West German situation in the late 1960s. The balance of power between Europe and the United States had changed since the early Cold War period. Europe played a major economic role, the creation of the EEC promised further independence and integrated development and US hegemony in defence-related issues had declined, ultimately punctured by de Gaulle. The military doctrine of ‘massive retaliation’ under Eisenhower and Dulles had given way to that of ‘flexible response’ under Kennedy and Johnson. This meant that Germany now became the centre of any potential conflict because the Germans realised that Washington would only intervene with its intercontinental missiles after conventional forces and tactical nuclear weapons had been used. The Soviets would have already advanced considerably had such a scenario played out. Thus Brandt still looked to NATO and the West for security guarantees, but to diminish the likelihood of war he encouraged greater contact with the East. Moreover, the East offered the West increased economic advantages, restoring the traditional markets of Central Europe (Ashton, 1989: 108–9). There were growing calls for a Conference on European Security
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through the late 1960s, but Moscow worried that, with renewed contact with the West, the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact might be undermined. Moreover, since 1964 the Soviets had increasingly concentrated on their domestic problems. The Soviet, or, more properly, the Warsaw Pact, invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 must be seen against this background. In Czechoslovakia there was growing tension between the more orthodox communist leadership of Antonin Novotny and the reformers who emphasised decentralisation, local initiative and a focus on consumer goods instead of heavy industry. Since 1963 Novotny had to contend with these pressures, especially since the Slovak reformers made Alexander Dubcˇek head of the Slovak Communist Party. Novotny’s centralisation and repression came under increasing criticism and attack, and by January 1968 Dubcˇek gained power and initiated the ‘Prague Spring’. There were attempts to present ‘socialism with a human face’, and freedom of speech. Alternative political groups were tolerated, even though Dubcˇek insisted his allegiance was to the Communist Party. By the summer there were calls for a viable political opposition. Dubcˇek was caught between his desire for reform and the need to satisfy the Soviet Union. When he failed to denounce public offers of military assistance from the West should the Warsaw Pact invade, he seemed to imply that he was prepared to rely on the West. The Prague Spring was caught up not only in the anti-authoritarian riots throughout Europe, but in the politics of the Warsaw Pact. Gomulka in Poland and Ulbricht in East Germany worried about the contagious effects of the popular protest. Moscow worried about the Czech connections with West Germany developed under Ostpolitik and feared that Czechoslovakia might follow Romania, which had already withdrawn from the Warsaw Pact and pursued an independent foreign and economic policy. In addition, there were fears that an alternative socialist axis might grow between Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. When Nikolai Ceauçescu and Tito were received in Prague, Soviet fears did not diminish. Finally, Moscow had experienced enough humiliation during the 1960s: the retreat from the Cuban missile crisis; the Chinese challenge to its leadership of the socialist bloc was supported by Albania; and Romania’s defection from the bloc. The Czech experiment could not be tolerated. Ultimately, on 20 August, Warsaw Pact forces invaded. Moscow calculated that with increasing détente the West would not respond and the verbal criticism would be short. Brezhnev then advanced his doctrine of ‘limited sovereignty’ in November 1968: that internal or external forces hostile to socialism did not only have implications for the country concerned, but for the entire ‘socialist commonwealth’, which justified a Soviet response (Ashton, 1989: 108–9). The Czech invasion not only marshalled the Warsaw Pact behind one
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line, but Johnson understood that it also gave pause to the West European centrifugal tendencies away from NATO, securing Washington’s leverage over its allies. Despite the harsh Soviet action, Western reactions were not the same as the previous crises over Berlin or Hungary; the Cold War hostilities did not prevail and Washington and Moscow were soon back to negotiations. Ironically, as Costigliola notes, Johnson’s two major initiatives towards Europe – bridge-building and the MLF – failed. The MLF ‘failed in part because the Cold War was winding down, whereas bridge building failed during the Johnson years because the Cold War was not over yet’ (Costigliola, 1994: 210). The irony of Dubcˇek’s experiment with ‘socialism with a human face’ was that he, unlike Nagy in Hungary in 1956, did not threaten to abandon socialism or pull out of the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet invasion briefly halted the process of détente, and sent a clear signal that its interests would not be tampered with in this region. Oddly enough the crisis moved the initiative of détente from Western Europe to Washington. Indeed, US policy-makers considered ‘how we can use the crisis to strengthen western European defense and NATO’ and carry on business with the East. The problem of Western cohesion was serious. Kissinger thought that had the Russians waited for a further two years rather than crushing the Prague Spring, ‘nothing would have been left of NATO’. Thus, détente was resumed after a ‘decent interval’ with greater intensity (Costigliola, 1994: 208; Crockatt, 1995: 212). Ostpolitik advanced Central European integration and diminished hostility between the East and West of Europe. By August 1970 Brandt signed a Non-Aggression Pact with Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin. Washington tried to obstruct the process to little avail. By December, Germany and Poland agreed on the post-war border on the Oder–Neisse, and by December 1972 the two Germanys exchanged reciprocal recognition (Garthoff, 1994a: 126–7). Brandt’s independence worried the Americans from the outset. They argued that Bonn could not simultaneously search for further integration with the East and maintain its integration with the West. US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger advised President Nixon (1969–74) of the dilemma. Kissinger read Ostpolitik as an option for the revival of German nationalism, in which it could play the East off against the West. But since 1949 US policy had ensured that the Federal Republic was firmly grounded in the West. It was a key element of the Western Alliance, the EEC and the ‘Atlantic Community’. Though all German governments were conventionally obliged to aim at unification, the rest of the Alliance realised that such an option was unlikely unless Soviet power withdrew. Moreover, according to Kissinger, Europeans also worried about the prospects of a new German hegemony. Thus he wrote: ‘We were determined to spare no effort to mute
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the latent incompatibility between Germany’s national aims and its Atlantic and European ties.’ Kissinger suggests that Ostpolitik offered the Soviets the ability to divide the Alliance. They could form relations with some of the West Europeans while remaining hostile and intransigent towards the United States. Washington did not want to be isolated. So Kissinger sought to link Ostpolitik with other wider issues that ultimately formed the basis of the overall East–West détente. Out of fear of isolation, Washington ‘embedded’ Ostpolitik ‘in a matrix of negotiations that enhanced the bargaining position of the Federal Republic but that also set limits beyond which it could not go without an allied consensus’ (Kissinger, 1979: 408–12; Garthoff, 1994a: 127). By late 1970 a US National Security Decision Memorandum (USDM– 91), indicated: ‘We should not conceal ... our longer-range concern over the potentially divisive effect in the western alliance and inside [West] Germany of any excessively active German policy in Eastern Europe as well as our concern over the potential risk of a crisis that such a policy might create in relations between Eastern European states and the USSR’ (Garthoff, 1994a: 127n6).
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PART FOUR
THE UNITED STATES, EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND THE END OF THE COLD WAR
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CHAPTER SIX US DECLINE AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, 1973–86
Given the US preoccupation with Vietnam during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Europe’s place on Washington’s agenda had slipped. By the end of the war the structures of the world economy and political relationships had changed. Politically, the world was no longer clearly divided into a bi-polar formulation. Europe, Japan and China increasingly asserted their power. Détente provided a period of relaxation for both superpowers to deal with their allies and to try to reassert their leadership. But the period was characterised by increased fragmentation and the world order moved towards greater multipolarity. As the European Community began to enlarge, Washington increasingly demanded that Europe not only accept more responsibility and a share of the defence burden, but also that US leadership prevailed. Because European détente with the East had been much deeper and broader, they were very reluctant to follow Washington into the renewed Cold War in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Clearly, with a greater European sense of independence and the US desire to maintain its leadership, the Atlantic framework continued to vie with the European ambitions. DÉTENTE AND ECONOMIC TENSIONS
Three overlapping sets of events did not augur well for the transatlantic relationship in the early 1970s. Détente and the superpower relaxation of tensions created difficulties in the Atlantic Alliance, especially because Washington attempted to shape and direct the overall approach to the East. Following the war in Vietnam and the recurrent recessions in the United States, tensions loomed between an expanding EEC and America. The OPEC (Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries) crisis led to further animosity between Europeans and Washington. European enlargement from six to twelve and a renewal of the Cold War in the early 1980s demonstrated that their interests often diverged. Though the superpowers continued their competition in the Third World, largely by proxy, both had to adjust to a more multipolar world 89
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during détente, which lasted roughly from 1968 to 1979. During this period the Soviets were challenged in Eastern Europe and de Gaulle and Ostpolitik in the West increasingly challenged the United States. Moreover, multipolarity in world affairs meant that apart from the US–Soviet competition, Europe, Japan and China became increasingly assertive. Washington considered its leadership of the Western world under threat and thought it imperative to maintain its interests and Western cohesion amidst the changes. One element of détente was stimulated by the superpowers’ relative economic decline: cooperation was imperative while they set their economies in order. The Cold War was too expensive at a time when alliances were in trouble. Détente provided some breathing space as Moscow and Washington adjusted to the assertions of power within their blocs. The centrifugal tendencies within the East and West, especially seen in the Sino-Soviet split of 1961 onwards, the Prague Spring of 1968, or de Gaulle’s withdrawal from NATO, or Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, threatened traditional assumptions on the alliances. The European challenges to the leadership of their respective superpowers was further augmented by the OPEC crisis in 1973 and the decision of Chilean citizens to elect a socialist government in the Western Hemisphere in 1970. By 1971 President Nixon reported to Congress: the world was ‘at the end of an era. The post-war order of international relations, the configuration of power that emerged from the Second World War is gone. With it are gone the conditions which have determined the assumptions and practice of United States foreign policy since 1945’ (quoted in Ryan, 1995: 105–7). The changes necessitated adjustment. Cohen suggests détente was like Washington ‘asking the Soviets to contain themselves at a time when America’s will to hold the line was in doubt’ (Cohen, 1993: 183). Even though there was both cooperation and competition, the superpower relationship also encapsulated an ‘element of mutuality’. Détente afforded each superpower the time and the space to deal with their respective economies and to deal with their respective alliances (Crockatt, 1995: 207). During these shifts in the relationships the United States was passing through a period of relative economic decline. It had achieved a significant number of its post-war aims: the world economy was increasingly integrated, domestic prosperity had been mostly achieved, the Soviets had been contained, the European colonial order had passed, and many of the new independent economies were linked to the capitalist system. Washington now depended on the ‘liberal international order’. Even though its relative position had declined, the ‘global economic balances still left an environment which was not too hostile to its own open-market and capitalist traditions’ (Kennedy, 1989: 562). Though not hostile, nevertheless, there remained plenty of competition.
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Throughout the 1960s, US military spending, its overseas investments, and its trade deficit led to an unfavourable balance of payments, which pushed Europeans and the Japanese to cash their dollars in for gold and search for a new international monetary standard. Washington did not have sufficient financial leverage to influence the increasingly competitive economic blocs of the EEC and Japan, especially since in the 1970s the US experienced a series of recessions, ‘that cumulatively constituted the greatest economic slow-down since the 1930s Great Depression’ (McCormick, 1989: 162–3). In response, the United States first attempted to force the Europeans and the Japanese to re-value their currencies upwards. The Europeans complied, but not as extensively as Washington needed. The Japanese refused. The attempt to coerce the core economies of the Western world necessitated a change in the US position. The post-war economic system ended with Nixon’s ‘New Economic Policy’ announced on 15 August 1971 [Doc. 28]. Washington unilaterally wound up the Bretton Woods system and ended the convertibility of $35 for one ounce of gold. The alternative was inconceivable. Washington could impose the same conditions that it had on Europeans through the Marshall Plan: it could deflate its economy, increase taxes, cut wages and impose job losses. However, the US was not willing to pay such a price. Although there was an attempt to restart the Bretton Woods system of convertibility in late 1971 with the Smithsonian Agreement, the dollar value continued to fluctuate. As Washington sought access to the East European and Chinese markets it realised that Soviet fears would have to be allayed. By 1975 Secretary of State Henry Kissinger described the advent of a new world order to the United Nations, emphasising the integration of the world economies (McCormick, 1989: 162–3, 167). In essence there was a realignment of relations in an increasingly multipolar world. The United States moved closer to Eastern Europe and China, facilitated by closer political relations with the Soviet Union. West Europeans and Japan moved closer to the East and to Moscow, and increasingly acted independently of Washington’s consent, and often in opposition to its interests. Under such circumstances the prospects of an enlarging and more independent European Economic Community somewhat alarmed Washington. THE YEAR OF EUROPE AND EEC ENLARGEMENT
Kissinger and Nixon not only worried about Ostpolitik but also about the increasing cohesion and power of Western Europe. It was recognised as one of the five economic superpowers but the Nixon White House tended to downplay the importance of economic diplomacy, preferring to concentrate on the high politics of diplomatic and geo-political affairs. But their concerns about a more independent Europe continued throughout the period.
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While the superpower détente looked forward to better relationships in the future, the European détente also looked back, and sought to ratify the realities that had existed since the Second World War (Crockatt, 1995: 230–4). European détente dealt with specific issues of territory and treaties, which ultimately culminated in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). This process, which lasted from 1972 to 1975, brought together thirty-four countries, all European, with the exception of Canada and the United States, to formulate a series of agreements in the Helsinki Final Act of August 1975. By this time the EEC had expanded, the two Germanys had been admitted to the United Nations and Europe pursued a range of agreements that enhanced their ties to the East. The Nixon White House grew increasingly ambivalent about European integration. Even though it continued to support the process and made it clear that the initiatives and direction were a matter for the Europeans, it emphasised the Atlantic context. Yet its ambivalence stemmed from increasing concerns with European economic policies that did not comport with US interests. The differences were now substantial and affected political issues, interests and decisions. Kissinger wrote that the previous objectives of support for a supranational Europe and an Atlantic Community led by the United States ‘are likely to prove incompatible’ (Lundestad, 1998a: 100–2). Though the United States continued to press for British entry to the EEC, it viewed it as an option that would slow down European integration and emphasised the security ties between Europe and the United States. However, Edward Heath’s Conservative electoral victory in Britain in 1970 inhibited US objectives. Heath recognised what he termed the ‘natural relationship’ with the United States based on their common history, but clearly distinguished it from the ‘special relationship’ which was more political and could be broken at any time. Heath was conscious that to get Britain into the EEC it had to distance itself from the United States. He assured French President Georges Pompidou that Britain would not be a Trojan Horse for US power and influence. Kissinger later wrote that Heath was the British Prime Minister with the least concern for the US connection, and that Washington viewed him as ‘a more benign British version of De Gaulle’ (Dumbrell, 2001: 73–4). Heath was much more of an Europeanist than an Atlanticist. The negotiations for British entry lasted less than a year. Britain conceded on issues that previously had been sticking points. The transition period for its agricultural adjustments was halved to three years, negotiations on sterling and other matters were finally cleared up in 1972 and, ultimately, Britain and its two closest EFTA partners, Ireland and Denmark, were admitted into the EEC in January 1973. The Norwegians stayed out, but still the EEC grew to nine members. Both the French and the Germans supported British entry. Pompidou
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reversed de Gaulle’s previous objections to British entry because he thought Britain could be used as a counterweight to a resurgent Germany. Hence, the London–Paris axis could balance German power. Brandt, too, could use London as a counterweight to the suggestions that Ostpolitik made Germany lean towards the East, without acceding to US restrictions or ‘leadership’. So both the French and German concerns with the balance of European power led them to support the British application and ultimately had the effect of enlarging European integration (Kissinger, 1979: 422). Enlargement helped balance power within the continent and between the continent and the United States. Given the increasingly protectionist policies adopted by the EEC, Washington became even more ambivalent about the transatlantic relationship. Washington was concerned about the disjuncture between the security that the United States provided to Europe and their economic relations. When Nixon considered whether the two could be reconciled, he argued that the Europeans ‘cannot have the United States participation and cooperation on the security front and then proceed to have confrontation and even hostility on the economic and political front’ (Lundestad, 1998a: 102). Lundestad points out that the implications were obvious: Europeans would have to concede on economic issues in return for the security that Washington provided. But Europeans were unwilling to assume a greater proportion of the Western defence budget and maintained their economic objectives. The ambivalence within the transatlantic relationship characterised the period and affected the process of détente. Washington considered the management of the Europeans as important as that of the Soviets. To that end, Kissinger devised what he considered to be a new Atlantic Charter and patronisingly proclaimed that 1973 would be the ‘Year of Europe’ (Crockatt, 1995: 230– 4). The Atlantic Alliance was recognised as the ‘cornerstone of all postwar foreign policy’ and European unity was ‘not an end in itself but a means to the strengthening of the West’ [Docs 29 and 30]. While the intention was supposed to flatter the continent, after a heavy US diplomatic concentration on China and the Soviet Union in 1972, Europeans were not complimented by being considered in the same category as supposedly hostile Cold War adversaries. Tensions prevailed across the Atlantic as the question of ‘leadership’ dominated various diplomatic strategies. Kissinger later revealed that he and Nixon, ‘sought to discourage the Europeans from unilateral initiatives to Moscow by demonstrating that in any competition for better relations with Moscow, America had the stronger hand’ (quoted in Garthoff, 1994a: 362–3). Yet Europeans did not want to be considered the junior partner in the Atlantic Alliance. In their response to the Year of Europe initiative they asserted the equality between the EEC and the United States and they felt
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aggrieved at the linkage used in US diplomacy: that US defence depended on European economic concessions. Nixon ultimately warned that ‘the Europeans could not have it both ways’. Europe was in the process of adjusting to the increased size of the Community and therefore did not want to make concessions to the United States. But ultimately, in the Atlantic Declaration of 26 June 1974, they agreed to the stated intention that the US–European relationship ‘be strengthened through harmonious relations in the political and economic fields’ (Lundestad, 1998a: 105–6; Garthoff, 1994a: 363) [Doc. 31]. The oil crisis that erupted with the Arab–Israeli War of October 1973 produced further tension between Washington and the Europeans. As the price of oil quadrupled over the autumn, the impact on Western economies was dramatic. It had the almost immediate effect of delaying further European integration and demonstrated how divided the Community was and how they differed from the United States on both the Arab–Israeli War and the handling of the oil crisis. Europeans depended on Middle Eastern oil much more extensively than the United States did. Some 80% of their supplies came from the region. Because of the Anglo-French memories of Suez and the US reaction, they considered it imperative to maintain good relations with the oil-producing Arab states. Generally, Europeans thought that the United States favoured Israel too much and did not permit the United States to use their bases or to over-fly their territories to re-supply Israel. When OPEC placed an oil embargo on the United States and the Netherlands for their support of Israel, European dependence on Middle East oil produced further tension. The British could depend to some extent on its North Sea reserves, but France imported some 70% of its petroleum and Germany imported about 94%, predominantly from the Middle East. Their dependence initiated an increased reliance on nuclear power, but in the meantime Europe was vulnerable to a potential cut in supplies. There was a bit of silver lining to the dark clouds, however, because, since the price of oil had quadrupled, European economies were filled with ‘petro-dollars’ from purchases made by the oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait (Payne, 1991: 70). In the aftermath of the crisis the Europeans negotiated bilateral agreements to maintain access to oil rather than pursuing negotiations as a community. The crisis accelerated changes in the international economic balance of power. Europe and Japan became increasingly competitive. During the 1970s the US share of global output fell from 38% to 25%, while the EEC rose from 26% to 30% (Painter, 1999: 80). Ultimately, as the Europeans distanced themselves from Washington, Kissinger considered Europe his ‘deepest problem’ (LaFeber, 1991: 278). He later reflected that ‘it was not one of the finer moments of allied relations’ (Yergin, 1991: 627). The Europeans, especially the British and the French,
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sought further cooperation and negotiation, yet US officials spoke of European appeasement and ‘being soft on OPEC’. European Political Cooperation (EPC), which stemmed from the early 1960s, was enhanced in the late 1960s due to the growing tensions with Washington, but did not really work properly until the breakdown of détente. Europeans realised that they needed to distance themselves from the increasingly antagonistic superpowers, and speak with a unified voice if they wanted to have a political impact in international relations. Greater cohesion would benefit member states that came under individual pressure from Washington, especially on regional issues. Though European Political Cooperation was strained to the limits during the OPEC crisis, it eventually proved a catalyst for greater cooperation. As long as Europeans did not speak with a unified voice Washington enjoyed greater leverage with both the Soviets and with individual European countries. As EPC developed during the 1980s and into the 1990s ‘Washington’s reactions ranged from anger to derision’. Such political cooperation was regarded as a challenge to US leadership in NATO. For the principal EEC powers it provided opportunities to distance themselves from Washington, and for the smaller powers it provided a means to avoid undue US pressure. Britain used EPC to distance itself from Washington and sometimes assumed political leadership in Europe because of its position on the UN Security Council, whereas Germany used EPC as a means to assert its power where it might otherwise have encountered more resistance (Payne, 1991: 28–9). E N D O F A U T H O R I TA R I A N G O V E R N M E N T
As Europe was enlarged through the inclusion of three northern members – Britain, Ireland and Denmark – its southern neighbours proved more problematic. Authoritarian government or the lack of economic development kept them out of the EEC until the 1980s. The transitions from authoritarian government in south-east and south-west Europe had implications for European enlargement and transatlantic affairs. The new members which joined during the 1980s not only enlarged the European project, but also brought more NATO members into the Economic Community, providing Washington with extra leverage. In the south-east, Greece and Turkey had both been members of NATO since 1952. Greek foreign policy had been anti-communist since the 1940s and its domestic political scene was intolerant of the left since the civil war. By 1964 George Papandreou and the Progressive Centre Union brought the first post-war leftist party to power. Dismissed by King Constatine II in 1965, government instability remained until the scheduled elections of May 1967. When an even more radical Papandreou was likely to return to office, the army seized power on 21 April 1967, and presided over a repressive regime.
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Authoritarian government remained in place until the abortive attempt to satisfy the Greek majority on Cyprus. By 1974 the Greek government backed a coup by Greek Cypriot units to revisit the option of union with the mainland. Days after the 25 July coup, Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit sent in troops to protect the Turkish population. The failed coup led immediately to the demise of the colonels in Greece. Civilian authority returned under Constantine Karamanlis, who ruled until 1985. His return to power, however, did not settle the situation on Cyprus. On 14 August 1974 Turkish forces invaded the island, taking one-third of the country in the north-east before Washington negotiated a cease-fire. A green line divided the country through its capital Nicosia (Reynolds, 2000: 342). Greece was admitted to the EEC in 1981, enlarging the body to ten members. Andreas Papandreou’s socialist party won elections on an antiNATO, anti-EEC and nationalist platform, but soon had to reconsider its views on both bodies. Economically the Greeks needed the EEC, and when Washington pointed out that it would have to bolster the Turkish forces if Greece pulled out of NATO, Athens changed its mind on that organisation as well. In south-west Europe, Portugal and Spain also experienced a transition from authoritarian rule during the mid-1970s. In Portugal, Antonio Salazar had ruled since 1933, being replaced by Premier Marcelo Caetano from 1968. The regime’s staunch opposition to the decolonisation of the Portuguese Empire in Africa caused dissatisfaction in the military, which was badly paid and increasingly influenced by the leftist ideas of the nationalists in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bassau. Moreover, the Portuguese economy was under strain as some 40% of its budget was used in the wars. The Armed Forces Movement (MFA), inspired by Caetano’s sacking of António de Spínola, removed Caetano from power in April 1974. The Carnation Revolution brought the MFA and Spínola to power, introducing radical socialist policies and immediate decolonisation. Spínola opposed the radical direction of the MFA and his attempt to seize exclusive power failed in 1975. Thereafter, Portugal fashioned a compromise between the Socialist Party, under Mário Soares, and Colonel Ramalho Eanes, who won elections in 1976 and formed a coalition government (Reynolds, 2000: 344–5). Weak coalition governments prevailed for a decade, after which entry to the EEC in 1986 and elections in 1987 brought Anibal Cavaco e Silva’s Social Democrats to power. Washington’s involvement with Portugal had far-reaching consequences for its foreign policy within NATO and with US policy in Africa. Portugal was admitted to NATO in 1949 primarily because of the importance of the Azores off the African coast. Portugal took a fairly isolated European position on the Arab–Israeli War of 1973, permitting the United States to use the Azores, which made Washington realise the importance of their
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bilateral relationship. Thus, Washington tended to side with Portugal on issues of decolonisation, especially on Angola and Mozambique. Washington continued to supply Portuguese forces with weapons, including napalm, to maintain the status quo in Portugal and south-west Africa. After the Portuguese coup, Angolan power was divided into three factions: UNITA (backed by the United States, Zaire and South Africa); the MPLA (backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba); and the FNLA (backed by China, Libya and Romania). The first two were united and backed by Washington, among others, and the MPLA, a Marxist coalition, received Cuban support (it broke with the Soviets in 1973). But by March 1975 the Soviets began supplying aid and Kissinger reacted to the situation within a Cold War framework. The CIA station chief was dismayed with the US reaction, suggesting that, ‘uncomfortable with recent historic events, and frustrated by our humiliation in Vietnam, Kissinger was seeking opportunities to challenge the Soviets’ (quoted in Kolko, 1988: 243). As the United States, South Africa, the Soviet Union and Cuba increased aid, the civil war intensified. Angola finally gained independence on 11 November 1975. The MPLA gained the upper hand from 1976. The US Congress prohibited aid to anti-MPLA groups through the Clark Amendment of 1976, but the Reagan administration resumed aid to UNITA in the mid-1980s (Kolko, 1988: 242–4). The conflict in Angola was just one of several events that began to unravel superpower détente. It also created considerable transatlantic tensions. Generally, the European allies did not share Washington’s view of the Soviet–Cuban ‘threat’. Europe considered the Angolan situation as peripheral to Alliance security, and British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan initiated a common EEC position on Angola. However, France unilaterally recognised the MPLA as the legitimate government, followed within days by most European governments, though Washington refused to do so. Instead, the latter continued its alliance with apartheid South Africa and UNITA. Generally, the Europeans expanded trade with Angola, inviting it to the Lomé Convention, in which the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries gained a special relationship with the EEC from February 1975. While Europe advanced economic and diplomatic options to solve the crisis, Washington opted for military solutions (Payne, 1991: 176–81). Finally, in Spain, following the death of Franco in November 1975, his appointed successor King Juan Carlos and his Premier Adolfo Suarez introduced a set of reforms. Elections were held in 1977, in which Suarez gained power. By 1982 the country elected a socialist government under Felipe González Márquez, which brought Spain into the EEC in 1986. During González’s rule the popularity of the communist parties dropped rapidly and economic modernisation accelerated with considerable investment from the United States and the EEC. In the same year the Spanish
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confirmed their membership of NATO, having joined in 1982 despite widespread public opposition. R E N E W E D C O L D WA R ?
The Trilateral Commission, a group of government and business leaders from the United States, Europe and Japan, which was formed to coordinate policy after the Third World challenges posed by the oil crisis of 1973 and the subsequent attempts to negotiate a New International Economic Order (NIEO), provided key American personnel to the Carter administration (1977–81). President Carter chastised his predecessors for their concentration on the East–West rivalry at a time when Europe and Japan were becoming increasingly important actors. He attempted to focus more on North–South dimensions of world politics and emphasised human rights as the ‘soul’ of his foreign policy. In that vein he promoted closer relations with the EEC and made the first presidential visit to the European Commission in January 1978. Apart from this, Europe received little attention in US policy during Carter’s tenure (Lundestad, 1998a: 109), and his attempt to move out of the East–West framework was ultimately unsuccessful. The differences between Europe and the United States over regional crises in the Third World, the demise of détente and Europe’s position on Palestine caused further friction in the late 1970s. As nationalist forces, sometimes backed by the Soviets, made gains in the Third World, and after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Washington initiated a military build-up, parts of which alienated Europeans, particularly the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe. Europeans did not fully share Washington’s fear of the Soviet Union and the new concerns with containment and rollback in regional crises; they did not want to see a return of the Cold War that prevailed in the final stages of the Carter administration and became even more stark under Reagan (1981–89). They continued with détente because their relations with the East were much deeper. The EEC further aggravated Washington in 1980 when it called for a Palestinian homeland, challenging Washington’s pro-Israeli position. Under Reagan the Cold War solidified. Defence budgets grew rapidly. His strategy was not that different from Carter’s but there was more emphasis on defence. Reagan spent $1.6 trillion from 1981 to 1986 instead of the $1.2 billion planned by the Carter administration. Expenditures jumped from $206 billion in 1980 to $314 billion in 1990. By 1985 the Pentagon was spending $28 million every hour. They wanted a 600-ship navy, to be able to fight three and a half wars simultaneously and to gain the superiority to prevail in a nuclear conflict. When the administration launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1983, Europeans thought they were more concerned with protecting themselves against Soviet
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intercontinental missiles than protecting the Europeans against the intermediate-range missiles. In European capitals there was widespread protest against Reagan’s nuclear programme (Paterson and Clifford, 1995: 258; Galbraith, 1992: 126). The Reagan administration wanted to negotiate with the Soviets from a position of strength and shunned talks in the early 1980s while it bolstered its military power. Reagan spurned the ‘peace offensive’ that Yuri Andropov offered Washington in 1982, an offer very similar to one later accepted at Reykjavik in 1986 (Walker, 1993: 272). US opinion and congressional reaction to the defence budget requests was ambivalent. They doubted whether the budget covering the years 1982–86, totalling $1.5 trillion, was strategically or militarily necessary or economically viable (Garthoff, 1994b: 33–42). Remilitarisation was intended to project US power in the world again and to manage the economic recession by using the defence procurements to financially pump up the US economy. With the injection of finance into the faltering economy, the Reagan administration attempted to reverse the downward trend of US economic strength relative to that of its main competitors: West Germany and Japan. Over the long term, however, it meant that the United States was spending up to 8% of its GNP on ‘defence’, while the German and Japanese figures were much lower, 3.5% and 1% respectively, allowing them to invest more in the civilian sectors of their economies (McCormick, 1989: 216–19). The economy grew rapidly, but the benefits were short term. Between 1981 and 1985 the trade deficit grew from $30 billion to $130 billion, and the federal budget deficit grew from $59.6 billion to $202.8 billion over five years. SDI apparently justified a part of this vast spending, though critics suggested that if it were viable, it would create more instability because the European allies would not be protected by the system and, if the United States was immune from attack, Moscow would be tempted to unleash its weapons before they became impotent through the deployment of SDI (McCormick, 1989: 219, 227–30; Dumbrell, 1997: 66–7). Reagan’s military build-up exacerbated tensions with Western Europe. There was a fundamental problem in US strategy with the Western Alliance. Washington was in a quandary: as it continued to spend on defence, its economic competitiveness with Europeans, and especially with Germany, declined. Yet, if it wanted to maintain its leadership of the Western Alliance, the military sphere was one in which Washington was clearly in the lead. Altanticism and Europeanism vied with each other. While Europeans relied on the United States to protect their security, there were growing doubts about whether Washington would risk its own destruction to assist Europe in a time of need. On the other hand, the separation of the blocs had become more
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apparent since the formation of the EEC in 1958 as Europe became a ‘major manufacturing and trading bloc’ which Washington regarded with increasing concern because it ‘posed a threat to American interests’ (Crockatt, 1995: 324). European agricultural policies dominated the transatlantic disputes during the 1970s. Washington found it had little influence on these economic issues, which were largely negotiated within the EEC. The tensions that characterised the Nixon period returned in the early 1980s. On security matters, Washington enjoyed greater influence because NATO was the main forum for discussions. Even though Washington initiated the military build-up in the late 1970s, it did not want to bear a disproportionate burden of spending on security while the Europeans remained economic competitors. Some leeway was expected, even though Europeans had no choice on the military build-up. Still, when the French revived the West European Union (WEU) in 1984 Washington worried about a ‘European caucus in NATO’ that may sap NATO’s strength and cohesion (Crockatt, 1995: 324–6; Lundestad, 1998a: 111). French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson revived the WEU, which included Britain, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, because the increased superpower tensions in the Third World were affecting areas in which Europeans had former colonial connections. The WEU, unlike NATO, allowed the members to take coordinated ‘out-ofarea action’. The French were particularly critical of US intervention, from Nicaragua to Cambodia, and wanted to assert a more independent line. The WEU allowed for European action outside the NATO structure (Payne, 1991: 30). The British were as usual out of line with their European neighbours. The relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher was unusually intense and the United States and Britain formed a close alliance throughout much of the decade. Though it was strong, it was galvanised in 1982 when Washington ultimately decided to support its Atlantic ally against its hemispheric ally during the Falklands War. Other issues outside Europe on which London and Washington agreed made continental Europeans wary of British intentions, and whether the British would inhibit the depth and breadth of the EEC by remaining too close to Washington. There were, however, some hiccups in the ‘special relationship’, especially in October 1983 when Washington decided to invade Grenada, a member of the British Commonwealth. The ostensible (and incredible) reason for the invasion was to rescue US medical students who were in an increasingly threatening situation after a coup deposed Maurice Bishop. The invasion sent a signal to Cuba and Nicaragua about US resolve and capability. Yet the timing of the invasion was more likely prompted by the heavy loss of US life and credibility in Lebanon, shortly before. Thatcher was incensed at the invasion. She considered softening her position on the Soviet Union to upset
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Washington and spoke on the BBC, condemning the violation of sovereignty by US forces (Dumbrell, 2001: 100–1). The relationship had moved a long way from 1982 when Reagan chose the British parliament to deliver one of his most famous speeches [Doc. 32]. Relations were repaired soon after, and by 1986 Thatcher was one of the few heads of government in Europe who supported Reagan’s bombing of Libya in April that year. Washington requested the use of British air bases and imperiously imposed a deadline of less than twenty-four hours for a response. Though the British cabinet was wary, it ultimately concluded that British interests lay in better ties with Washington than the fear of reprisals against British embassies in the Middle East. The French and Spanish refused permission to use their air space and over-fly their territory. The US operation was wider than agreed, as they hit civilian targets and the French Embassy in Tripoli (Dumbrell, 2001: 102–3). SOLIDARITY IN THE EAST OR WEST?
As Washington revived the Cold War atmosphere, the Soviet system was under increasing pressure. The economy had stagnated through the 1970s and come to a halt by the 1980s. The elderly Soviet leadership showed no signs of adjusting their stance in the Cold War to accommodate their internal problems. Yuri Andropov, and just over a year later Konstantin Chernenko, succeeded Leonid Brezhnev, following the latter’s death in November 1982. Along with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko they took a tough stance on the West, opposing the military build-up and Reagan’s deployment of missiles in Europe. As the tensions mounted between Washington and Moscow, the Europeans had the most to lose. Yet during the early 1980s Europeans on both sides of the iron curtain took an increasingly independent line within their alliances. East European indebtedness and the second round of oil price rises in 1979 accelerated economic crisis across the region. The oil price and recession in the West meant a reduced market for Polish goods in the West and limited the intake of the hard currency Poland needed to repay its debts (Crockatt, 1995: 276). In Poland in particular, the rising costs of fuel and food led to widespread protest and civil disobedience organised by the trade union Solidarity. Poland was vitally important for Moscow. It not only acted as the traditional buffer against Western aggression, but also increasingly acted as an intermediary with the West and as a conduit for Soviet objectives in the Third World. But perhaps most importantly, its potential lack of allegiance to the Warsaw Pact would bring Soviet credibility into question, especially after the 1968 Brezhnev Doctrine. By August 1980, following widespread unrest in Gdansk, Polish workers gained the right to form free trade unions. Under the leadership of Lech Walesa, Solidarity appeared to offer an alternative political option. Membership grew rapidly, supported by
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Polish intellectuals and the Catholic Church. By September 1980 the government was replaced. By December, Soviet, Czech and East German troops were on the Polish border. The Soviets could not ignore the Polish challenge, but still, within a year of the invasion of Afghanistan, they could not risk another war or further international condemnation (Reynolds, 2000: 483). Defence Minister General Wojiech Jaruzelski took over power in Poland and, in December 1981, martial law was declared and Solidarity was outlawed. However, the union continued its underground activities throughout the 1980s, supported in part by the Vatican and the CIA, until in 1989 the ban on the movement was repealed. If Afghanistan signalled the end of superpower détente, Poland confirmed it. However, the Europeans who gained much more from the connections with the East, the trade, and the not insignificant psychological relief from the diminished prospects of war brought on by such contact, were reluctant to end the period of détente. Washington immediately reacted to the Polish crisis by imposing sanctions on certain items and activities, and threatened to extend further sanctions to the Soviet Union and abandon arms control talks. For Washington, détente was indivisible. West Europeans did not share these views. The French and the West Germans did not follow Washington’s lead. The East had become too important for them, especially for access to Soviet gas and other minerals, including oil and uranium, let alone the benefits of increased communication and the family visits that had been dramatically increased between East and West Germans during détente (Ashton, 1989: 201). As Solidarity members were being rounded up, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was in East Germany with Communist Party leader Erich Honecker. The German response to the Polish crackdown was muted because of the depth of their détente. To criticise the action openly would have undermined the gains made since the initiation of Ostpolitik (Crockatt, 1995: 277). For some Europeans détente was divisible. Six West European countries were involved in a deal to finance a gas pipeline from the Soviet Union. The Reagan administration denounced these agreements, arguing that the Soviets would gain both foreign currency and technological know-how and create a European dependence on the Soviets. Europeans countered that Reagan continued to supply the Soviets with grain to appease his domestic farmers and the gas pipeline was vital for the domestic economies of Western Europe. Reagan pressured the six, but particularly Germany, to terminate the deal. When the Europeans refused to give up on the plans, Washington indicated that European corporations would not be permitted to use US-licensed technology in the venture. The June 1982 US ban incensed Europeans. The French Foreign Minister pointed out that the United States had declared ‘economic warfare on her allies’ and suggested that the Alliance might come to an end. Thatcher, too, was livid that British contractors would lose through the US action,
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especially at a time when Washington initiated new deals with Moscow on grain supplies. Ultimately Reagan relented under persuasion from Secretary of State George Shultz (LaFeber, 1991: 305–7; Reynolds, 2000: 484–5). After the introduction of martial law in Poland, in East Germany, Honecker was in a better position to improve relations with the West without the rise of Solidarity influencing events in his country. Contact was resumed with Helmut Kohl, who succeeded Schmidt in 1982. The two Germanys increasingly realised that recognition of the status quo was necessary to improve relations. Honecker knew that East Germany’s economic future was more closely tied to the West than to Moscow, and that should another war eventuate, both Germanys would be destroyed. Yet the US deployment of intermediate-range missiles to West Germany in the autumn of 1984 undid the momentum of détente within Europe. Honecker was subjected to greater pressure from Moscow to maintain the cohesion of the Eastern bloc and resist temptations to move towards the Western orbit. US rhetoric on the Soviet Union, and the missile deployment, slowed European détente. Most Europeans simply did not share Washington’s concerns. Lord Carrington, the former British Foreign Secretary and Secretary General of NATO from 1984, openly criticised Washington’s Soviet policy as ‘a silent war of nerves, broken only by bursts of megaphone diplomacy’ (Ashton, 1989: 202–3, 197). SINGLE EUROPEAN ACT
Following the recessions of the early 1980s EEC members increasingly realised that further integration was necessary to offset the growing competition from the United States and Japan. The economic upturn, coupled with the wariness of US political intentions, provided the motivation for greater coordination. The Reagan administration was much stronger than Carter’s in trade negotiations and frequently criticised European protectionism. By 1983 the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) created an informal currency zone around the Deutschmark, with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg linking their currencies to the former. Though most resistance was encountered by the Thatcher government, which was attempting to remain free of German economic strictures, the ERM signalled greater European coordination and greater cohesion. In the context of transatlantic economic tension and further European détente with Moscow after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in March 1985, West European countries moved towards creating a single market. They realised that the Single European Act (SEA), signed in 1985, created an economic area of some 380 million people that could more effectively face US competition. The SEA placed the EEC in a much better position to generate further trade with the liberalising East as manufacturers around
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Europe enjoyed greater economies of scale and reduced production costs. SEA meant that by 1993 economic barriers to goods, services, capital and labour would be removed. Its logical corollary was the move towards European Monetary Union (EMU), announced by Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission in 1989, and eventually a single currency, the Euro, which was partially introduced in 2001. Washington supported the advent of SEA, assuming, as usual, that greater European integration meant greater Western strength under US leadership. However, as the Act was being ratified by the EC’s member states, Washington became concerned about a more protectionist Europe, especially in the areas of agriculture. The alarm in Washington was brought about in part because since 1984 the United States had, for the first time, begun running a trade deficit with the EC (Lundestad, 1998a: 110). Hence the tensions over economic and security interests continued to dog the relationship even though the mutual benefits outweighed such concerns.
CHAPTER SEVEN THE END OF THE COLD WAR, 1987–2000
The Cold War ended rapidly in Europe and took most people by surprise. Four and a half decades of stalemate suddenly passed, leaving the United States uncertain of its future options and policies after Eastern Europeans liberated themselves. Washington had put pressure on the Soviet system for decades, with some respite during the period of détente. But it was the Europeans, specifically the people on the streets of Eastern Europe, who lifted the ‘iron curtain’. Events moved rapidly. Throughout, Washington seemed somewhat bewildered at the pace, and struggled to present a coherent reaction. More fundamentally, given that the Cold War tensions had produced greater cohesion within the Western Alliance, with the collapsing East, Washington worried about the future cohesion and direction of the West. It also worried about its future ‘leadership’ of West Europeans, and its influence in the East. Suddenly US national interests were presented with further opportunities and threats. The Cold War framework, which produced a certain kind of stability and security, was passing. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union enhanced the ideologies Washington ostensibly promoted, and provided further opportunities for expanding the Western economic sphere. But Washington had to tread carefully to ensure it remained influential in key issues. Specifically, it had to have a voice in the rapid process of German reunification. As Soviet power disintegrated, Washington had legitimate security concerns with the collapsed empire and the distribution of force, and specifically of nuclear materials to the various independent states. At the same time, Washington could not take West Europeans for granted. They had agendas of their own. Primarily they sought to widen and deepen the scope of the European Union, and pursued options that did not always accord with Washington’s interests. But as the 1990s progressed, the influential theories of US decline during the late 1980s gave way under a booming US economy. And as conflict broke out in the Balkans, Washington asserted its power in the face of European indecision. Simultaneously, the transatlantic framework extended into Central Europe as NATO expanded and engaged in its first out-of-area action in Yugoslavia. 105
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SOVIET NEW THINKING
The fundamental changes to the Cold War structure during the 1980s were initiated by Moscow. Soviet novye myshlenye (new thinking) was vital to the changes in the superpower relationship. By the autumn of 1984 as Chernenko’s health deteriorated, Mikhail Gorbachev increasingly took over, meeting foreign leaders and presenting a very different Soviet image to the world. By March 1985 Gorbachev assumed power. Throughout the Cold War, and especially during the 1980s, US pressure was obvious, but it was not the decisive factor in the collapse of Soviet power. The Soviet Union also faced several internal problems: the economy stagnated, Eurocommunism challenged Moscow and the rise of nationalism in the Soviet republics challenged the centrality of Soviet power. Once Gorbachev introduced reforms, he was unable to control their ultimate direction or secure the central position of the Communist Party. A new détente emerged from late 1985 onward. In 1986 Gorbachev introduced glasnost (openness), and later perestroika (restructuring) and novye myshlenye (new thinking), to encourage more debate about the system, to restructure and to rethink the Soviet Union’s costly foreign policies. Gorbachev and his Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, openly indicated that Soviet foreign affairs would have to be readjusted in order to pursue domestic reforms. US pressure was not pivotal in the Politburo’s decision to elect Gorbachev. His reforms were introduced against hard-line opposition. Konstantine Chernenko earlier resisted Yuri Andrapov’s attempted reforms after 1982. The conservative hardliners pressed for a 14% rise in defence spending among other plans for expanding Soviet defence capabilities. Thus, Gorbachev had to hide his reforming tendencies to gain power. His foreign policy speeches were ambiguous, with indications of change mixed up with traditional rhetoric to placate the hardliners. When Gorbachev ultimately introduced his reforms, the hardliners felt they had been deceived. Thus ‘the US policy of exploiting Soviet weakness “by every available means” did not force the Politburo to “choose... a man committed to Perestroika and disarmament”. It chose Gorbachev because he hid the scope of his goals for Perestroika and disarmament’ (English, 1997: 283–94). Once in power Gorbachev moved, banning nuclear testing and floating the idea in 1986 of eliminating nuclear weapons. Gorbachev’s reforms were not just a response to the imminent collapse of the Soviet economy, but also ‘driven by the principles of nonconfrontation and integration’. Gorbachev’s new thinking did not only result from the crisis of the 1980s, but was also rooted in the culture and ideas of the 1956 20th Party Congress; they were motivated by ‘humanizing and opening up their country’ and by ‘peaceful coexistence’ (English, 1997: 283–94). Washington had to be wary of some of the implications of
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Gorbachev’s agenda. As he downplayed the importance of ideology in Soviet foreign policy, he cut ties to Third World regimes that the Soviets traditionally supported. While this was beneficial to Washington, the corollary was that Gorbachev intended to enhance and deepen his relationship with the more profitable West Europeans. For Washington, the 1960s memories of a Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals were not far beneath the surface. The Atlantic framework had to prevail over the continental framework. The most immediate changes were obvious in the superpower summits of the late 1980s. The nuclear ‘balance of terror’ had hung over the world for forty-five years. At times it came particularly close to losing control, for example during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the 1973 Arab–Israeli War. The ‘balance of power’ and the various arms control negotiations provided a somewhat stable, albeit expensive and potentially lethal, global order. SALT I and SALT II proceeded in fits and starts. The INF (intermediate-range nuclear forces) negotiations started in 1981 because the Europeans and congressional pressure on Reagan insisted on them. By 1985, Gorbachev worried that the Soviet Union was ‘in danger of becoming Upper Volta with missiles’ and sought drastic changes in defence expenditure (McCormick, 1989: 230). The first of a series of superpower summits was held in Geneva in November 1985, and though nothing conclusive was agreed, the meeting initiated a relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev that facilitated future discussions. Reagan curbed his extremist rhetoric, and the dourfaced, long-time Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko was replaced with a smiling Shevardnadze. The summitry prepared the ground for a mutual trust and cohesion between the two leaders. In January 1986 Gorbachev took the initiative announcing a plan to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2000. Though the West considered it a propaganda stunt, the issue was put on the agenda. The following month, in February 1986, Gorbachev introduced sweeping changes with his ‘new thinking’ at the 27th Party Congress. Essentially, Gorbachev shifted the search for Soviet security to the political and economic spheres. The nuclear stand-off produced little security and abundant economic waste. Hence, the Soviet Union downplayed the military stand-off and sought to enhance its political and economic integration with Europe. Moscow now wanted to replace its traditional antagonism towards the West with an effort to integrate with the ‘Western’ world in an ‘interdependent’ relationship. The exclusive spheres of influence were outdated. One Gorbachev aid indicated to a US counterpart: ‘We are about to do a terrible thing to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy.’ And so, over the course of several summits, Gorbachev began to dismantle Soviet military presence. Substantial nuclear cuts were proposed and almost agreed upon at the October 1986
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summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. From late 1986 Reagan desperately needed a foreign policy success. The Republicans lost control of the Senate in November, the Iran–Contra scandals engulfed the administration throughout 1987 and the October stock market crash undermined confidence. By December 1987 the Washington summit produced agreement on the INF process. Intermediate-range missiles began to be destroyed from June 1988. The summitry continued through 1988 without much substance, though Reagan and Gorbachev strolling through Red Square replaced the harsh images of the Cold War. When President George Bush (1989–93) was elected in November 1988, Gorbachev met with both Reagan and Bush in New York. Further unilateral steps were taken to diffuse the Cold War. At the United Nations in December 1988, Gorbachev announced that the Soviets would reduce their armed forces by 500,000, and withdraw several units stationed in Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Furthermore, 10,000 tanks would be demobilised. It was clear that Moscow was retreating from its traditional stance; Washington was forced to make adjustments. REVOLUTION IN EASTERN EUROPE
Soviet power retracted in stages. From 1987 it began withdrawing from the Third World, most symbolically from Cuba in 1989. By late 1989 it let East Europeans determine their own fate, and by 1991 the Soviet Union dissolved. When George Bush entered the White House in 1989 it made very little difference to Soviet priorities. Rather than maintaining the Soviet hold on Eastern Europe, Gorbachev sought more profitable relations with Western Europe, and further accommodation with Washington. Under ‘new thinking’, pragmatism, not ideology, was more important. Gorbachev and his advisors considered it more prudent to move away from the bipolar axis around Washington and Moscow to one aimed at Western Europe, centred on connections between Moscow, London, Bonn, Paris and Tokyo. The ‘common European home’ promised more profit during a period of decline. But such connections could also undermine the cohesion of NATO (LaFeber, 1991: 326). On 4 June 1989, as Chinese authorities crushed the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, the communists were routed in Polish elections. Solidarity won an overwhelming number of the seats that they were allowed to contest. After the Soviet interventions of 1953, 1956 and 1968 in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and the internal crackdown on Solidarity in 1981, Soviet reaction was expected. But by this time Gorbachev had denounced the Brezhnev Doctrine and replaced it with the ‘Sinatra doctrine’, in which East Europeans could do it ‘their way’. The Warsaw Pact released a communiqué in July 1989 stating there were no
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‘universal models of socialism’. After Solidarity came to power in June, Hungary opened its borders to Austria in July, and thousands of East Germans began to move to the West through various embassies. In October, when Gorbachev visited East Germany, it was ironic that the crowds looked to the leader of the Soviet Union for their liberation, and not to the United States. Eric Honecker briefly contemplated another Tiananmen in Leipzig, but subordinates refused to carry out the repression. Without an authoritarian crackdown or Soviet interference, crowds gathered across cities in East Europe. On 9 November, the Berlin Wall, one of the most potent symbols of the Cold War, was breached and then destroyed. The ‘dominoes’ continued to fall in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. Nikolai Ceauçescu resisted, but was soon deposed and executed. East European economies adopted Western economic systems, though within years, having felt the ravages of economic liberalism without the social safety-nets, they moved away from unfettered capitalist systems. The US economic response to the liberation of Eastern Europe was meagre. This time there was no equivalent to the Marshall Plan. What justification could the Bush administration have provided to Congress for the expenditure of billions of dollars? There was no longer a looming Soviet ‘threat’ to justify such expense. And besides, yet another sentiment of isolationism was running through some of the political debates at the time. Americans, backed by certain congressional leaders, were calling for a ‘peace dividend’. They argued that it was time to redirect some of Washington’s foreign expenditure towards the ills of the domestic economy and social infrastructure. Of course the US rhetoric was somewhat triumphant, but Washington was careful not to gloat or provoke Moscow. On 12 December 1989, Secretary of State James Baker echoed both Churchill and Lincoln, recasting the Cold War within the assumed US traditions: From the Baltic to the Adriatic, an irresistible movement has gathered force – a movement of, by, and for the people. In their peaceful urgent magnitude, the peoples of Eastern Europe have held up a mirror to the West and have reflected the enduring power of our best values.
He indicated that the ‘signposts’ that had guided US foreign policy for decades had been lost. And with Gorbachev in Malta he stated: ‘The world has clearly outgrown the clash between the superpowers that dominated world politics after World War II.’ Washington carefully considered its security and economic interests. Soon, negotiations on Moscow’s entry into GATT were initiated. Six months later, in June 1990, the Washington summit aimed at destroying chemical weapons by 2002. The START negotiations were reinvigorated and negotiations on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) took off. By the Moscow summit of July 1991 Washington granted the Soviet Union ‘most favoured nation’ (MFN) status, which allowed equal access to US markets.
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But beyond economic integration, Washington offered Eastern Europe comparatively little. Minor aid packages were negotiated but after Reagan’s 1980s spending, their hands were tied by tight purse strings. Instead, Washington left the economic questions of the East largely to the European Community. G E R M A N U N I F I C AT I O N
One process Washington would not leave to either the Germans or the European Community (EC) was, of course, German unification. Washington supported German unification throughout the Cold War on the understanding that it would not occur within the context of a divided Europe. Washington did little to advance the process prior to 1990, though it was intimately concerned that West Germany was economically integrated into the EC and militarily integrated in NATO (Lundestad, 1998a: 142). But by the end of 1989 the European context had obviously changed dramatically and German unification was on the agenda. The speed with which unification proceeded took most by surprise. There had been no plans for unification in early 1989, but the collapse of the East German state, the tactics and political will of Chancellor Helmut Kohl and US backing pushed the process through within a year. Kohl advanced a plan for state unity within five to ten years in November 1989. His logic for currency unification, which was pushed through in February 1990, was that if a standard value to the Deutschmark was not introduced, there would be a wave of refugees chasing the West German Deutschmark. Gorbachev indicated that it was up to the two Germanys to decide on their future destiny, though intermittently Moscow also made it clear that it would not like to see a united Germany in NATO. Within days the 2+4 formula was worked out, giving the Germanys the lead in the negotiations with the four post-war occupation powers: the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. The currency union was rapidly brought into place in May 1990. The two central issues in the 2+4 process were the Polish borders and NATO. Kohl agreed that the Polish borders should not be renegotiated. As negotiations proceeded, Moscow provided that unification might depend on neutralisation, though this position was abandoned after Washington induced a change of heart in Moscow by signing a trade agreement in May (Reynolds, 2000: 562–4). Washington insisted that Germany remain in NATO. Soviet troops were allowed to stay in East Germany until 1994, with Kohl assisting with both the costs of their presence and then their removal. Washington and Bonn moved with some speed to conclude an agreement before Gorbachev was ousted from power. Because Bush and Kohl thought his successors might not be as amenable to unification within NATO, Gorbachev’s relative
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weakness within the Soviet Union gave him the opportunity to extract more concessions from Bonn and Washington. At the summit in late May and early June Washington drew up plans to assure the Soviets that a Germany in NATO would not harm their security. In effect, Washington maintained that Moscow would not necessarily become isolated, but that any objection to the NATO option might indeed lead to its isolation. Given the multitude of concerns that occupied Gorbachev and the various assurances received, Soviet objections to the NATO option were lifted (Clark, 2001: 90–4). Thus, Washington secured its continued influence with one of the Central Powers of Europe. Thatcher and Mitterrand in Britain and France respectively were alarmed at the prospect of a united Germany at the heart of Europe. Since Reagan left office, the Thatcher–Bush relationship was not as close or as ‘special’. Germany was increasingly the central concern for US diplomacy, as its economic potential and relative influence within the EC outweighed what Washington considered it could obtain through Britain. Indeed, Washington now referred to the Germans as ‘partners in leadership’. Thus, apart from historical reasons, Thatcher and Mitterrand tried to ensure that the London–Paris axis was intact as the Washington–Bonn axis grew stronger. Thatcher, however, felt that ultimately she could not rely on Mitterrand, and he calculated that the Soviets would block unification, therefore he did not have to do anything. London and Paris quietly urged Moscow to slow the process, and even Bush, despite favouring it, worried about the speed with which it was proceeding. Consequently, Secretary of State Baker requested that East German officials slow it down. Bush supported a Germany ‘whole and free’, as long as it was within NATO and tied to the West through the EC. Further European integration once more provided the answers to the security concerns. The EC and NATO, the European and the Atlantic frameworks could shape the process (Reynolds, 2000: 565; Lundestad, 1998a: 144–5). By September 1990 the treaty of union was concluded. Kohl won elections in a unified Germany by the end of the year. With Germany unified, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), comprising thirty-five countries, was able to declare the Cold War over in December 1990. Nevertheless, despite positive political support, Washington worried about the potential German economic strength in the context of relative US decline. Following the costs of absorbing Eastern Germany, the Union would become a formidable economic power. Globally, Washington was intent on maintaining its central position and ‘leadership’. In just over a year, secret plans revealed that Washington would oppose European competitors. A Pentagon Planning Paper indicated ‘a substantial American presence in Europe and continued cohesion within the Western alliance remain vital’. Russia, after all, still remained a nuclear power. In the
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security field Washington did not want a competitive relationship to emerge with Europe, thus it indicated that it ‘must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements that would undermine NATO’. And further, ‘we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order’ (Pentagon Planning Paper, cited in Ryan, 2000: 190). Washington maintained its influence on the future shape of European security: Germany would be democratic and remain in NATO. At that point Soviet concerns were allayed because NATO was prohibited from advancing beyond the Elbe river (Rupieper, 1992: 178–9). SOVIET DISSOLUTION, 1991
As indicated above, the failing Soviet economy dictated a withdrawal from the Third World after 1987. The Warsaw Pact became redundant after the liberation of Eastern Europe. Set up in 1955, some six years after its Western counterpart, NATO, the Warsaw Pact was mainly a forum through which Moscow controlled its neighbours. Its principal military actions had taken place against members of the Pact, in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, and by 1990 it was these two countries that led the demands for the removal of Soviet troops. Poland, wary of its borders with Germany and worried about its future security, was slower, but ultimately the Pact was dissolved in March 1991 (Clark, 2001: 95). Washington played a secondary role in the collapse of the Soviet empire. The revolutionary events of 1989 were of momentous importance given the political freedom the East Europeans gained. The Soviet elections of 1989 dismantled the system of one-party rule that had existed since 1917. Following the August 1991 coup and Gorbachev’s resignation in December, the ‘Union’ fractured into its separate republics. Gorbachev had not intended to preside over the demise of the Soviet Union, though the openness he initiated from the top invited movement from below which ultimately overwhelmed his reforms. It was a fantasy to believe he could control events without repression, or to expect either the European satellites or later the Soviet republics to remain loyal. Gorbachev tried to retain socialism but his reforms were a double-edged sword that allowed East Europeans and the Soviet republics to cut their ties with the centre. When the Baltic republics pressed for greater freedom in late 1990 and early 1991 Gorbachev cracked down on them. The West’s response to this crackdown was largely muted as it was unwilling to alienate Moscow’s support for the Gulf War coalition. Though freedom was permitted in East Europe, Gorbachev put the Soviet republics in another category and drew ‘a firm line against secession from the Soviet Union’. Washington did not press the
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situation too far because it believed that more effective results could be achieved by allowing Gorbachev to lead on the issue. If Washington took a confrontational approach or protested too much, progress might not be as swift. President Bush spoke of a ‘Europe whole and free’, but US influence was limited and its economic largess was also meagre due to the state of its own economy (Garthoff, 1994b: 398–9, 576–622). The official, overriding US concern in the past forty-five years had been the containment of Soviet power. It was this concern that drove Washington to cement its security concerns with the future direction of Western Europe through NATO. The viability of these states and the pursuit of US economic opportunity helped the United States integrate its economy with those of Western Europe. However, Gorbachev intended to preserve a modified version of communist rule. According to Daniels, the ‘collapse of Communism was not a sudden plunge into revolutionary disorder like 1917; it came through step-by-step, cumulative change in the system, unwitting before 1985 and conscious after that date’ (Daniels, 1993: 1–4). Gorbachev reacted to the failure of the Soviet system, a failure that resulted from internal conditions, not necessarily as a result of external pressure. Perhaps patience alone, rather than containment or rollback, would have resulted in the same outcome. The relationships between Bush and Gorbachev, Baker and Shevardnadze, provided a predictable stability. This mutual alliance of a ‘relatively moderate’ elite permitted them to pay less attention to their respective domestic hardliners, but it also blinded them to other pressing concerns in both their societies. Bush largely ignored the US economy, and Gorbachev relied too much on his external popularity and connections with the West, he ignored the task of maintaining a domestic constituency, lost popularity to Boris Yeltsin, and ultimately formed expedient alliances with the Soviet right. Similarly, the Bush administration ignored the Soviet politicians who advocated a more democratic system and further economic liberalism. Washington argued that its fidelity to Gorbachev encouraged gradual change and the peaceful transfer of power. Ultimately, Bush supported Gorbachev because he preferred gradual evolution in the Soviet Union rather than revolution. Instead, a failed coup by the communist right not only killed its own chances of gaining power, but also led to the fall of Gorbachev, resulting in the rise of Boris Yeltsin, whom Washington had largely ignored to date. T H E E U R O P E A N U N I O N O R T R A N S AT L A N T I C U N I T Y
As one US national interest concerning security vis-à-vis the Soviet Union was addressed, other economic interests became more pressing with the intensified union of the West Europeans. But it was this very act of
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deepening the European integration that also solved the perennial ‘German question’. The fears of German power could be overcome through greater unification on economic, political and military issues. Political and economic union ran roughly in tandem from the late 1980s onwards. By 1989, President of the European Commission Jacques Delors proposed European Monetary Union (EMU). It was a natural consequence of the Single European Act. French misgivings on German unification were offset by German misgivings on the EMU. However, by April 1990, Kohl and Mitterrand promoted the ideas of accelerating both political and economic union for the twelve member states. The scheduled date for achieving this outcome lay safely in the future to allay their immediate concerns. However, as Europe moved towards union, Washington again tried to emphasise the importance of the transatlantic relationship. To that end regular contact was initiated between Washington and Brussels and by November 1990 the Transatlantic Declaration pushed for greater cooperation and more formal links between the United States and Europe. For Lundestad, the ‘Declaration represented another attempt to contain structural changes and political and economic differences within new formulations and intricate new machinery for consultations’ (1998a: 114). Eventually, after a social chapter was included and various opt-out conditions were guaranteed, the Maastricht Treaty was signed in December 1991, creating the European Union (EU) [Docs 33 and 34]. Washington once again provided the necessary rhetorical support. At once it saw the relationship as being of mutual benefit, and yet also voiced concern about the development of a European trade zone that would exclude the United States. Throughout the 1990s the United States and Europe conducted several trade disputes. Though the EU led on integrating Eastern Europe, Washington did not want to be cut out of the area. In 1995, when Austria, Sweden and Finland joined the Union, Washington sought economic compensation for the areas of economic exchange that it would lose. The disputes ranged over a number of issues and products. Washington was particularly concerned about the Europeans giving their former colonies preferential treatment on trade. ‘Banana Wars’ persisted throughout the decade on the terms of access to the EU for bananas grown by US corporations or those grown in former European colonies. Washington argued that such preferential arrangements ran counter to the agreements under GATT and, from 1995, the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Further disputes arose over an attempt by Washington to proscribe trade with Cuba through the Helms–Burton Act of 1996, to which the Europeans objected. Similarly, European trade with Iran and Libya encountered difficulties in Washington (Lundestad, 1998a: 123). The quest to maintain the US presence in Europe and to exert its ‘leadership’ is central to understanding the importance placed on various European and transatlantic institutions. As the European Union became
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more assertive and independent, Washington concentrated on enhancing the centrality of NATO and underpinning its importance to the transatlantic relationship, and of course to US leadership. An expanded security structure taking in more members than the United States and the West Europeans would provide Washington with even more influence. From November 1991, the former Warsaw Pact members became involved in the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, with the intention of expanding the security network towards the East during the decade. Simultaneously, the West European Union (WEU) became more active. The WEU challenged the centrality of the United States. Washington worried that Europeans might be able to provide for their own security, cutting out US influence and leadership. Hence, the WEU was supported as long as it remained generally under NATO, but not if it grew closer to the EU. The tensions between the prospects of European independence and the US desire for interdependence were still vying with each other. President Clinton (1993–2001) was intent on maintaining NATO supremacy, interdependence and US ‘leadership’. By January 1994 NATO agreed that there could be a separate European Security and Defence Identity, but emphasised that the overall strategic goals remained the same. Washington’s desire to maintain its influence in Europe was seen in the 1994 Partnership for Peace initiative, which joined NATO and East European states in discussions on security issues. Russia too joined the process, but objected to further enlargement. By 1995 France returned to the NATO command structure, which it had left in the 1960s, and by 1997 NATO admitted Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. Washington, therefore, had some influence over these countries before they had the option of joining the European Union (Lundestad, 1998a: 116–22) [Docs 35 and 36]. Under the new defence arrangements Europeans were expected to assume more of the financial burden for their security and NATO began considering its new role in the post-Cold War era, taking in the possibility of conducting ‘out-of-area’ operations. Though NATO had various institutional reasons for perpetuating its existence, even after the original rationale had passed, Congress demanded change. The defence arrangements were too expensive without further European contributions and its limited scope meant that it served few US interests, beyond containing Europe. Apart from the congressional pressure, Central Europeans sought greater security guarantees after 1994, when Russia once again became much more assertive and much more nationalistic. To this end Washington pushed the Partnership for Peace forward over West European objections (Reynolds, 2000: 626). The Central European powers desired inclusion against the possibility of Russian influence. But taking the Western Alliance eastward conjured up possibilities of Russian reaction. By 1997 a Permanent Joint Council was set up between NATO and Moscow to assuage Russian fears of the Western
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threat. However, Russian objections to NATO enlargement were not addressed during the process; they were simply ignored. NATO ultimately expanded simply because it could. The post-Cold War period had obviously distributed increasing power to the West (Clark, 2001: 108–10) [Doc. 37]. Y U G O S L AV I A : B O S N I A T O K O S O V O
The European and transatlantic multilateral institutions, the EU and NATO, both products of the Cold War, looked East towards further expansion. US economic interests expanded through the decade with a booming economy and deeper globalisation. Washington also considered itself in a unique position to extend the influence of its ideologies, culture and values. But as all of this was taking place, severe ethnic, religious and nationalistic conflict broke out throughout the world. For Europe, the principal concern was the conflicts in the Balkans. Again, US power and influence were ultimately exerted to bring a sort of peace to the region, in the process demonstrating an ability to act concertedly where the Europeans had failed. From 1989 Slobodan Milosˇevíc played on the theme of Serbian nationalism to galvanise power in Yugoslavia. By September 1989 Kosovo’s autonomy was rescinded under a new constitution. Disgruntled with Milosˇevíc’s greater centralisation and Serb domination, Slovenia and Croatia, with German encouragement, declared independence. Washington seemed uninterested in the process. The Serbs pulled out of Slovenia, but Croatia did not gain its independence until 1992, after severe conflict and a tardy Western response. The conflict was far worse in Bosnia–Hercegovina. Stuck between Croatia and Serbia, Bosnia’s population was ethnically diverse. Catholic Croats occupied the north-west, Serb Orthodox Christians the north and east, and Bosnian Muslims, the largest group, were stuck in the middle. In March 1992, encouraged by the United States, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, pushed for independence after winning a referendum on the issue. The concurrent reactions from the Croat and Serb communities, and the reactions from the Bosnian Muslims, initiated conflict that lasted until December 1995. Ethnic cleansing became pervasive, though the main victims were the Muslims who did not have the backing of either Serbia or Croatia. The Western arms embargo meant that Bosnian Muslims could obtain far fewer weapons in the war. Europe was slow to grasp the magnitude of the conflict. While the Russians supported the Serbs and the Germans supported the Croats, France and Britain initiated the arms embargo and the delivery of humanitarian aid in an attempt to stop the Balkan Wars engulfing Europe (Reynolds, 2000: 622–3). Initially, Washington had deferred to the Europeans, expecting them to take the lead in resolving the crisis.
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The failure of the Europeans’ response was partly conceptual. They accepted the argument that the war was about competing nationalists and from 1993, especially after Clinton became president, they blamed Serb nationalism. According to Kaldor, however, the war ‘was not against each other but … against the civilian population and against civilian society’. Hence the various European and American ‘solutions’ accepted the concept of a struggle between nationalists and sought their agreement without addressing the issue of civil society. ‘Essentially’, Kaldor writes, ‘the problem was conceived as a problem of borders and territory, not as a problem of political and social organisation’ (Kaldor, 1999: 57–60). The only way to stop the ethnic cleansing according to this thinking was to separate the powers, ‘but partition was a cause of war as much as a solution’. However, ethnic cleansing was not necessarily a by-product of the war; it was one of the goals of war. Thus ‘the only possible solution was one which accepted the results of ethnic cleansing’. So, from the spring of 1993, Lord Carrington, the EU negotiator, proposed the division of Bosnia into three, without success. David Owen for the EU and former US Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, who co-chaired the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, proposed a division of the territory into ten sections. By May 1993 the Serbs rejected the plan. A US-brokered agreement between the Croats and the Bosnians brought some stability in 1994 as Owen tried to complete his plans and Vance was replaced by Thorvald Stoltenberg. Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Russia eventually formed the Contact Group to deal with the issue. By the summer of 1995 Washington reinvigorated its attempt to find a solution through the Dayton Agreement, which differed little from the 1992 plan. The essential difference was that the British–French Rapid Reaction Force entered Bosnia, and NATO began to strike Serb targets from the air. But with the transfer of certain territories and continued ethnic cleansing the process had largely been completed on the ground. There was little more that the Serbs or the Croats needed to do to achieve their aims. Indeed, the eventual settlement was quite similar ‘to what Milosevic and Tudjman had discussed way back in March 1991’ (Kaldor, 1999: 57–60). Though US power and the ends of ethnic cleansing were decisive, its initial response was slow. Bosnia was seen as an issue the Europeans should deal with. The lack of an effective European solution strained transatlantic relations. As Richard Holbrooke, who brokered the Dayton Agreement in late 1995, points out: ‘By the spring of 1995 it had become commonplace to say that Washington’s relations with our European allies were worse than at any time since the 1956 Suez crisis’ (Holbrooke, 1999: 360–1). But Suez occurred during the Cold War; hence the Atlantic divisions could be contained in the face of an external opponent. Bosnia, however, damaged the transatlantic relationship. As Washington let the Europeans lead in
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Bosnia, Europeans accused Washington of ignoring Europe after the Cold War. The strategy of selective engagement was problematic because it appeared as though the United States was either over-extended or that it lacked the will power. As the various propositions for intervention in Bosnia were debated, or the tactical opportunities of the ‘lift and strike’ policy (lifting sanctions on Bosnia and striking the Serbs) were considered, the importance of Bosnia to US interests were also debated. Pro-interventionists pointed to the humanitarian situation, the prospects of European instability or the possibility of wider regional conflict. US economic interdependence with Europe was vital to the US economy and instability would undermine US interests. A Clinton official compared the situation to the Gulf, where the interests were direct and ‘the American people could understand’, but in Bosnia the consequences were considered ‘just as important, [but] they are less easy to describe’. Former Secretary of State James Baker indicated that it was one thing for the war to be fought within Bosnia, to be contained, but quite another should it threaten to expand: ‘We have to make it clear that stability in Europe is the key. That should be the new NATO mission, whatever it takes, wherever it is. Because if we do get a wider Balkan war, we’ll be back. Forget that reduction in US troops in Europe. We’d be back’ (Baker, quoted in Ryan, 1995: 120–2). Ultimately, Washington did return with negotiations in August 1995, bombing in September, a cease-fire in October, the Dayton Agreement in November and US troops involvement in December. David Owen argued that a better deal could have been obtained in January 1993, had Clinton endorsed the Vance–Owen plan. The Dayton process was the only one Washington would accept, and it had to be American: ‘Washington was unwilling to cede power to Europe as the guarantor of regional security’ (Ignatieff, 1996: 8). By 1998 Milosˇevíc again turned to Kosovo to shore up his domestic position. Military action and further ethnic cleansing were carried out against the dominant Albanian population who sought separation. Belgrade refused to grant Kosovo greater autonomy despite Western pressure. Bosnia had been contained within its borders, but in Kosovo there were speculations that the conflict might spill over into neighbouring Macedonia, with implications for Greek, and therefore EU, stability. From the early 1990s Washington realised that EU instability would require a US military response. The Bush administration sent a ‘Christmas warning’ to Milosˇevíc in late 1992: ‘In the event of conflict in Kosovo caused by Serbian action, the United States will be prepared to employ military force against the Serbs in Kosovo and in Serbia proper.’ The attitude was that Bosnia and Croatia could burn out, but Kosovo reached the geo-political limit with Europe. It was the ‘red line’ that could not be crossed, according to Clinton admin-
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istration officials, and it would bring in NATO because of the threat to European stability (Danner, 1999: 10). Negotiations were pursued through the Rambouillet process, though they were not exhausted. In essence, the West provided the Serbs with an ultimatum. Rambouillet also effectively called for free reign for NATO within Kosovo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After the Western deadline for compliance passed, United States and NATO credibility was on the line. The West was caught in its own ultimatum. Apparently London and Washington thought the operations would be over within days and Milosˇevíc would be back at the negotiating table. No contingency plans were made. One day before NATO began its bombing campaign Milosˇevíc responded through the Serbian National Assembly. Military occupation was rejected, but he requested that the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) facilitate a diplomatic solution ‘toward the reaching of a political agreement on a wide-ranging autonomy for Kosovo and Metohija’ and indicated a ‘willing[ness] to review [the] size and character of international presence’ (Chomsky, 1999b: 2). Though verification would be problematic, NATO did not investigate the possibilities. NATO’s response involved a bombing campaign that was disproportionate and exacerbated the immediate problems. The ethnic cleansing accelerated, as did the flood of refugees. Days after the bombing commenced on 27 March 1999, the American NATO Commanding Officer, General Wesley Clark, admitted that it was ‘entirely predictable’ that violence would intensify after the bombing. Clark soon indicated: ‘The military authorities fully anticipated the vicious approach that Milosevic would adopt, as well as the terrible efficiency with which he would carry it out’ (Chomsky, 1999a: 20–1). By 6 May the statement of the Group of Eight leading industrial powers did not differ that much from Milosˇevíc’s 23 March resolution. With the threat of the introduction of ground troops, Milosˇevíc eventually withdrew his forces. The brutal Serb atrocities were evident in the unearthing of the mass graves throughout the region. Ultimately, the Independent International Commission on Kosovo argued that the NATO campaign was neither a military success nor failure. Serbia was forced to withdraw its troops and police, and to sign an agreement closely resembling that proposed by Rambouillet. The systematic oppression of Kosovar Albanians was halted, but massive ethnic cleansing was not prevented. Moreover, the ‘overall level of repression in Serbia increased’ and Milosˇevíc stayed in power until he was deposed some time after (Independent International Commission on Kosovo, 2000: 5).
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PART FIVE
ASSESSMENT
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CHAPTER EIGHT EXTENDING THE WEST
There is an ocean between US views of Europe after independence, the war against Britain of 1812, President Monroe’s 1823 warning to Europe to stay out of the Western Hemisphere and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott’s suggestion at end of the twentieth century, that ‘in the twenty-first century, as in the twentieth, the well-being of the United States will depend in large measure on what happens in Europe. In other words, the EuroAtlantic community is indivisible, and the security link across the ocean is unbreakable’ (Talbott, 1999). The shift in the centre of power over the two centuries has been remarkable and to some extent West European integration after the Second World War was carried out to offset US power and influence. It is an irony too that the American colonies broke away from Britain because, among other reasons, their self-determination was being undermined and that by the 1980s prominent Europeans, from Germany, Britain, Greece and the Netherlands, including Willy Brandt, complained that Washington treated them ‘like a colony’ (Kaplan, 1982: 111). Of course in the interim US power and interests have changed dramatically. The Western Hemisphere still refers to North and South America, but the concept of the West truly extended itself across the Atlantic to incorporate Western Europe until 1990 and increasingly over the last decade also incorporated former East European countries. The argument through this book has been that the United States, like any other power, pursued its national interests. These interests have been broadly defined to include issues of security, economy and ideology. Of course popular culture is another important dimension but is beyond the scope of this study. Over the twentieth century Europe changed dramatically and US interests adjusted accordingly. The continental European empires in central and Eastern Europe collapsed. European powers twice fought in world wars. The continent divided in the Cold War for over forty-five years. The overseas West European empires also began to crumble. West European integration, initiated under American direction, increasingly defined its own direction. And finally the collapse of the Soviet Empire once more changed 123
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the concept of ‘Europe’. Throughout the century Washington has promoted its economic, ideological and security interests. At times they accorded with various European powers and at others they clashed. There was obvious animosity towards the belligerents in the world wars and to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but there was also tension between the United States and West Europeans over issues of empire, economic competition, and the question of ‘leadership’ in the Alliance. US national interests dictated an involvement in European affairs. US motives in the First World War included its insistence on neutrality rights, its desire not to see the continent fall under the control of hostile powers, its need to project its economy into more affluent markets, and its need to be a voice at the post-war settlements. Though Washington retreated politically during the 1920s and 1930s, its economic interests still lay in connections with Europe and, as fascism extended its power, US security concerns were not unaffected. In war Washington could defeat the authoritarian challenge and undermine the Western Europe empires, not only to promote democracy and self-determination, but also to gain economic access to areas that had hitherto limited access. Again, during the Cold War Washington extended economic and security assistance to the West Europeans against the Soviet Union, but the framework of Western union was always important. Washington insisted that the West integrate within an Atlantic framework, even though Europeans often preferred European solutions. Armin Rappaport pointed out some two decades ago that in the postwar era US support for European integration was a ‘first’; ‘it was the first time a major power fostered unity rather than discord among nations in a part of the world where it had significant interests. The old slogan of “divide and conquer” gave way to “unify and federate”’ (Rappaport, 1981: 121). Geir Lundestad, citing Jean Monnet, reinforces the argument that ‘instead of basing its policy on ruling by dividing, [Washington] consistently and resolutely backed the creation of a large Community uniting peoples previously apart’ (Lundestad, 1998a: 3). The unity became obvious in institutions like the OEEC and then the OECD, and also in NATO. The shared objectives of ‘double containment’ of both the Soviet Union and Germany cemented the relationship. ‘Atlanticism’ underpinned the US motives for assistance. Washington thought that European unity had to be managed by the Americans; they were the only ones who could protect them against the Soviets (Kaplan, 1982: 113). But the Atlantic framework also imposed limits on the Europeans; at various junctures the OECD and NATO ensured that US interests and influence could be exerted, instead of permitting the OEEC and later the EDC to pursue their own agendas. These transatlantic institutions were vital in order to preclude economic or political arrangements from which Washington might be excluded. They facilitated US influence and interests without compromising its sovereignty. Initial ideas
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for a transatlantic supranational body never developed seriously because Washington was not willing to relinquish any sovereignty, even though it expected as much of the Europeans (Lundestad, 1998a: 148). The relationship, for all its benefits, was also characterised by these tensions. From the 1940s Washington never really worked out the tensions between promoting a federated Europe that one day might challenge the United States and promoting an Atlantic defence community through NATO. Indeed, Dulles pointed out in 1949 that ‘the Economic Recovery Act and the Atlantic Pact were the two things which prevented a unity in Europe which in the long run may be more valuable than either of them’ (cited in Kaplan, 1982: 122). And indeed the divisions persisted along with the cooperation. The British more often than not resisted becoming entirely ‘European’ by maintaining its ties to empire and the United States. France put up resistance to the US policy of rearming Germany in the 1950s and Washington let the British and French know in no uncertain terms where power lay during the Suez crisis. In the 1960s many Europeans deplored US action in Vietnam and de Gaulle withdrew from NATO command (Kaplan, 1982: 117). By the 1970s division characterised the response to the OPEC crisis, in the 1980s arguments flared over the gas pipeline from Russia, and in the 1990s divisions abounded over Bosnia and bananas. If the transatlantic relationship is ‘unbreakable’, there is most certainly a need to reexamine the balance of power within the relationship, especially after the passing of the external Soviet ‘threat’ that provided the glue for the Atlantic relationship. While mindful of Monnet, Rappaport and Lundestad’s argument that the US ‘empire’ was enhanced through unification rather than division, one must also look to the wider European context. The division of Europe as a whole facilitated US hegemony over Western Europe and the pursuit of its national interests. The Cold War constructs of the West and the East papered over many of the attendant divisions within each sphere of influence. What motivations for unity were there except fear of the Soviet threat or the fear of a German revival? What motivations did the US Congress have to support Truman’s request to assist Greece and Turkey, except to extend US interest, preclude Soviet or leftist influence and replace Pax Britannica. The division of Europe was necessary to obtain funds for the Marshall Plan. Why would Congress support such an amount of aid except in return for the division? Rebuilding an entire continent, after the German and Soviet armies destroyed the region, would overwhelm US capacity. As Gardner argues, ‘without an “enemy” to focus on, how could the bedevilling European rivalries of the interwar years have been overcome?’ (Gardner, 1993: 263). The Cold War construct and European division were essential elements of the Atlantic Community and US hegemony in Europe. Questions still remain for the twenty-first century. Since the late 1950s
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European economic power has increasingly challenged the United States. Of course the economies complement each other far more than certain divisions suggest, but nonetheless they do reflect certain fissures in the relationship. The idea that a more unified Europe would some day challenge the United States was not considered until de Gaulle pressed his case against Washington. And still more recently French President Chirac advocated ‘ever closer union’ to avert the US ‘attempt at domination in international affairs’ (Economist, 9 September 2000). The disjunction between European Union economic competition and defence cooperation within NATO still causes tension. How far East will the West go? How many members will NATO accept? What will the Russian reaction be? Will the EU pursue a more unified political and defence role? How will US policy evolve to accommodate a larger and more independent Europe?
PART SIX
DOCUMENTS
1.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 4 JULY 1776
2.
PRESIDENT WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS, 17 SEPTEMBER 1796
3.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE, 2 DECEMBER 1823
4.
THE OPEN DOOR NOTES, 6 SEPTEMBER 1899 AND 3 JULY 1900
5.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S COROLLARY, 6 DECEMBER 1904
6.
PRESIDENT WILSON’S MESSAGE TO THE SENATE ON NEUTRALITY, 19 AUGUST 1914
7.
WILSON’S ADDRESS TO THE SENATE ON ‘PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY’, 22 JANUARY 1917
8.
WILSON TO A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS ON A DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY, 2 APRIL 1917
9.
WILSON TO CONGRESS: THE FOURTEEN POINTS, 8 JANUARY 1918
10.
JOHN MEYNARD KEYNES, THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE, 1919
11.
SENATOR HENRY CABOT LODGE OBJECTS TO THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 12 AUGUST 1919
12.
THE NAVAL TREATY, 6 FEBRUARY 1922
13.
THE KELLOGG–BRIAND TREATY, 27 AUGUST 1928
14.
THE FIRST NEUTRALITY ACT, 31 AUGUST 1935
15.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, THE FOUR FREEDOMS, 6 JANUARY 1941
16.
THE ATLANTIC CHARTER, 14 AUGUST 1941
17.
THE ‘DECLARATION ON LIBERATED EUROPE’, YALTA CONFERENCE, FEBRUARY 1945
18.
GEORGE KENNAN, THE LONG TELEGRAM, 22 FEBRUARY 1946
19.
CHURCHILL’S IRON CURTAIN SPEECH, 5 MARCH 1946
20.
THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE, 12 MARCH 1947
21.
THE MARSHALL PLAN, 5 JUNE 1947
22.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY, WASHINGTON, 4 APRIL 1949
23.
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL PAPER 68 (NSC-68), 14 APRIL 1950
24.
THE TREATY OF ROME, 25 MARCH 1957
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25.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY ON THE BERLIN CRISIS, 25 JULY 1961
26.
KENNEDY’S 1962 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
27.
KENNEDY’S GRAND DESIGN, PHILADELPHIA, 4 JULY 1962
28.
PRESIDENT NIXON OUTLINING NEW ECONOMIC POLICY, 15 AUGUST 1971
29.
NIXON’S STATEMENT ON US COOPERATION WITH THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY, 27 OCTOBER 1972
30.
NIXON’S REMARKS ON THE ‘YEAR OF EUROPE’, 15 FEBRUARY 1973
31.
THE OTTOWA DECLARATION ON ATLANTIC RELATIONS, 26 JUNE 1974
32.
PRESIDENT REAGAN’S SPEECH TO THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS, 8 JUNE 1982
33.
THE TRANSATLANTIC DECLARATION, 1990
34.
THE TREATY ON EUROPEAN UNION, 12 FEBRUARY 1992
35.
THE PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE INVITATION DOCUMENT, 10 JANUARY 1994
36.
BASIC DOCUMENT OF THE EURO-ATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP COUNCIL, 30 MAY 1997
37.
THE MADRID DECLARATION ON EURO-ATLANTIC SECURITY AND COOPERATION, 8 JULY 1997
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T H E D E C L A R AT I O N O F I N D E P E N D E N C E , 4 J U LY 1 7 7 6
Principally Thomas Jefferson drafted the US Declaration of Independence in June 1776. It set out the ideals of self-government and declared the thirteen states independent of the British. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it. … Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 1, p. 100.
DOCUMENT 2
P R E S I D E N T WA S H I N G T O N ’ S FA R E W E L L A D D R E S S , 17 SEPTEMBER 1796
Washington was primarily concerned with ruling himself out as a presidential candidate in the future. However, the influential sections below outline the reluctance of the United States to become engaged in entangling alliances and is often cited to bolster isolationist arguments. The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collusions of her friendships or enmities. Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a
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different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. Why forgoe the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronising infidelity to existing engagements. … Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies. Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences. … Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 1, pp. 169–75.
DOCUMENT 3
THE MONROE DOCTRINE, 2 DECEMBER 1823
President Monroe’s speech, later known as his doctrine has been described as a diplomatic declaration of independence. It sets out the case for a separation of spheres between the United States and Europe. … [T]hat the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. … The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. … We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should
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consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. … Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 1, pp. 235–7.
DOCUMENT 4
THE OPEN DOOR NOTES, 6 SEPTEMBER 1899 AND 3 J U LY 1 9 0 0
The Open Door notes were principally advanced to various European powers to prevent them carving up China into colonies as Africa had been and maintaining the US ability to trade in the region. … Earnestly desirious to remove any cause of irritation and to insure at the same time to the commerce of all nations in China the undoubted benefits which should accrue from a formal recognition by the various powers claiming ‘spheres of interest’ that they shall enjoy perfect equality of treatment for their commerce and navigation within such ‘spheres,’ the Government of the United States would be pleased to see His German Majesty’s Government give formal assurances and lend its cooperation in securing like assurances from the other interested powers that each within its respective sphere of whatever influence – … preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire. … Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 9–11.
DOCUMENT 5
P R E S I D E N T R O O S E V E LT ’ S C O R O L L A RY, 6 DECEMBER 1904
The Roosevelt Corollary was advanced in part to prevent European powers from moving into the Western Hemisphere to collect debts or maintain order. Instead the United States indicated that it would be responsible for the maintenance of order and the exercise of a regional police power. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the
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adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 33–4.
DOCUMENT 6
P R E S I D E N T W I L S O N ’ S M E S S A G E T O T H E S E N AT E O N N E U T R A L I T Y, 1 9 A U G U S T 1 9 1 4
With a strong isolationist sentiment still prevalent in US politics and with significant ethnic minorities that would oppose US entry into the war on the side of the British, President Wilson appealed for Americans to remain neutral. My fellow countrymen: I suppose that every thoughtful man in America has asked himself, during these last troubled weeks, what influence the European war may exert upon the United States, and I take the liberty of addressing a few words to you in order to point out that it is entirely within our own choice what its effects upon us will be and to urge very earnestly upon you the sort of speech and conduct which will best safeguard the Nation against distress and disaster. … The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is natural and inevitable that there should be the utmost variety of sympathy and desire among them with regard to the issues and circumstances of the conflict. Some will wish one nation, others another, to succeed in the momentous struggle. It will be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay it. … The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men’s souls. We must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 96–7.
DOCUMENT 7
W I L S O N ’ S A D D R E S S T O T H E S E N AT E O N ‘ P E A C E W I T H O U T V I C T O RY ’ , 2 2 J A N U A RY 1 9 1 7
After continued German U-boat activities, by 1917 Americans were less reluctant to enter the war. In this message Wilson advanced his hopes that the United States could act as a mediator to the peace, outlining the need to move beyond a ‘balance of power’ approach to the European order.
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… It is inconceivable that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise. … That service is nothing less than this, to add their authority and their power to the authority and force of other nations to guarantee peace and justice throughout the world. Such a settlement cannot now be long postponed. It is right that before it comes this Government should frankly formulate the conditions upon which it would feel justified in asking our people to approve its formal and solemn adherence to a League for Peace. I am here to attempt to state those conditions. The present war must first be ended; but we owe it to candor and to a just regard for the opinion of mankind to say that, so far as our participation in guarantees of future peace is concerned, it makes a great deal of difference in what way and upon what terms it is ended. The treaties and agreements which bring it to an end must embody terms which will create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind, not merely a peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged. … Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will guarantee the stable equilibrium of the new arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace. … They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without victory. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 125–8.
DOCUMENT 8
WILSON TO A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS ON A DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY, 2 APRIL 1917
Wilson’s message on the Declaration of War sought to distance the United States from the suggestion that it sought territorial or political aggrandisement. Moreover, the address made clear that the United States did not have a quarrel with the German people, but only with its authoritarian government. I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with
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meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. … Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of; but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. … Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion. … Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. … We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. … … We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. … Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 128–32.
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DOCUMENT 9
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W I L S O N T O C O N G R E S S : T H E F O U RT E E N P O I N T S , 8 J A N U A RY 1 9 1 8
The Fourteen Points were advanced as the basis on which negotiations could begin and the basis for the German surrender. They also set out key US ambitions for the post-war period containing key ideas that would return in future US diplomacy and rhetoric. European leaders and US senators largely rejected the content of the points. … It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlookedfor moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view. We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world’s peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this: 1.
2.
3.
Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
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Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined. … A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 137–9.
DOCUMENT 10
JOHN MEYNARD KEYNES, THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE, 1919
The influential British economist Keynes outlined his reflections of the Versailles negotiations and the economic consequences resulting from them. In this section he describes Wilson’s inability to keep pace with European tactics. … When President Wilson left Washington he enjoyed a prestige and a moral influence throughout the world unequalled in history. His bold and measured words carried to the peoples of Europe above and beyond the voices of their own politicians. The enemy peoples trusted him to carry out the compact he had made with them; and the Allied peoples acknowledged him not as a victor only but almost as a prophet. In addition to this moral influence the realities of power were in his hands. The American armies were at the height of their numbers, discipline, and equipment. Europe was in complete dependence on the food supplies of the United States; and financially she was even more absolutely at their mercy. Europe not only already owed the United States more than she could pay; but only a large measure of further assistance could save her from starvation and bankruptcy. Never had a philosopher held such weapons wherewith to bind the princes of this world. How the crowds of the European capitals pressed about the carriage of the President! With what curiosity, anxiety, and hope we sought a glimpse of the features and bearing of the man of destiny who, coming from the West, was to bring healing to the wounds of the ancient parent of his civilisation and lay for us the foundations of the future. The disillusion was so complete, that some of those who had trusted most hardly dared speak of it. Could it be true? they asked of those who returned from Paris. Was the treaty really as bad as it seemed? What had happened
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to the President? What weakness or what misfortune had led to so extraordinary, so unlooked-for a betrayal? Yet the causes were very ordinary and human. The President was not a hero or a prophet; he was not even a philosopher; but a generously intentioned man, with many of the weaknesses of other human beings, and lacking that dominating intellectual equipment which would have been necessary to cope with the subtle and dangerous spellbinders whom a tremendous clash of forces and personalities had brought to the top as triumphant masters in the swift game of give and take, face to face in council – a game of which he had no experience at all. … Never could a man have stepped into the parlour a more perfect and predestined victim to the finished accomplishments of the Prime Minister. The Old World was tough in wickedness anyhow; the Old World’s heart of stone might blunt the sharpest blade of the bravest knight-errant. But this blind and deaf Don Quixote was entering a cavern where the swift and glittering blade was in the hands of the adversary. … … He could have preached a sermon on any of them or have addressed a stately prayer to the Almighty for their fulfilment; but he could not frame their concrete application to the actual state of Europe. He not only had no proposals in detail, but he was in many respects, perhaps inevitably, illinformed as to European conditions. And not only was he ill-informed – that was true of Mr Lloyd George also – but his mind was slow and unadaptable. The President’s slowness amongst the Europeans was noteworthy. He could not, all in a minute, take in what the rest were saying, size up the situation with a glance, frame a reply, and meet the case by a slight change of ground; and he was liable, therefore, to defeat by the mere swiftness, apprehension, and agility of a Lloyd George. There can seldom have been a statesman of the first rank more incompetent than the President in the agilities of the council chamber. From John Meynard Keynes (1920) The Economic Consequences of the Peace (London: Macmillan). From website: Vincent Ferraro, Mount Holyoke College, 103 Skinner Hall, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075 USA (413) 538–2669. Fax (413) 538–2512, [email protected]. See also Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy: http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3113/keynes/peace.htm
DOCUMENT 11
S E N AT O R H E N RY C A B O T L O D G E O B J E C T S T O T H E L E A G U E O F N AT I O N S , 1 2 A U G U S T 1 9 1 9
Despite Wilson’s tremendous popularity in Europe and European support for the creation of the League of Nations, Wilson was defeated at home. His delegation to Paris did not represent the US political spectrum and he
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underestimated US opposition to the idea of collective security and the compromise of US ‘unilateralism’ that it entailed. The independence of the United States is not only more precious to ourselves but to the world than any single possession. Look at the United States today. We have made mistakes in the past. We have had shortcomings. We shall make mistakes in the future and fall short of our own best hopes. But none the less is there any country today on the face of the earth which can compare with this in ordered liberty, in peace, and in the largest freedom? I feel that I can say this without being accused of undue boastfulness, for it is the simple fact, and in making this treaty and taking on these obligations all that we do is in a spirit of unselfishness and in a desire for the good of mankind. But it is well to remember that we are dealing with nations every one of which has a direct individual interest to serve, and there is grave danger in an unshared idealism. Contrast the United States with any country on the face of the earth today and ask yourself whether the situation of the United States is not the best to be found. I will go as far as anyone in world service, but the first step to world service is the maintenance of the United States. … … The United States is the world’s best hope, but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her power for good and endanger her very existence. Leave her to march freely through the centuries to come as in the years that have gone. Strong, generous, and confident, she has nobly served mankind. Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin. … From PBS, Great American Speeches: http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/h_cabot_s.html
DOCUMENT 12
T H E N AVA L T R E AT Y, 6 F E B R U A RY 1 9 2 2
Despite Wilson’s defeat at the end of the war, his call for a general disarmament was partially followed. During the 1920s the major powers agreed to limit the size of their navies. The agreement, however, only included certain classes of vessel and permitted growth in other classes. The Contracting Powers agree to limit their respective naval armament as provided in the present treaty. … Subject to the provisions of Article II, the Contracting Powers shall abandon their respective capital ship building programs, and no new capital ships shall be constructed or acquired by any of the Contracting Powers
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except replacement tonnage which may be constructed or acquired as specified in … … The total capital ship replacement tonnage of the Contracting Powers shall not exceed in standard displacement, for the United States 525 000 tons; for the British Empire 525 000 tons; for France 175 000 tons; for Italy 175 000 tons; for Japan 315 000 tons. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York, Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 181–3.
DOCUMENT 13
T H E K E L L O G G – B R I A N D T R E AT Y, 2 7 A U G U S T 1 9 2 8
The US attempt to avoid a bilateral treaty with the French, who sought protection against possible future German aggression, resulted in a more general multilateral treaty, which renounced war as an instrument for the pursuit of national ambitions. Deeply sensible of their solemn duty to promote the welfare of mankind; Persuaded that the time has come when a frank renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy should be made to the end that the peaceful and friendly relations now existing between their peoples may be perpetuated; Convinced that all changes in their relations with one another should be sought only by pacific means and be the result of a peaceful and orderly process, and that any signatory Power which shall hereafter seek to promote its national interests by resort to war should be denied the benefits furnished by this Treaty; Hopeful that, encouraged by their example, all the other nations of the world will join in this humane endeavor and by adhering to the present Treaty as soon as it comes into force bring their peoples within the scope of its beneficent provisions, thus uniting the civilized nations of the world in a common renunciation of war as an instrument of their national policy; Have decided to conclude a Treaty and for that purpose have appointed as their respective. Article I: The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another. Article II: The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 221–2.
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DOCUMENT 14
T H E F I R S T N E U T R A L I T Y A C T, 3 1 A U G U S T 1 9 3 5
A Joint Resolution by the Houses of Congress, the Neutrality Acts, beginning in 1935, severely limited President Roosevelt’s ability to engage in the war in Europe. During the late 1930s, despite US ambivalence towards the war in Europe, Roosevelt was increasingly able to compromise the various provisions of the acts. Providing for the prohibition of the export of arms, ammunition, and implements of war to belligerent countries; the prohibition of the transportation of arms, ammunition, and implements of war by vessels of the United States for the use of belligerent states; for the registration and licensing of persons engaged in the business of manufacturing, exporting, or importing arms, ammunition, or implements of war; and restricting travel by American citizens on belligerent ships during war. … Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That upon the outbreak or during the progress of war between, or among, two or more foreign states, the President shall proclaim such fact, and it shall thereafter be unlawful to export arms, ammunition, or implements of war from any place in the United States, or possessions of the United States, to any port of such belligerent states, or to any neutral port for transshipment to, or for the use of, a belligerent country. … The President, by proclamation, shall definitely enumerate the arms, ammunition, or implements of war, the export of which is prohibited by this Act. The President may, from time to time, by proclamation, extend such embargo upon the export of arms, ammunition, or implements of war to other states as and when they may become involved in such war. From website: Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/interwar/neutralityact.htm
DOCUMENT 15
P R E S I D E N T R O O S E V E LT, T H E F O U R F R E E D O M S , 6 J A N U A RY 1 9 4 1
The Four Freedoms provided the basis for the US ideological interests, parts of which found their way into subsequent US declarations and rhetoric. … I use the word ‘unprecedented’, because at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today. … … What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained opposition to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went
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past. … [W]e oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any part of the Americas. … Every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of the world – assailed either by arms, or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations still at peace. During sixteen months this assault has blotted out the whole pattern of democratic life in an appalling number of independent nations, great and small. The assailants are still on the march, threatening other nations, great and small. … I find it necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders. … Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal for them as well as for ourselves. They do not need manpower. They do need billions of dollars worth of the weapons of defense. … Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 446–9.
DOCUMENT 16
T H E AT L A N T I C C H A RT E R , 1 4 A U G U S T 1 9 4 1
The Atlantic Charter is a key document of US diplomacy. Churchill and Roosevelt were the principal signatories, despite the objections of the former. It principally set out key US ambitions for the post-war world order. [The United States and the United Kingdom] deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world. First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other; Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned; Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them; Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity. … Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, p. 451.
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DOCUMENT 17
T H E ‘ D E C L A R AT I O N O N L I B E R AT E D E U R O P E ’ , YA LTA C O N F E R E N C E , F E B R U A RY 1 9 4 5
The Big Three, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, met for the last time in the Crimea to discuss the post-war order, the occupation of Germany, the division of Europe and the United Nations. In addition they discussed the Declaration on Liberated Europe, which envisaged a democratic order. The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national economic life must be achieved by processes which will enable the liberated peoples to destroy the last vestiges of nazism and fascism and to create democratic institutions of their own choice. This is a principle of the Atlantic Charter – the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live – the restoration of sovereign rights and selfgovernment to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived of them by the aggressor nations. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 487–93.
DOCUMENT 18
GEORGE KENNAN, THE LONG TELEGRAM, 2 2 F E B R U A RY 1 9 4 6
Kennan’s telgram sent from Moscow to Washington became a key document of the Cold War, setting out the Soviet mindset and outlining the case for US response and ‘leadership’. … The USSR still lives in antagonistic ‘capitalist encirclement’ with which in the long run there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence. Capitalist world is beset with internal conflicts inherent in nature of capitalist society. These conflicts are insoluble by means of peaceful compromise. Greatest of them is that between England and US. … … Soviet efforts, and those of Russia’s friends abroad, must be directed toward deepening and exploiting of differences and conflicts between capitalist powers. If these eventually deepen into an ‘imperialist’ war, this war must be turned into revolutionary upheavals within the various capitalist countries. … … Nevertheless, all these theses, however baseless and disproven, are being boldly put forward again today. What does this indicate? It indicates that the Soviet party line is not based on any objective analysis of the situation beyond Russia’s borders; that it has, indeed, little to do with conditions outside of Russia; that it arises mainly from basic inner-Russian necessities which existed before recent war and exist today. …
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… At the bottom of the Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was insecurity of a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. … … In international economic matters, Soviet policy will really be dominated by pursuit of autarchy for Soviet Union and Soviet-dominated adjacent areas taken together. That, however, will be underlying policy. As far as official line is concerned, position is not yet clear. Soviet government has shown strange reticence since termination hostilities on subject foreign trade. If large-scale long-term credits should be forthcoming, the Soviet government may eventually again do lip service, as it did in 1930s, to desirability of building up international economic exchanges in general. Otherwise it is possible that Soviet foreign trade may be restricted largely to Soviet’s own security sphere, including occupied areas in Germany, and that a cold official shoulder may be turned to principle of general economic collaboration among nations. … … It may be expected that the component parts of this far-flung apparatus will be utilized, in accordance with their individual suitability, as follows: To undermine general political and strategic potential of major Western powers. Efforts will be made in such countries to disrupt national self-confidence, to hamstring measures of national defense, to increase social and industrial unrest, to stimulate all forms of disunity. … … Everything possible will be done to set major Western powers against each other. Anti-British talk will be plugged among Americans, antiAmerican talk among British. Continentals, including Germans, will be taught to abhor both Anglo-Saxon powers. Where suspicions exist, they will be fanned; where not, ignited. … … In summary, we have here a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with US there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure. … Gauged against Western world as a whole, Soviets are still by far the weaker force. Thus, their success will really depend on degree of cohesion, firmness, and vigor which Western world can muster. And this is factor which it is within our power to influence. … … We must formulate and put forward for other nations a much more positive and constructive picture of the sort of world we would like to see than we have put forward in the past. It is not enough to urge the people to develop political processes similar to our own. Many foreign peoples, in Europe at least, are tired and frightened by experiences of the past, and are
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less interested in abstract freedom than in security. They are seeking guidance rather than responsibilities. We should be better able than the Russians to give them this. And unless we do, the Russians certainly will. From website: Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/longtel.html
DOCUMENT 19
C H U R C H I L L’ S I R O N C U RTA I N S P E E C H , 5 MARCH 1946
Churchill’s famous speech delivered at Fulton, Missouri, publicly anticipated the division of Europe, called for an Anglo-American partnership and was an early call to contain Soviet power. The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the aftertime. It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall guide and rule the conduct of the Englishspeaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement. … … A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain – and I doubt not here also – towards the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the facts as I see them to you, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of
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Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone – Greece with its immortal glories – is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy. From website: Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy: http://www.hpol.org/churchill/
DOCUMENT 20
THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE, 12 MARCH 1947
The so-called Truman Doctrine was delivered before a joint session of Congress with the intention of raising alarm about the exaggerated Soviet threat. Though specifically a request for aid to Greece and Turkey, the speech adopted universalistic language that divided the world into two conceptual spheres. At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one. One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms. I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes. The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred. But we cannot allow changes in the status quo in violation of the Charter of the United Nations by such
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methods as coercion, or by such subterfuges as political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations to maintain their freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York, Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 524–6.
DOCUMENT 21
THE MARSHALL PLAN, 5 JUNE 1947
Secretary of State George Marshall announced the US plan to provide Europeans with economic aid to address their difficulties and to provide them with the necessary dollars to import US products. The eventual European Recovery Programme helped European integration and enhanced Transatlantic ties. In considering the requirements for the rehabilitation of Europe, the physical loss of life, the visible destruction of cities, factories, mines and railroads was correctly estimated but it has become obvious during recent months that this visible destruction was probably less serious than the dislocation of the entire fabric of European economy. For the past ten years conditions have been highly abnormal. The feverish preparation for war and the more feverish maintenance of the war effort engulfed all aspects of national economies. Machinery has fallen into disrepair or is entirely obsolete. Under the arbitrary and destructive Nazi rule, virtually every possible enterprise was geared into the German war machine. Longstanding commercial ties, private institutions, banks, insurance companies, and shipping companies disappeared, through loss of capital, absorption through nationalization, or by simple destruction. In many countries, confidence in the local currency has been severely shaken. The breakdown of the business structure of Europe during the war was complete. Recovery has been seriously retarded by the fact that two years after the close of hostilities a peace settlement with Germany and Austria has not been agreed upon. But even given a more prompt solution of these difficult problems the rehabilitation of the economic structure of Europe quite evidently will require a much longer time and greater effort than had been foreseen. … … The truth of the matter is that Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products – principally from America – are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character. …
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… Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned, the consequences to the economy of the United States should be apparent to all. It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. … … It is already evident that, before the United States Government can proceed much further in its efforts to alleviate the situation and help start the European world on its way to recovery, there must be some agreement among the countries of Europe as to the requirements of the situation and the part those countries themselves will take in order to give proper effect to whatever action might be undertaken by this Government. It would be neither fitting nor efficacious for this Government to undertake to draw up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feet economically. This is the business of the Europeans. The initiative, I think, must come from Europe. The role of this country should consist of friendly aid in the drafting of a European program and of later support of such a program so far as it may be practical for us to do so. The program should be a joint one, agreed to by a number, if not all European nations. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York, Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 531–2.
DOCUMENT 22
T H E N O RT H AT L A N T I C T R E AT Y, WA S H I N G T O N , 4 APRIL 1949
Following the Berlin Crisis and building on European initiatives, the creation of NATO introduced a system of collective security across the Atlantic. Article 5 significantly required a joint response should any one of the member states be attacked. The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments. They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area. They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security. They therefore agree to this North Atlantic Treaty:
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Article 1: The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. Article 2: The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and well-being. They will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them. Article 3: In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack. Article 4: The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened. Article 5: The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York, Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 555–7.
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N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y C O U N C I L PA P E R 6 8 (NSC-68), 14 APRIL 1950
NSC-68 has been described as the US blueprint for the Cold War. It acted as a call to arms for the United States, significantly increasing the defence budgets and accelerating the militarisation of containment. The language is stark and the document clearly outlined the fundamental differences between the United States and the Soviet Union. BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT CRISIS
Within the past thirty-five years the world has experienced two global wars of tremendous violence. It has witnessed two revolutions – the Russian and the Chinese – of extreme scope and intensity. It has also seen the collapse of five empires – the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian, German, Italian, and Japanese – and the drastic decline of two major imperial systems, the British and the French. During the span of one generation, the international distribution of power has been fundamentally altered. For several centuries it had proved impossible for any one nation to gain such preponderant strength that a coalition of other nations could not in time face it with greater strength. The international scene was marked by recurring periods of violence and war, but a system of sovereign and independent states was maintained, over which no state was able to achieve hegemony. Two complex sets of factors have now basically altered this historic distribution of power. First, the defeat of Germany and Japan and the decline of the British and French Empires have interacted with the development of the United States and the Soviet Union in such a way that power increasingly gravitated to these two centers. Second, the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, anti-thetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world. … F U N D A M E N TA L P U R P O S E O F T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S
The fundamental purpose of the United States is laid down in the Preamble to the Constitution: ‘... to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.’ In essence, the fundamental purpose is to assure the integrity and vitality of our free society, which is founded upon the dignity and worth of the individual. … F U N D A M E N TA L D E S I G N O F T H E K R E M L I N
The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the
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international communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas now under their control. In the minds of the Soviet leaders, however, achievement of this design requires the dynamic extension of their authority and the ultimate elimination of any effective opposition to their authority. … T H E U N D E R LY I N G C O N F L I C T I N T H E R E A L M O F I D E A S A N D VA L U E S B E T W E E N T H E U S P U R P O S E A N D T H E K R E M L I N D E S I G N
The free society values the individual as an end in himself, requiring of him only that measure of self-discipline and self-restraint which make the rights of each individual compatible with the rights of every other individual. The freedom of the individual has as its counterpart, therefore, the negative responsibility of the individual not to exercise his freedom in ways inconsistent with the freedom of other individuals and the positive responsibility to make constructive use of his freedom in the building of a just society. From this idea of freedom with responsibility derives the marvelous diversity, the deep tolerance, the lawfulness of the free society. This is the explanation of the strength of free men. It constitutes the integrity and the vitality of a free and democratic system. The free society attempts to create and maintain an environment in which every individual has the opportunity to realize his creative powers. … The idea of freedom is the most contagious idea in history, more contagious than the idea of submission to authority. For the breadth of freedom cannot be tolerated in a society which has come under the domination of an individual or group of individuals with a will to absolute power. … The same compulsion which demands total power over all men within the Soviet state without a single exception, demands total power over all Communist Parties and all states under Soviet domination. Thus Stalin has said that the theory and tactics of Leninism as expounded by the Bolshevik party are mandatory for the proletarian parties of all countries. A true internationalist is defined as one who unhesitatingly upholds the position of the Soviet Union and in the satellite states true patriotism is love of the Soviet Union. By the same token the ‘peace policy’ of the Soviet Union, described at a Party Congress as ‘a more advantageous form of fighting capitalism,’ is a device to divide and immobilize the nonCommunist world, and the peace the Soviet Union seeks is the peace of total conformity to Soviet policy. The antipathy of slavery to freedom explains the iron curtain, the isolation, the autarchy of the society whose end is absolute power. The existence and persistence of the idea of freedom is a permanent and continuous threat to the foundation of the slave society; and it therefore regards as intolerable the long continued existence of freedom in the world. What is new, what makes the continuing crisis, is the polarization of power which now inescapably confronts the slave society with the free.
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The assault on free institutions is world-wide now, and in the context of the present polarization of power a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere. The shock we sustained in the destruction of Czechoslovakia was not in the measure of Czechoslovakia’s material importance to us. In a material sense, her capabilities were already at Soviet disposal. But when the integrity of Czechoslovak institutions was destroyed, it was in the intangible scale of values that we registered a loss more damaging than the material loss we had already suffered. Thus unwillingly our free society finds itself mortally challenged by the Soviet system. No other value system is so wholly irreconcilable with ours, so implacable in its purpose to destroy ours, so capable of turning to its own uses the most dangerous and divisive trends in our own society, no other so skillfully and powerfully evokes the elements of irrationality in human nature everywhere, and no other has the support of a great and growing center of military power. From website: Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nscs-68/nsc68-1.htm
DOCUMENT 24
T H E T R E AT Y O F R O M E , 2 5 M A R C H 1 9 5 7
The treaty established the European Community following intensified European negotiations during the 1950s. Washington politically supported the creation of the Community though also worried about the Community as a competitor to the US economy. Determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, Resolved to ensure the economic and social progress of their countries by common action to eliminate the barriers which divide Europe, Affirming as the essential objective of their efforts the constant improvement of the living and working conditions of their peoples, Recognising that the removal of existing obstacles calls for concerted action in order to guarantee steady expansion, balanced trade and fair competition, Anxious to strengthen the unity of their economies and to ensure their harmonious development by reducing the differences existing between the various regions and the backwardness of the less favoured regions, Desiring to contribute, by means of a common commercial policy, to the progressive abolition of restrictions on international trade, Intending to confirm the solidarity which binds Europe and the overseas countries and desiring to ensure the development of their prosperity, in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, Resolved by thus pooling their resources to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty, and
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calling upon the other peoples of Europe who share their ideal to join in their efforts, Have decided to create a European Economic Community. … From Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University http://www.tufts.edu/departments/fletcher/multi/texts/BH343.txt
DOCUMENT 25
PRESIDENT KENNEDY ON THE BERLIN CRISIS, 2 5 J U LY 1 9 6 1
Berlin was at the centre of several crises during the Cold War. This time Kennedy had to respond to a Soviet proposal to end the shared control of Berlin and create a demilitarised city. Kennedy’s response was categorical. The East Germans and Soviets soon erected the Berlin Wall.
Seven weeks ago tonight I returned from Europe to report on my meeting with Premier Khrushchev and the others. His grim warnings about the future of the world, his aide memoire on Berlin, his subsequent speeches and threats which he and his agents have launched, and the increase in the Soviet military budget that he has announced, have all prompted a series of decisions by the Administration and a series of consultations with the members of the NATO organization. In Berlin, as you recall, he intends to bring to an end, through a stroke of the pen, first our legal rights to be in West Berlin – and secondly our ability to make good on our commitment to the two million free people of that city. That we cannot permit. We are clear about what must be done – and we intend to do it. I want to talk frankly with you tonight about the first steps that we shall take. These actions will require sacrifice on the part of many of our citizens. More will be required in the future. They will require, from all of us, courage and perseverance in the years to come. But if we and our allies act out of strength and unity of purpose – with calm determination and steady nerves – using restraint in our words as well as our weapons – I am hopeful that both peace and freedom will be sustained. The immediate threat to free men is in West Berlin. But that isolated outpost is not an isolated problem. The threat is worldwide. Our effort must be equally wide and strong, and not be obsessed by any single manufactured crisis. We face a challenge in Berlin, but there is also a challenge in Southeast Asia, where the borders are less guarded, the enemy harder to find, and the dangers of communism less apparent to those who have so little. We face a challenge in our own hemisphere, and indeed wherever else the freedom of human beings is at stake. Extracted from Henry Steele Commager (ed.) (1963) Documents of American History (New York, Appleton Century Crofts), vol. 2, pp. 706–9.
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K E N N E D Y ’ S 1 9 6 2 S TAT E O F T H E U N I O N ADDRESS
Kennedy’s address outlined the emergence of a new Europe that had moved beyond merely a defence relationship with the United States. His references to the growing Atlantic Community belied the growing tensions between the spheres. Finally, the united strength of the Atlantic Community has flourished in the last year under severe tests. NATO has increased both the number and the readiness of its air, ground, and naval units – both its nuclear and nonnuclear capabilities. Even greater efforts by all its members are still required. Nevertheless our unity of purpose and will has been, I believe, immeasurably strengthened. The threat to the brave city of Berlin remains. In these last six months the Allies have made it unmistakably clear that our presence in Berlin, our free access thereto, and the freedom of two million West Berliners would not be surrendered either to force or through appeasement – and to maintain those rights and obligations, we are prepared to talk, when appropriate, and to fight, if necessary. Every member of NATO stands with us in a common commitment to preserve this symbol of free man’s will to remain free. I cannot now predict the course of future negotiations over Berlin. I can only say that we are sparing no honorable effort to find a peaceful and mutually acceptable resolution of this problem. I believe such a resolution can be found, and with it an improvement in our relations with the Soviet Union, if only the leaders in the Kremlin will recognize the basic rights and interests involved, and the interest of all mankind in peace. But the Atlantic Community is no longer concerned with purely military aims. As its common undertakings grow at an ever-increasing pace, we are, and increasingly will be, partners in aid, trade, defense, diplomacy, and monetary affairs. The emergence of the new Europe is being matched by the emergence of new ties across the Atlantic. It is a matter of undramatic daily cooperation in hundreds of workaday tasks: of currencies kept in effective relation, of development loans meshed together, of standardized weapons, and concerted diplomatic positions. The Atlantic Community grows, not like a volcanic mountain, by one mighty explosion, but like a coral reef, from the accumulating activity of all. Thus, we in the free world are moving steadily toward unity and cooperation, in the teeth of that old Bolshevik prophecy, and at the very
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time when extraordinary rumbles of discord can be heard across the Iron Curtain. It is not free societies which bear within them the seeds of inevitable disunity. Copyrights: The copyright for all HTML sources is owned by the department of AlfaInformatica of the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) and is protected by the copyright laws of the Netherlands, the United States and the Universal Copyright Convention. From Revolution to Reconstruction http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/p/jk35/speeches/jfk62.htm
DOCUMENT 27
KENNEDY’S GRAND DESIGN, PHILADELPHIA, 4 J U LY 1 9 6 2
As Europe increasingly asserted its growing power, Kennedy’s Grand Design was in part an attempt to maintain the Atlantic framework over other possibilities and in part to maintain US leadership of the alliance. The speech on US Independence Day put forward a declaration of interdependence. Thus, in a very real sense, you and I are the executors of the testament handed down by those who gathered in this historic hall 186 years ago today. For they gathered to affix their names to a document which was, above all else, a document not of rhetoric but of bold decision. It was, it is true, a document of protest – but protests had been made before. It set forth their grievances with eloquence – but such eloquence had been heard before. But what distinguished this paper from all the others was the final irrevocable decision that it took – to assert the independence of free States in place of colonies, and to commit to that goal their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. … If there is a single issue that divides the world today, it is independence – the independence of Berlin or Laos or Viet-Nam; the longing for independence behind the Iron Curtain; the peaceful transition to independence in those newly emerging areas whose troubles some hope to exploit. … In most of the old colonial world, the struggle for independence is coming to an end. Even in areas behind the Curtain, that which Jefferson called ‘the disease of liberty’ still appears to be infectious. With the passing of ancient empires, today less than 2 percent of the world’s population lives in territories officially termed ‘dependent.’ As this effort for independence, inspired by the American Declaration of Independence, now approaches a successful close, a great new effort – for interdependence – is transforming the world about us. And the spirit of that new effort is the same spirit which gave birth to the American Constitution. That spirit is today most clearly seen across the Atlantic Ocean. The nations of Western Europe, long divided by feuds far more bitter than any
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which existed among the 13 colonies, are today joining together, seeking, as our forefathers sought, to find freedom in diversity and in unity, strength. The United States looks on this vast new enterprise with hope and admiration. 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. We believe that a united Europe will be capable of playing a greater role in the common defense, of responding more generously to the needs of poorer nations, of joining with the United States and others in lowering trade barriers, resolving problems of commerce, commodities, and currency, and developing coordinated policies in all economic, political, and diplomatic areas. We see in such a Europe a partner with whom we can deal on a basis of full equality in all the great and burdensome tasks of building and defending a community of free nations. It would be premature at this time to do more than indicate the high regard with which we view the formation of this partnership. The first order of business is for our European friends to go forward in forming the more perfect union which will someday make this partnership possible. A great new edifice is not built overnight. It was 11 years from the Declaration of Independence to the writing of the Constitution. The construction of workable federal institutions required still another generation. The greatest works of our Nation’s founders lay not in documents and in declarations, but in creative, determined action. The building of the new house of Europe has followed the same practical, purposeful course. Building the Atlantic partnership now will not be easily or cheaply finished. But I will say here and now, on this Day of Independence, that the United States will be ready for a Declaration of Interdependence, that we will be prepared to discuss with a united Europe the ways and means of forming a concrete Atlantic partnership, a mutually beneficial partnership between the new union now emerging in Europe and the old American Union founded here 175 years ago. All this will not be completed in a year, but let the world know it is our goal. In urging the adoption of the United States Constitution, Alexander Hamilton told his fellow New Yorkers ‘to think continentally.’ Today Americans must learn to think intercontinentally. … From John F. Kennedy, Presidential Library and Museum: http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/jfk-independencehall-1962.html
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DOCUMENT 28
N I X O N O U T L I N I N G N E W E C O N O M I C P O L I C Y, 15 AUGUST 1971
As the European Community became increasingly competitive and as it was about to enlarge its membership, President Nixon recognised the competition and called for a readjustment in the economic and military relationship. At the end of World War II the economies of the major industrial nations of Europe and Asia were shattered. To help them get on their feet and to protect their freedom, the United States has provided over the past 25 years $143 billion in foreign aid. That was the right thing for us to do. Today, largely with our help, they have regained their vitality. They have become our strong competitors, and we welcome their success. But now that other nations are economically strong, the time has come for them to bear their share of the burden of defending freedom around the world. The time has come for exchange rates to be set straight and for the major nations to compete as equals. There is no longer any need for the United States to compete with one hand tied behind her back. From Public Papers, The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace: http://www.nixonfoundation.org/Research_Center/1971_pdf_files/1971_0264.pdf
DOCUMENT 29
NIXON’S STATEMENT ON US COOPERATION WITH THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY, 27 OCTOBER 1972
This and the following document demonstrates some of the US ambivalence as the European Community began to enlarge its membership. US support is tempered with ongoing concerns about European competition. I have read with great interest the communiqué issued by the leaders of the nine countries of the enlarged European Community, demonstrating once again their commitment to greater European unity. At this important meeting, the members of the Community have an objective of ‘transforming the whole complex of their relations into a European Union by the end of the present decade.’ The United States strongly supports that objective. It is, and has always been, my own deeply held view that progress toward a unified Europe enhances world peace, security and prosperity. … On behalf of the United States, I wish to reaffirm our commitment to work with the members of the European Community for reform of the international economic system in a way which will bring about a new freedom of world trade, new equity in international economic conduct, and effective solutions to the problems of the developing world. … From Public Papers, The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace: http://www.nixonfoundation.org/Research_Center/1972_pdf_files/1972_0378.pdf
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NIXON’S REMARKS ON THE ‘YEAR OF EUROPE’, 1 5 F E B R U A RY 1 9 7 3
I have said this is the year of Europe. … But the year of Europe becomes very important in both the economic context, which was brought home by the recent monetary situation, and also in terms of the national security context, because of the fact that MBFR – mutual balanced force reductions – will be a subject on our agenda this year. … [Security and economic relations] were a major subject of discussion with Prime Minister Heath. Naturally, you would expect that these would lead to economic considerations – the problem of trade, which can be very interesting and sometimes very difficult – with our European friends as well as the Japanese … . From Public Papers, The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace: http://www.nixonfoundation.org/Research_Center/1973_pdf_files/1973_0045.pdf
DOCUMENT 31
T H E O T TAWA D E C L A R AT I O N O N AT L A N T I C R E L AT I O N S , 2 6 J U N E 1 9 7 4
Signed by the membership of NATO, the Declaration reaffirmed the principles of the Atlantic Alliance. The text below and in documents 35 and 36 provide abbreviated extracts. The full texts are available on the NATO website. 1.
2.
The members of the North Atlantic Alliance declare that the treaty signed 25 years ago to protect their freedom and independence has confirmed their common destiny. Under the shield of the Treaty, the Allies have maintained their security, permitting them to preserve the values which are the heritage of their civilization and enabling Western Europe to rebuild from its ruins and lay the foundations of its unity. The members of the Alliance reaffirm their conviction that the North Atlantic Treaty provides the indispensable basis for their security, thus making possible the pursuit of détente. They welcome the progress that has been achieved on the road towards détente and harmony among nations, and the fact that a Conference of 35 countries of Europe and North America is now seeking to lay down guidelines designed to increase security and cooperation in Europe. They believe that until circumstances permit the introduction of general, complete and controlled disarmament, which alone could provide genuine security for all, the ties uniting them must be maintained. The Allies share a common desire to reduce the burden of arms expenditure on their peoples. But States that wish to preserve peace have never achieved this aim by neglecting their own security.
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3. The members of the Alliance reaffirm that their common defense is one and indivisible. An attack on one or more of them in the area of application of the Treaty shall be considered an attack against them all. The common aim is to prevent any attempt by a foreign power to threaten the independence or integrity of a member of the Alliance. Such an attempt would not only put in jeopardy the security of all members of the Alliance but also threaten the foundations of world peace. … …6. Nevertheless, the Alliance must pay careful attention to the dangers to which it is exposed in the European region, and must adopt all measures necessary to avert them. The European members who provide three-quarters of the conventional strength of the Alliance in Europe, and two of whom possess nuclear forces capable of playing a deterrent role of their own, contributing to the overall strengthening of the deterrence of the Alliance, undertake to make the necessary contribution to maintain the common defense at a level capable of deterring and if necessary repelling all actions directed against the independence and territorial integrity of the members of the Alliance. 7. The United States, for its part, reaffirms its determination not to accept any situation which would expose its Allies to external political or military pressure likely to deprive them of their freedom, and states its resolve, together with its Allies, to maintain forces in Europe at the level required to sustain the credibility of the strategy of deterrence and to maintain the capacity to defend the North Atlantic area should deterrence fail. … …9. All members of the Alliance agree that the continued presence of Canadian and substantial US forces in Europe plays an irreplaceable role in the defense of North America as well as of Europe. Similarly the substantial forces of the European Allies serve to defend Europe and North America as well. It is also recognized that the further progress towards unity, which the member states of the European Community are determined to make, should in due course have a beneficial effect on the contribution to the common defense of the Alliance of those of them who belong to it. Moreover, the contributions made by members of the Alliance to the preservation of international security and world peace are recognized to be of great importance. From NATO Online Library: http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c740618b.htm
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DOCUMENT 32
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PRESIDENT REAGAN’S SPEECH TO THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS, 8 JUNE 1982
By 1982 the Second Cold War was truly underway. Reagan’s characterisation of the Soviet Union as an ‘evil’ empire underscored the renewed hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union. West Europeans were much more reluctant to give up the gains and deepened relationship with the East developed during détente. We’re approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention – totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression. Yet optimism is in order because day by day democracy is proving itself to be a not at all fragile flower. From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none – not one regime – has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root. The strength of the Solidarity movement in Poland demonstrates the truth told in an underground joke in the Soviet Union. It is that the Soviet Union would remain a one-party nation even if an opposition party were permitted because everyone would join the opposition party. ... Historians looking back at our time will note the consistent restraint and peaceful intentions of the West. They will note that it was the democracies who refused to use the threat of their nuclear monopoly in the forties and early fifties for territorial or imperial gain. Had that nuclear monopoly been in the hands of the Communist world, the map of Europe – indeed, the world – would look very different today. And certainly they will note it was not the democracies that invaded Afghanistan or suppressed Polish Solidarity or used chemical and toxin warfare in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia. … The decay of the Soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies – West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam – it is the democratic countries that are prosperous and responsive to the needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees we’ve seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the Communist world. Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving. From Modern History Source Book, Fordham University, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1982reagan1.html
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DOCUMENT 33
T H E T R A N S AT L A N T I C D E C L A R AT I O N , 1 9 9 0
At the end of the Cold War and the impending demise of the Soviet Union, the prospects of a Europe undivided and democratic was both a cause for celebration and a particular concern for Washington. It worried that the Transatlantic ties might not remain as strong in the absence of a common defence purpose. The United States of America on one side and, on the other, the European Community and its Member States, mindful of their common heritage and of their close historical, political, economic and cultural ties, guided by their faith in the values of human dignity, intellectual freedom and civil liberties, and in the democratic institutions which have evolved on both sides of the Atlantic over the centuries, recognizing that the transatlantic solidarity has been essential for the preservation of peace and freedom and for the development of free and prosperous economies as well as for the recent developments which have restored unity in Europe, determined to help consolidate the new Europe, undivided and democratic, resolved to strengthen security, economic cooperation and human rights in Europe in the framework of the CSCE, and in other fora, noting the firm commitment of the United States and the EC Member States concerned to the North Atlantic Alliance and to its principles and purposes, acting on the basis of a pattern of cooperation proven over many decades, and convinced that by strengthening and expanding this partnership on an equal footing they will greatly contribute to continued stability, as well as to political and economic progress in Europe and in the world, … bearing in mind the accelerating process by which the European Community is acquiring its own identity in economic and monetary matters, in foreign policy and in the domain of security, determined further to strengthen transatlantic solidarity, through the variety of their international relations, have decided to endow their relationship with long-term perspectives. Common Goals: The United States of America and the European Community and its Member States solemnly reaffirm their determination further to strengthen their partnership in order to: support democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and individual liberty, and promote prosperity and social progress world-wide; safeguard peace and promote international security, by cooperating with other nations against aggression and coercion, by contributing to the settlement of conflicts in the world and by reinforcing the role of the United Nations and other international organizations; pursue policies aimed at achieving a sound world economy marked by sustained economic growth with low inflation, a high level of employment, equitable social conditions, in a framework of
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international stability; promote market principles, reject protectionism and expand, strengthen and further open the multilateral trading system … . From Europa: The European Union Online: http://europa.eu.int/en/agenda/ eu-us/pub/decl.html
DOCUMENT 34
T H E T R E AT Y O N E U R O P E A N U N I O N , 1 2 F E B R U A RY 1 9 9 2
The Treaty on the European Union signed in Maastricht accelerated European integration and increasingly extended it to include more political issues. Particularly of concern to the United States was the call for enhanced European independence and the move towards a common defence policy. Resolved to mark a new stage in the process of European integration undertaken with the establishment of the European Communities; Recalling the historic importance of the ending of the division of the European continent and the need to create firm bases for the construction of the future Europe; Confirming their attachment to the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and of the rule of law; Desiring to deepen the solidarity between their peoples while respecting their history, their culture and their traditions; Desiring to enhance further the democratic and efficient functioning of the institutions so as to enable them better to carry out, within a single institutional framework, the tasks entrusted to them; Resolved to achieve the strengthening and the convergence of their economies and to establish an economic and monetary union including, in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty, a single and stable currency; Determined to promote economic and social progress for their peoples, within the context of the accomplishment of the internal market and of reinforced cohesion and environmental protection, and to implement policies ensuring that advances in economic integration are accompanied by parallel progress in other fields; Resolved to establish a citizenship common to the nationals of their countries; Resolved to implement a common foreign and security policy including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence, thereby reinforcing the European identity and its independence in order to promote peace, security and progress in Europe and in the world; Reaffirming their objective to facilitate the free movement of persons while ensuring the safety and security of their peoples, by including provisions on justice and home affairs in this Treaty; Resolved to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen in
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accordance with the principle of subsidiarity; in view of further steps to be taken in order to advance European integration; Have decided to establish a European Union … . From Europa: The European Union Online: http://europa.eu.int/en/record/mt/heads.html
DOCUMENT 35
T H E PA RT N E R S H I P F O R P E A C E I N V I TAT I O N D O C U M E N T, 1 0 J A N U A RY 1 9 9 4
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and NATO’s search for a new role, the Partnership for Peace was designed to enhance cooperation with the countries of Eastern Europe and to pave the way for their eventual admission into NATO. The extracts below set out their objectives. We, the Heads of State and Government of the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance, building on the close and longstanding partnership among the North American and European Allies, are committed to enhancing security and stability in the whole of Europe. We therefore wish to strengthen ties with the democratic states to our East. We reaffirm that the Alliance, as provided for in Article 10 of the Washington Treaty, remains open to the membership of other European states in a position to further the principles of the Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area. We expect and would welcome NATO expansion that would reach to democratic states to our East, as part of an evolutionary process, taking into account political and security developments in the whole of Europe. We have today launched an immediate and practical programme that will transform the relationship between NATO and participating states. This new programme goes beyond dialogue and cooperation to forge a real partnership – a Partnership for Peace. We therefore invite the other states participating in the NACC [North Atlantic Cooperation Council] and other CSCE [Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe] countries able and willing to contribute to this programme, to join with us in this partnership. Active participation in the Partnership for Peace will play an important role in the evolutionary process of the expansion of NATO. The Partnership for Peace, which will operate under the authority of the North Atlantic Council, will forge new security relationships between the North Atlantic Alliance and its Partners for Peace. Partner states will be invited by the North Atlantic Council to participate in political and military bodies at NATO Headquarters with respect to Partnership activities. The Partnership will expand and intensify political and military cooperation throughout Europe, increase stability, diminish threats to peace, and build strengthened relationships by promoting the spirit of practical cooperation
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and commitment to democratic principles that underpin our Alliance. NATO will consult with any active participant in the Partnership if that partner perceives a direct threat to its territorial integrity, political independence, or security. … From NATO Online Library: http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b940110a.htm
DOCUMENT 36
B A S I C D O C U M E N T O F T H E E U R O - AT L A N T I C PA RT N E R S H I P C O U N C I L , 3 0 M AY 1 9 9 7
In the following two documents the continued co-operation between the United States and Europe are evident, as are their shared goals. The full documents can be viewed at the NATO website: www.nato.int. 1.
2.
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The member countries of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council and participating countries of the Partnership for Peace, determined to raise to a qualitatively new level their political and military cooperation, building upon the success of NACC and PfP, have decided to establish a Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. In doing so, they reaffirm their joint commitment to strengthen and extend peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area, on the basis of the shared values and principles which underlie their cooperation, notably those set out in the Framework Document of the Partnership for Peace. The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council will be a new cooperative mechanism which will form a framework for enhanced efforts in both an expanded political dimension of partnership and practical cooperation under PfP. It will take full account of and complement the respective activities of the OSCE and other relevant institutions such as the European Union, the Western European Union and the Council of Europe. The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, as the successor to NACC, will provide the overarching framework for consultations among its members on a broad range of political and security-related issues, as part of a process that will develop through practice. … From NATO Online Library: http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b970530a.htm
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DOCUMENT 37
T H E M A D R I D D E C L A R AT I O N O N E U R O - AT L A N T I C S E C U R I T Y A N D C O O P E R AT I O N , 8 J U LY 1 9 9 7
Extracts. Full documents available at the website listed below. 1. We, the Heads of State and Government of the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance, have come together in Madrid to give shape to the new NATO as we move towards the 21st century. Substantial progress has been achieved in the internal adaptation of the Alliance. As a significant step in the evolutionary process of opening the Alliance, we have invited three countries to begin accession talks. We have substantially strengthened our relationship with Partners through the new Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and enhancement of the Partnership for Peace. The signature on 27th May of the NATO–Russia Founding Act and the Charter we will sign tomorrow with Ukraine bear witness to our commitment to an undivided Europe. We are also enhancing our Mediterranean dialogue. Our aim is to reinforce peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. A new Europe is emerging, a Europe of greater integration and co-operation. An inclusive European security architecture is evolving to which we are contributing, along with other European organisations. Our Alliance will continue to be a driving force in this process. 2. We are moving towards the realisation of our vision of a just and lasting order of peace for Europe as a whole, based on human rights, freedom and democracy. In looking forward to the 50th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty, we reaffirm our commitment to a strong, dynamic partnership between the European and North American Allies, which has been, and will continue to be, the bedrock of the Alliance and of a free and prosperous Europe. The vitality of the transatlantic link will benefit from the development of a true, balanced partnership in which Europe is taking on greater responsibility. In this spirit, we are building a European Security and Defence Identity within NATO. The Alliance and the European Union share common strategic interests. We welcome the agreements reached at the European Council in Amsterdam. NATO will remain the essential forum for consultation among its members and the venue for agreement on policies bearing on the security and defence commitments of Allies under the Washington Treaty… From NATO Online Library: http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1997/p97-08le.htm
GLOSSARY
Anschluss describes the idea of unity between Germany and Austria after the First World War. Hitler revived the process in 1938 after a campaign of destabilisation. Atlantic Charter was initially signed by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in August 1941 outlining the principles for a post-war order. The United States used the Charter as the ideological basis upon which to fight the war. Under the Charter people were given the right to choose their own form of government, territorial aggrandisement was precluded and economic access to colonial areas was advanced. Bretton Woods was the international conference on post-war economic planning largely shaped by the United States. It created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Bretton Woods system sought to promote multilateral trade and currency convertibility to enhance international trade. Brezhnev Doctrine Promulgated after the Czech attempt at liberalisation in 1968, the doctrine asserted the primacy of communist power in the Warsaw Pact. Should any attempt be made to replace communist power the Warsaw Pact members were obliged to respond collectively to maintain communist power. Brussels Treaty, 1948 brought Britain, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands together into a system of collective self-defence. If any one of them was attacked all were obliged to respond. Ernest Bevin initially promoted the idea with US agreement. It presaged the creation of NATO. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the US intelligence agency created in 1947 to gather intelligence and carry out covert operations. Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) aimed to ensure self-sufficiency and a subsidised price for European agricultural products. CAP enabled European agricultural self-sufficiency by urging the purchase of Community products first. US policy-makers have consistently objected to what they consider a protectionist system. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was created during détente to foster closer relations between East and West. It included the United States, Canada and all European states (except Albania). Its final Act in Helsinki in 1975 ratified the post-war existing borders in Europe, enhanced economic cooperation and human rights issues. Containment was conceived by George Kennan in the 1946 ‘long telegram’ and Mr. X article of 1947. He advocated the United States’ patient, firm and vigilant ‘containment’ of Soviet expansive tendencies. The concept influenced US policy throughout the Cold War. By 1950 containment was militarised and universalised through NSC-68.
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Glossary
Council of Europe was created in 1949 principally including West European states in order to promote and enhance European integration. Defence issues were not under its remit; here NATO remained the dominant forum. Détente referred generally to the relaxation of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Both superpowers realised that they had to relax tensions to avert their relative decline and address economic problems within their spheres of influence. A series of arms limitation and economic agreements were concluded in 1972 and 1973. European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was one of the first supranational European institutions which came into being in 1952. French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman advanced the idea of cooperation in the development of coal and steel between France, West Germany, Luxembourg, Italy and the Netherlands. European Defence Community (EDC) was an abortive attempt to create an independent European defence force in the early 1950s. With pressure for German rearmament following the intensification of the Cold War in Korea, the French advanced plans to contain German military power through integration with the European powers. ‘The Six’ joined the EDC, which the French ultimately refused to ratify. European Economic Community (EEC) was created through the Treaties of Rome in 1957 and came into existence in 1958. ‘The Six’ original members, France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Luxembourg, promoted economic cooperation and trade within the community. By the late 1960s it merged with other European supranational bodies to become the EC, and in 1993 it extended its initial role to political matters and became the EU. European Free Trade Association (EFTA) was created in 1959 as a counterweight to the EEC. The ‘Seven’, Britain, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Austria, established a free trade area to ease trade between members and reduce tariffs. Britain and Denmark joined the EEC in 1973, Portugal in 1986 and Sweden in 1995. European Recovery Program (ERP) also known as the Marshall Plan, was launched by US Secretary of State George Marshall in June 1947. It was widely regarded as the economic arm of containment. The conditions under which Europeans could accept US assistance were designed to preclude Soviet or East European participation. From 1948 to 1952 Washington disbursed $17 billion. The OEEC was created to disburse the funds along with the US European Cooperation Administration. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was created in 1948 to promote free trade and the reduction of tariff barriers. The six rounds of GATT negotiations during the Cold War finally gave way to the creation of the World Trade Organisation in 1995. Glasnost was introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ushering in a period of ‘openness’ in which there was wider latitude for discussion, participation and investigation in the Soviet Union from 1986. Hallstein Doctrine was promulgated in West Germany in 1955. It ruled out West German economic or diplomatic relations with countries that recognised East Germany. It was abandoned in the late 1960s.
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167
INF Treaty was signed between Reagan and Gorbachev in December 1987. Both superpowers agreed to eliminate their entire stock of intermediate-range nuclear forces within four years. The treaty presaged further unilateral Soviet arms reductions and symbolised the Soviet withdrawal from the Cold War. International Monetary Fund (IMF) was created in 1947 as a result of the Bretton Woods conference. Its principle aim is to promote free trade and stabilise economies to enhance their goals. Countries accepting IMF loans are subjected to a range of stipulations on their economy. League of Nations was set up as a result of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the Versailles Treaty of 1920. Its aim was to settle international disputes through negotiation and a collective response to avert a European or global balance of power and military resolution of disputes. Washington ultimately refused to join. The League was largely ineffective in dealing with belligerent powers and was disbanded after the Second World War. It was replaced by the United Nations. Lomé Conventions were agreed in 1975 between the EC and 46 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. Most of the countries were associated with Western Europe through former colonial arrangements. The convention facilitated access to the EC markets on either duty free or preferential terms. Multilateral Force (MLF) was a short-lived US attempt to curb the development of an independent European force or the programmes of individual European countries. The Kennedy administration advanced MLF against British and French reticence in 1962. National Security Council Paper 68 (NSC-68) was written after the events of 1948–49, including the Czech coup, the ‘loss’ of China to communism and the Soviet explosion of the atomic bomb. By April 1950 NSC-68 provided a blueprint for US–Soviet relations. It universalised and militarised the concept of containment just before the Korean War. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) resulted from the April 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, which joined the members of the Brussels Treaty, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Britain and Portugal with Canada and the US in a system of collective defence. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, West Germany in 1955, Spain in 1982 and during the 1990s NATO accepted members from the former Warsaw Pact. The organisation was originally limited to take action within the territories of member states, but by the 1990s it operated ‘out-of-area’ in the former Yugoslavia. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) replaced the OEEC in 1961 and provided a forum in which the United States and the other leading industrial countries principally from Europe could coordinate and develop their economies, and expand free trade. The organisation provided a forum in which Washington could balance initiatives taken by the EEC. Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) Was set up to plan and coordinate the distribution of Marshall Aid in 1947. It was replaced by the OECD in 1961. Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was set up in 1960 to coordinate policies among the oil exporting countries of the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. By 1973 OPEC gained sufficient strength to quadruple the
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price of oil, leading to crisis in the West. US support for Israel in the 1973 Arab–Israeli War led to a total embargo of oil from OPEC. The EC faced much more limited restrictions, except for the Netherlands. Ostpolitik was conceived in West Germany as an attempt to improve relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from 1966 onwards. The process accelerated after Willy Brandt became Chancellor in 1969. The process led to several agreements with the Soviets, East Europe and East Germany. Ostpolitik provided Germany with greater independence from US policies. It was a European forerunner to the superpower détente. Perestroika was introduced as a programme for restructuring the Soviet Union from 1986 by Mikhail Gorbachev. The concept symbolised the drastic need for Soviet reform in the late 1980s. Prague Spring refers to the attempt at liberalisation in Czechoslovakia during the spring of 1968. The process was brought to an end in August with a Warsaw Pact intervention. ‘Seven, the’ ‘Six, the’
see European Free Trade Association. see European Economic Community.
Solidarity was the trade union movement that organised widespread strikes across Poland in 1980 and 1981. Led by Lech Walesa, the movement agitated against the economic conditions of the period. With the build-up of Soviet troops on the borders of Poland, General Jaruzelski imposed martial law in 1981. Walesa was released from prison and continued semi-covert resistance throughout the decade. He was elected President of Poland in 1990. Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) I and II SALT I was signed in May 1972 during détente in an attempt to place a limit on both superpower’s intercontinental ballistic missiles. The agreement included the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which limited the development of protective missile systems. The ABM treaty ran into trouble with both Reagan’s proposal to initiate SDI and Bush’s proposal to initiate NMD. SALT II was agreed in June 1979. It imposed an upper limit on the various strategic arms both superpowers could possess. Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or ‘Star Wars’ was initiated in 1983 by the Reagan administration. It envisaged a space-based missile defence system that could intercept Soviet intercontinental missiles. Though funding for the project was lavish, it was largely believed to be untenable by scientific commentators. It proved to be the sticking block in the superpower negotiations during the late 1980s. Versailles Treaty was signed between Germany and the Allies following the First World War in 1919. Germany accepted arms limitations, the loss of territory in Europe and its colonial areas and, crucially, the ‘war guilt’ clause, which became a part of the basis of Hitler’s grievances during the 1920s. Warsaw Pact was created as a military alliance of East European states with the Soviet Union as a response to West German rearmament in 1955. The Pact initially included the Soviet Union, Albania, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and East Germany. Its principal military actions were taken against member states: Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Young Plan was arranged in 1929 to reduce and reschedule German reparation payments to the Allies.
WHO’S WHO
Acheson, Dean (1893–1971) Influential US diplomat and Under-Secretary of State in the Roosevelt administration, particularly involved in Lend Lease and Bretton Woods. In the Truman administration he eventually served as Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953. He was a key proponent of containment and advocate of NATO. Adams, John Quincy (1767–1848) US Secretary of State between 1817 and 1825, he was the architect of the Monroe Doctrine, which in part was motivated by his severe dislike of the British. He served one term as President from 1825 to 1829. Adenauer, Konrad (1876–1967) Chancellor to the Federal Republic of Germany from its inception in 1949 to 1963. Adenauer was Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union until 1966. He refused to recognise East Germany throughout his tenure and formed extensive links with the West. He took West Germany into the ECSC, NATO and the EEC. Politically he was close to de Gaulle, creating a Franco–German alliance in Europe. Andropov, Yuri (1914–84) Soviet Ambassador to Hungary during the 1956 uprising and later Head of the KGB. In 1982 he became General Secretary of the Communist Party. As such he advanced further détente and specific nonaggression pacts with the United States, which were rejected. He was an early sponsor of Gorbachev. Attlee, Clement (1883–1967) Attlee was a member of the coalition cabinet during the Second World War under Churchill. He was the leader of the British Labour Party from 1935 and served as Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951. He was the British representative for the second half of the Potsdam Conference and later tried to initiate US–Soviet cooperation. Benesˇ, Eduard (1884–1948) Benesˇ, head of the National Socialist Party, presided over a coalition government in Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1948 as President. Communist pressure precluded participation in the Marshall Plan. In February 1948 the Communists seized total power. Bevin, Ernest (1881–1951) British Foreign Secretary during the Attlee government until his resignation in 1951 on health grounds. He opposed Attlee’s stance on the Soviet Union and became a key power behind the Brussels Treaty and British entry into NATO. He recognised that Europe offered some respite from US influence and was a key figure in the OEEC. Bidault, Georges (1899–1983) Served as French Foreign Minister under de Gaulle from 1944. Though oriented towards the West and a key figure in both the OEEC and NATO, his principal concern was German revival. As such he was courted by the Soviet Union.
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Brandt, Willy (1913–92) Mayor of West Berlin during the 1961 crisis Brandt rose to prominence. In 1967 he joined a coalition of parties and in 1969 he became Chancellor of West Germany. He was principally concerned with advancing Ostpolitik, extending relations with the Soviet bloc, which presaged the period of détente. Brezhnev, Leonid (1906–82) Soviet General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1964 to 1982. Brezhnev built up Soviet nuclear forces to equal those of the US. In 1968 he presided over the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and formulated the Brezhnev Doctrine. The poor state of the Soviet economy necessitated engagement with Germany’s Ostpolitik and US détente. Briand, Aristide (1862–1932) Represented France as the premier at the Washington Conference. By 1925 he became Foreign Minister and was instrumental in arranging the Locarno Treaty with Germany and, ultimately, was a co-creator of the multilateral treaty bearing his name. Bryan, William Jennings (1860–1925) An anti-imperialist in the United States during the late nineteenth century. He served as Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State between 1913 and 1915. He eventually resigned over the US insistence of neutrality rights during the First World War. Bush, George (1924– ) Bush acted as US representative to the UN and as head of the CIA during the 1970s. In the 1980s he was Vice President during the Reagan administration; he served as President from 1989 to 1993. He presided over the end of the Cold War and German unification in 1990, though his cautious approach to European issues diminished US influence. Caetano, Marcelo (1906–80) Minister in the Portuguese Salazar regime. He succeeded Salazar in 1966 and served as Prime Minister till 1974. His inability to deal with Portuguese colonial issues in Mozambique and Angola lead to the Carnation Revolution which ousted him from power. Carter, Jimmy (1924– ) US President from 1977 to 1981, Carter did not engage with European affairs that extensively. His foreign policy emphasised human rights and he successfully negotiated the SALT II treaties with the Soviet Union in 1977. Ceauçescu, Nikolai (1918–89) General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 and Head of State from 1967. He withdrew Romania from the Warsaw Pact and condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. During détente he increased his ties to the West. Resisting demands for reform, he was eventually executed in December 1989. Chamberlain, Neville (1869–1940) British Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. He was criticised extensively for the policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany and Italy, in which a portion of Czechoslovakia was handed to Germany in exchange for ‘peace in our time’. He was succeeded by Winston Churchill. Chernenko, Konstantin (1911–85) Soviet General Secretary from 1984 to 1985. Chernenko was incapacitated by ill health for most of his period in power. His conservative approach to Soviet foreign policies brought no new initiatives. Churchill, Winston (1874–1965) Twice British Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 to 1955, Churchill was instrumental in engaging Roosevelt and US
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power in the Second World War and yet resisting pressure to decolonise the British Empire. His famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech defined the early Cold War period, though he later advocated superpower summitry during the 1950s. Coolidge, Calvin (1872–1933) Vice President under the Harding administration, Coolidge became US President in 1923 and served till 1929. Though the United States pursued limited political isolation, its economy was expanding and engaged in European affairs. Under Coolidge the Dawes and Young Plans were negotiated to alleviate the question of German reparations. De Gaulle, Charles (1890–1970) Leader of the Free French during the Second World War he resigned in 1946. His return to politics in 1958 placed him in a key position in European politics. He enhanced relations with the Adenauer government in Germany and together formed the backbone of the original ‘Six’ of the EEC. During the 1960s he twice vetoed British entry to the EEC, fearing US influence, and subsequently withdrew French forces from the NATO command structure in 1966. Dubcˇek, Alexander (1921–92) First Secretary of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party from January 1968, he quickly initiated a period of liberalisation and reform known as the Prague Spring. The Soviet Union invaded in August 1968 to halt the direction and speed of the changes. Dubcˇek briefly returned to politics in 1989 after the Czech revolution. Dulles, John Foster (1888–1959) US Secretary of State from 1953 to 1959. He was a fierce critic of the Soviet Union and communism and advocated ‘rolling back’ communist power in Eastern Europe. His tough stance on communism enhanced the Atlantic Alliance and NATO, but he was also instrumental in US opposition to the British and French action in Suez. Eden, Anthony (1897–1977) Eden resigned as British Foreign Secretary in 1938 after Chamberlain’s appeasement of Germany, but returned to the cabinet during the Second World War. Eden became Prime Minister in 1955 (following Churchill) till 1957. He was instrumental in gaining acceptance for German rearmament and entry into NATO in 1955. His actions at Suez, however, antagonised the US and he resigned shortly after. Eisenhower, Dwight (1890–1969) Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander in the European theatre during the Second World War and later, in 1950, was appointed head of NATO. An initially vociferous opponent of the Soviet Union, his approach was more cautious. His administration opposed British and French action at Suez in 1956 and failed to intervene in the Hungarian Revolution which was encouraged by the US. Erhard, Ludwig (1897–1977) German Chancellor from 1963 to 1966. He was the architect of the German economic recovery from 1949 onwards. In 1963 his policies moved him away from the close relations that de Gaulle had with Adenauer, to a more pro-US inclination. He nevertheless initiated further contact with the East European governments. Franco, Francisco (1892–1975) Leader of the nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s authoritarian rule of Spain lasted till 1975.
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Who’s Who
Gerö, Ernö (1898–1980) Hungarian communist hard-line politician since the Second World War. He was briefly installed as First Secretary of the Communist Party during 1956. Nagy succeeded him at the time of the Soviet invasion. Gomulka, Wladyslaw (1905–82) First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party from 1945 to 1948 and from 1956 to 1970. He was fiercely opposed to the West German policies of Ostpolitik. Gorbachev, Mikhail (1931– ) Soviet General Secretary from 1985, Gorbachev changed the direction of Soviet foreign policy. Domestically he introduced glasnost and perestroika, and ultimately New Thinking. He initiated détente with the United States and increased contact with Western Europe. He refused to intervene in Eastern Europe during the revolutions of 1989, though he resisted the fragmentation of the Soviet Union. He resigned from power in 1991. Harding, Warren (1865–1923) US President from 1921 to 1923, Harding distanced himself from the Wilsonian internationalism that characterised the emerging US diplomacy. Harding initiated the Washington Conference on disarmament, which limited the size of navies according to certain proportions. Heath, Edward (1916– ) British Prime Minister from 1970 to 1974. Heath was in favour of European integration and took Britain into the EEC in 1973. He was considered one of the British Prime Ministers least concerned with the United States. Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945) Opponent of the Versailles Treaty, Hitler led the Nazi Party through the 1920s. In 1933 he was appointed Chancellor and soon after assumed full dictatorial powers. Hitler began German rearmament and expanded into neighbouring countries before initiating the Second World War. He formed an Axis with Mussolini in Italy and Japan. He ordered the genocide of Jewish people during his administration. Hoover, Herbert (1874–1964) US President from 1929 to 1933, Hoover reacted slowly to the Depression, preferring to let market forces operate freely. He advocated individualism and international liberalisation of trade. Jaruzelski, Wojciech (1923– ) First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party from 1981 to 1990. He was instrumental in avoiding Soviet intervention against the strikes led by Solidarity by imposing martial law. His regime cracked down on Solidarity but was eventually forced to accept reforms during the 1980s. Johnson, Lyndon B. (1908–73) US President from 1963 to 1969, Johnson’s foreign policies were largely preoccupied with Vietnam. De Gaulle became a fierce critic of US foreign policy under Johnson and withdrew from NATO. Kellogg, Frank B. (1856–1937) US Secretary of State from 1925 to 1929. He is chiefly remembered for negotiating the Kellogg–Briand Pact which outlawed war and sought the pacific settlement of disputes. Kennan, George (1904– ) US diplomat and author of the famous ‘long telegram’ and Mr. X article in which he articulated the policy of containment. He was made head of the Policy Planning Staff in the Truman administration. He resigned from the post in 1949 increasingly alarmed at the direction of US foreign policy. Kennedy, John F. (1917–63) US President from 1961 to 1963, he presided over the ‘crisis years’ of the Cold War and took a strong position on the Berlin Crisis in 1961 and the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962. His Grand Design for Europe seeking greater interdependence was largely unsuccessful.
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Khrushchev, Nikita (1894–1971) Soviet General Secretary from 1953 to 1964. He was largely responsible for introducing the policies of Peaceful Coexistence with Malenkov after Stalin’s death. Despite his domestic reforms, changes in Hungary caused alarm, especially as it threatened to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. Khrushchev challenged Washington on a number of issues, especially during the Kennedy administration. Kiesinger, Kurt (1904–88) West German Chancellor during the coalition government from 1966 to 1969. Ostpolitik was initiated under his government though it intensified after 1969. Kissinger, Henry (1923– ) US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations. His chief concern in Europe was initiating US détente with the Soviet Union and negotiating a number of treaties on arms limitation. Tensions with West Europeans erupted over the ‘Year of Europe’ initiative and following the OPEC crisis. Kohl, Helmut (1930– ) West German Chancellor from 1982 to 1990 and then of a unified Germany from 1990 to 1998. Kohl was a key figure in the FrancoGerman alliance within the EC. He maintained contact with East Germany and the Soviet Union, but was a crucial member of the Western Alliance. Despite British and French opposition be persuaded the US and USSR to accept German unification and a united Germany in NATO. Kosygin, Alexei (1904–80) administration.
Soviet Premier from 1964 in the Brezhnev
Lenin, Vladimir I. (1870–1924) Leader of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, after the Germans transferred him back to Russia. He withdrew Russia from the First World War and eventually signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany. He resisted the White Russians and foreign intervention during the Russian Civil War. Lippmann, Walter (1889–1974) US journalist who was highly influential on Wilson’s Fourteen Points and then later very critical of the policy of containment. His influential writings suggested that the US would enter a Cold War with the Soviet Union in 1947. Lloyd-George, David (1863–1945) British Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922. Chief British negotiator at the Versailles conference, he opposed the hardline imposed on Germany, but was also instrumental in eroding Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Macmillan, Harold (1894–1986) Conservative British Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963. After Suez, Macmillan repaired relations with the United States quickly under both Eisenhower and Kennedy. He distanced himself from de Gaulle’s defence initiatives and relied on US security arrangements. In 1962 he obtained US Polaris missiles. By January 1963 de Gaulle vetoed British entry into the EEC, fearing a US Trojan Horse. Makarios, Archbishop (1913–77) President of Cyprus from 1960 until 1977 with an interruption in 1974. He favoured union with Greece. After the Turkish invasion in 1974 the island remained divided and his authority diminished. Malenkov, Georgi (1902–88) Soviet Prime Minister after Stalin’s death from 1953 to 1955. A former Stalinist, Malenkov was the key figure in advocating peaceful coexistence with the West.
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Who’s Who
Marshall, George (1880–1959) US General and from 1947 to 1949 US Secretary of State in the Truman administration. He was most famous for the European Recovery Program (ERP) which initiated European reconstruction after the Second World War and integrated European economies with the United States. Molotov, Vyacheslav (1890–1986) Soviet Foreign Minister under Stalin from 1939 to 1949. He signed the Nazi–Soviet Pact in 1939 and later attended the wartime meetings of the Big Three: Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. In 1947 he objected to the conditions attached to Marshall Aid and warned that Europe would be divided in two. The Molotov Plan for the East was introduced. He served Khrushchev, but was removed from power in 1956. Monnet, Jean (1888–1979) French politician instrumental in economic recovery and the ERP from 1947. He was a key proponent of European integration, often referred to as the ‘father of European integration’; he became the architect of the European Coal and Steel Community. Mussolini, Benito (1883–1945) Creator of the Italian Fascist Party in 1919. He organised a march on Rome to consolidate power, was appointed Prime Minister in 1922 and assumed dictatorial powers. He dreamt of recreating the Roman Empire and initiated expansion, especially into Ethiopia in 1935. The following year he joined the Axis with Hitler. Nagy, Imré (1896–1958) Briefly acted as Hungarian Prime Minister during the uprising in 1956. He rapidly accelerated reforms and democracy. He withdrew Hungary from the Warsaw Pact, declared Hungary neutral and called on the UN for protection. The Soviet invasion was swift and the Western response nonexistent. Nagy was executed two years later. Nixon, Richard (1913–94) US Vice President under Eisenhower and President between 1969 and 1974. Largely uninterested in European affairs, Nixon extended détente with the Soviet Union. He withdrew from office following the Watergate scandals. Rakosi, Matyas (1892–1971) Hungarian Prime Minister from 1952 to 1953, and from 1954 to 1956. His hard-line communist policies were out of step with the process of de-Stalinisation. He was eventually replaced by Gerö. Reagan, Ronald (1911– ) Cold Warrior and US President from 1981 to 1989. He intensified the Cold War with the Soviet Union, in the process alienating many West Europeans (except Thatcher, with whom there was a ‘special relationship’) who were strengthening links with the East since Ostpolitik. Reagan’s administration rejected overtures from Andropov, but eventually engaged in negotiations with Gorbachev from 1985. Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1882–1945) US President from 1933 to 1945. Much of his early administration was concerned with the Depression and the New Deal. Roosevelt eroded the Neutrality Acts during the late 1930s to increase the US role in war with ‘cash and carry’ and Lend-Lease. He was a key Second World War statesman who envisaged a four-power post-war cooperation that included the US, Britain, the Soviet Union and China. Salazar, Antonio de (1889–1970) He assumed dictatorial powers in Portugal from 1933 until his death in 1970. Portuguese neutrality was maintained during the Second World War, but afterwards he took the country into NATO. His refusal to
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relinquish the Portuguese empire in Africa increased opposition and eventually led to the collapse of his authoritarian rule four years after his death. Schuman, Robert (1886–1963) French Prime Minister from 1947 to 1948, after which he became the Foreign Minister and took France into NATO in 1949. The following year the Schuman Plan created the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which ensured that German power would be harnessed within the supranational organisation. Shultz, George (1920– ) Secretary of State in the Reagan administration, Shultz engaged the Soviets in negotiations and diffused the dispute with West Europeans over the Gas Pipeline project. Spaak, Paul-Henri (1899–1972) Post-war Belgian Foreign Minister, Spaak was an active proponent of European integration. He pushed the integration of the Benelux countries, and was prominent in the OEEC and the ECSC. He was influential in the negotiations and the formation of NATO, in which he served as Secretary General from 1957 to 1961. Stalin, Joseph (1879–1953) Soviet leader and General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party from 1924 to 1953. His government signed the 1939 Pact with Hitler, but after it was broken moved into the Grand Alliance with the United States and Britain. In 1944 he negotiated a sphere of influence deal with Churchill and exercised power in Eastern Europe. Strauss, Franz-Josef (1915–88) West German Minister in the Adenauer administration and then Defence Minister from 1956 to 1962. German forces entered NATO and rebuilt their strength under his direction. From 1966 he served in the coalition government. Thatcher, Margaret (1925– ) British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. She enhanced the special relationship with the United States despite the US invasion of Grenada. Thatcher supported US action in Libya and used the special relationship to counterbalance EC influences. Tito, Josip Broz (1892–1980) Yugoslav Prime Minister from 1945 to 1963, and then President until 1980. Tito became a critic of Stalin’s Russia and disagreements led to Yugoslavia’s expulsion from the Eastern Bloc in 1948. He obtained aid from the West though he maintained communist power. Truman, Harry (1884–1972) US President from 1945 to 1953. Truman’s administration presided over the origins of the Cold War. His key European initiatives include the Truman Doctrine on aid to Greece and Turkey, the Marshall Plan and the formation of NATO. Vandenberg, Arthur (1884–1951) US Republican Senator who championed Truman’s foreign policy initiatives in the US Congress. Walesa, Lech (1943– ) Polish Trade Unionist and leader of the Solidarity movement that initiated widespread strikes in the 1970s and 1980s. Martial law was imposed in 1981. Walesa’s continued resistance was eventually rewarded with increased liberalisation and elections in 1989. In 1990 he was elected President. Wilson, Harold (1916–95) Twice British Prime Minister from 1964 to 1970 (during which time de Gaulle vetoed the second British application to join the EEC) and from 1974 to 1976.
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Wilson, Woodrow (1856–1924) US President from 1913 to 1921. He insisted on US neutrality rights in the First World War, but ultimately took the United States into the war in 1917. He put forward the Fourteen Points in January 1918 as a basis for negotiations. They were largely eroded at Versailles except for the creation of the League of Nations, membership of which was rejected by the US Senate. Nevertheless, he is still regarded as one of the most influential US presidents. Yeltsin, Boris (1931– ) Russian President from 1991 to 2000. He served under Gorbachev from 1985, but then increasingly challenged the speed of the reforms. As President of the Russian Republic, he played a key role in resisting the attempted Soviet coup of August 1991.
FURTHER READING
For works that generally provide a very good overview of the US–European relationship at least covering parts of the century start with Geir Lundestad’s (1998) ‘Empire’ by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945–1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), in which he examines the US promotion of integration, but also considers US control or the creation of an ‘empire’. Alfred Grosser’s (1978) The Western Alliance: European–American Relations since 1945 (New York: Seabury Press, 1980) provides a detailed overview examining the many crises in the relationship. Beatrice Heuser’s (1996) Transatlantic Relations: Sharing Ideals and Costs (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs) examines some of the shared ideals, but also the tensions between Atlanticism and European integration. John Lamberton Harper’s (1996) American Visions of Europe: Franklin D. Roosevelt, George F. Kennan, and Dean G. Acheson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) provides a study of US cultural attitudes towards Europe seen through the eyes of Roosevelt and the post-war planners. For a similar period, see the early and influential Architects of Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Policy, 1941–1949 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books) on the ideas that shaped US policy, by Lloyd Gardner (1970). Pascaline Winand’s (1993) Eisenhower, Kennedy and the United States of Europe (New York: St Martin’s Press) has been influential on the 1950s and 1960s. John Young (1991) Cold War Europe (London: Routledge) provides a good overview of European developments within the context of the Cold War and Ann Deighton’s (1995) Building Postwar Europe: National Decision Makers and European Institutions (New York: St Martin’s Press) examines the institutions and individuals that created the union. Following the US interests examined in this book, on US security concerns in Europe see Richard Barnet’s (1984) The Alliance: America, Europe, Japan: Makers of the Postwar World (New York: Simon and Schuster) and Lawrence Kaplan’s (1984) NATO and the United States: The Enduring Alliance (Boston: Twayne Publishers). William Cromwell’s (1992) The United States and the European Pillar looks at the tensions in the Western Alliance and Joseph Lepgold’s (1990) The Declining Hegemon: The United States and European Defence, 1960–1990 (New York: Praeger) examines the US and European defence from 1960 to 1980. For a more general overview of the nuclear stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union, see Ronald Powaski (1987) March to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race 1939 to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press). Francis Heller and John Gillingham’s (eds) (1992) NATO: The Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the Integration of Europe (London: Palgrave) is an edited collection that looks at the relationship between NATO and the process of European integration. Geir Lundestad’s (1998) No End to Alliance: The United States and Western Europe: Past, Present and Future (London: Macmillan) provides an edited collection on the transatlantic security relationships.
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Concentration on economic aspects of US diplomacy increased since the late 1950s with the influence of the revisionists. For an influential overview of US diplomacy, see William Appleman Williams (1959) The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: Delta). Lloyd Gardner’s (1964) Economic Aspects of New Deal Diplomacy (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press) is an extremely detailed analysis of the Roosevelt period. Covering the Cold War in general, see Thomas McCormick’s (1989) America’s Half Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press). Works on the economic relations with varying perspectives include William H. Becker and Samuel F. Wells (eds) (1984) Economics and World Power: An Assessment of American Diplomacy since 1789 (New York: Columbia University Press); Diane Kunz (1997) Butter and Guns: America’s Cold War Economic Diplomacy (New York: The Free Press); David Calleo’s (1982) The Imperious Economy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press); Paul Kennedy’s (1989) The Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London: Fontana) and Norman Levine’s (ed.) (1996) The US and the EU: Economic Relations in a World of Transition (Reading, MA: University Press of America). Noted works that cover more particular periods or relationships are Alan Milward’s (1984) The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945–51 (Berkeley: University of California Press); Michael Hogan’s (1987) The Marshall Plan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Thomas Zeiler’s (1992) American Trade and Power in the 1960s on economic issues; Alan Dobson’s (1988) The Politics of the Anglo-American Economic Special Relationship, 1940–1987 (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books) and Ian Jackson’s (2001) The Economic Cold War: America, Britain and East–West Trade, 1948–63 (London: Palgrave). The ideological foundations of US foreign policy can be found in Michael Hunt (1987) Ideology and US Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) and constructions of the ideas that informed US policy in David Ryan (2000) US Foreign Policy in World History (London: Routledge). Tony Smith (1994) America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) provides a detailed analysis of the influence of Wilson on US diplomacy, as does Frank Ninkovich’s (2001) The Wilsonian Century: US Foreign Policy since 1900 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Work covering the Wilsonian period is voluminous. For early interpretations, see Charles Tansill (1938) America Goes to War (Boston: Little Brown Company) and George Kennan’s (1951) American Diplomacy, 1900–1950 (Chicago: Chicago University Press). Robert Osgood (1953) Ideals and Self-Interest in America’s Foreign Relations: The Great Transformation of the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) was an early standard text on Wilsonian diplomacy, as was the multi-volume work by Arthur Link (1960–65) Wilson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univerity Press), in which the idea of ‘higher realism’ is put forth. Lloyd Ambrosius (1987) Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) was particularly influential, as was Lloyd Gardner’s (1984) Safe for Democracy: The Anglo-American Response to Revolution, 1913–1923 (New York: Oxford University Press) which looks at Anglo-American reactions to nationalism. More recently, Thomas Knock (1992) To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press) examines Wilson’s struggle to create a new world order.
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On the inter-war period, see Robert A. Divine (1962) The Illusion of Neutrality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) and Robert H. Ferrell (1957) American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover–Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929–1933 (New York: Norton), both of which examine the traditional approach to the period of US ‘isolationism’. After Wilson’s ambitious agenda for engagement, these works chart the more limited scope of the Republican administrations through the 1920s and early 1930s. By the late 1950s revisionist accounts became prominent, arguing that the United States had always been expansionist since its independence and that during the 1920s and 1930s it remained so, though the emphasis was on economic and cultural engagement. See for instance: William Appleman Williams (1959) The Tragedy of American Diplomacy and Lloyd C. Gardner’s (1964) Economic Aspects of New Deal Diplomacy. An interpretation giving primary importance to the role of corporations (‘corporatism’) is provided by Michael J. Hogan (1977) Informal Entente: The Private Structure of Cooperation in Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy, 1918–1929 (Missouri), and Joan Hoff Wilson’s (1971) American Business and Foreign Policy, 1920–1933 (New York: Houghton Mifflin). US cultural expansion during the period is covered by Emily S. Rosenberg (1982) Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion 1890–1945 (New York: Hill and Wang) and by Frank Costigliola’s (1984) Awkward Dominion: America’s Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919–1933 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Akira Iriye’s (1993) The Globalizing of America, 1913–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) provides a good synthesis that also emphasises issues of culture. Brian McKercher (1999) treats the erosion of British hegemony and the rise of US power in Transition of Power: Britain’s Loss of Global Pre-Eminence to the United States 1930–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). The literature on the war is extensive. Start with Warren Kimball’s (1991) The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Robert Dallek (1979) Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press) and Robert Divine (1968) The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II (New York: Wiley) examines US entry into the war. Gabriel Kolko’s (1970) The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy 1943–1945 (New York: Random House) provides a revisionist critique. A good review of the literature on the war can be found in Mark Stoler’s essay ‘A Half Century of Conflict’ in Michael J. Hogan’s (1995) America and the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). See also Martin Gilbert’s (1981) Auschwitz and the Allies (New York: Henry Holt). The origins of the Cold War has generated an inordinate amount of controversy and historiographical dispute. See Louis Halle (1963) The Cold War as History (New York: Harper & Row) for an early statement of a traditional interpretation. Revisionists challenged the traditional interpretations from the late 1950s onward. See, for example, Joyce and Gabriel Kolko’s (1972) The Limits of Power: The World and the United States Foreign Policy, 1945–1954 (New York: Harper & Row) and, covering the entire post-war period Walter LaFeber’s perennial America, Russia, and the Cold War (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991, 1993, 1997). Post-revisionists began to influence the field from the early 1970s. See especially John Lewis Gaddis (1972) The United States and the Origins of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University
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Press) and his (1982) Strategies of Containment (Oxford: Oxford University Press) which is a very good post-revisionist argument. Gaddis’s (1997) We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon Press) provides a vindication of US policy for the origins of the Cold War. A very good analysis of the issues and the literature is David Reynolds (ed.) (1994) The Origins of the Cold War in Europe: International Perspectives (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). More recent influential books include Melvyn Leffler’s (1992) A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press) and Michael Hogan’s (1998) Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). The literature on the end of the Cold War is growing rapidly. A work of huge detail is Raymond Garthoff’s (1994) The Great Transition: American–Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution). His earlier work is also tremendously influential, see Garthoff (1994) Détente and Confrontation: American–Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution). Michael Hogan’s (1992) edited collection, The End of the Cold War: Its Meaning and Implications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) provides a useful introduction because of the range of opinion contained in the volume. Another work of interest includes Michael Beschloss and Strobe Talbott’s (1993) At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (London: Warner). David Calleo’s (1987) Beyond American Hegemony: The Future of the Western Alliance (New York: Basic Books) looks at the Alliance up to the easing of tensions between the superpowers. John Lewis Gaddis (1992) The United States and the End of the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press) provides a good collection of essays. Of particular note are three books that exclusively examine the transatlantic relationship: Kevin Featherstone and Roy Ginsberg’s (1996) The United States and the European Community in the 1990s: Partners in Transition (New York: St Martin’s Press); John Peterson (1993) Europe and America: The Prospects for Partnership (New York: Routledge), which examines the prospects for the continued Alliance; and René Schwok (1991) US–EC Relations in the Post-Cold War Era: Conflict or Partnership (Boulder, CO: Westview Press), which examines the theme of conflict and cooperation in the relationship. Particular bilateral relationships to note are David Dimbleby and David Reynolds (1988) An Ocean Apart: The Relationship between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (London: Hodder and Stoughton), which provides a concise overview of Anglo-American relations. Alan Dobson’s (1995) Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century: Of Friendship, Conflict and the Rise and Decline of Superpowers (London: Routledge) examines the transition from one power to the next and the conflict and cooperation that ensued. John Dumbrell’s (2001) A Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations in the Cold War and After (London: Macmillan) is very useful for its focus on the post-1960s period and the tensions that developed over Vietnam and Ireland. William R. Louis and Hedley Bull (eds) (1986) The Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press) provides a very useful collection of essays. On France, see Frank Costigliola (1992) France and the United States: The Cold War Alliance since World War II (New York: Twayne Publishing); Robert Paxton and Nicholas Wahl (eds) (1994) De Gaulle and the United States: A Centenial Reappraisal (Oxford:
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Berg); Jean-Baptiste Duroselle (1978) France and the United States from the Beginnings to the Present (Chicago: University of Chicago Press); Irwin Wall (1991) The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945–1954 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); and Philip Gordon (1995) France, Germany and the Western Alliance (Boulder, CO: Westview Press). On Germany, see Manfred Jonas (1984) The United States and Germany: A Diplomatic History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press); Frank Ninkovich (1995) Germany and the United States: The Transformation of the German Question since 1945 (New York: Twayne Publishing); Thomas Schwartz (1991) America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press); and Frank Mayer (1996) Adenauer and Kennedy: A Study in German-American Relations, 1961–1963 (New York: St Martin’s Press).
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INDEX
Acheson, Dean 55, 58, 66, 78, 81, 169 Adams, John Quincy 8–9, 169 Adenauer, Konrad 62, 64, 74, 77–9, 82, 169, 171, 175 Afghanistan 98, 102, 159 Africa 11, 13–14, 20–1, 26, 96–7, 131, 167, 175 Albania 83, 168 Allied Powers 21–5, 30, 40–4 Alsace 20 American Expeditionary Force 30 Andropov, Yuri 99, 101, 106, 169, 174 Angola 96, 97, 170 Anschluss 165 Anti-imperial League 12 Arabic 24 Arbenz, Jacobo 72–3 Armed Forces Movement 96 Asia 11, 14, 20–1, 26, 43, 48, 65–6, 167 Atlantic Declaration 94 Atlantic Charter 33, 42, 44–7, 141–2, 165 Attlee, Clement 60, 169 Austria 68, 75, 109, 114, 146, 159, 165–6 Austria-Hungarian Empire 20–2, 26, 30, 32–3, 149 Axis Powers 41–4, 174 Baker, James 109, 111, 113, 118 Baldwin Stanley 35 Balkans 21, 105, 116 Ball, George 79 Baltic States 54, 112 Belgium 21, 23, 36, 46, 62–4, 75, 100, 103, 165–6, 175 Benelux 62, 75, 175 Benes, Eduard 169 Berlin Conference on West Africa 11, 13 Berlin crisis 62–4, 76–7, 84, 147, 152, 154, 170, 172 Bevin, Ernest 59, 62, 165, 169 Bidault, Georges 59, 68, 169 Bishop, Maurice 100 Boer War 14–15, 20 Bolsheviks 28–9 Bosnia-Hercegovina 116–18, 125 Bradley, Omar 62–3 Brandt, Willy 82, 84, 93, 123, 168–9 Brest-Litovsk Treaty 28, 30, 173 Bretton Woods 4, 55–6, 61, 91, 165, 167, 169
Brezhnev Doctrine 101, 108, 165, 170 Brezhnev, Leonid 83, 101, 170 Briand, Aristide 36, 170 Britain 4, 7–9, 13–15, 20–5, 30–41, 43–8, 54–6, 58–64, 68–9, 71–6, 78–9, 92–5, 100, 110–11, 116–17, 123, 125, 132, 141–3, 145, 149, 165–7, 169, 171–5 Brussels Treaty 1948 60, 63–4, 165, 167, 169 Bryan, William Jennings 23–4, 170 Bulgaria 22, 81, 109, 168 Burma 58 Bush, George, H. W. 108–11, 113, 118, 168, 170 Caetano, Marcelo 96, 170 Callaghan, James 97 Cambodia 100 Canada 64, 76, 92, 158, 165, 167 Caribbean 15, 46 Carlos, Juan 97 Carnation Revolution 96, 170 Carrington, Peter, 103 117 Carter, Jimmy 98, 103, 170 Ceauçescu, Nikolai 82–3, 109, 170 Central America 15, 46 Central Intelligence Agency 63, 72, 97, 102, 165, 170 Central Powers 22, 24–5 Chamberlain, Neville 42, 170–1 Chernenko, Konstantine 101, 106, 170 Cheysson, Claude 100 Chile 90 China 13–15, 20, 27, 54, 75, 83, 89–91, 108, 131, 149, 167, 174 Chirac, Jacques 126 Churchill, Winston 8, 42, 45–8, 54–5, 57–8, 67, 109, 141–2, 144, 165, 169, 170, 174–5 Civil War, U.S. 9–11 Clark, Wesley 119 Clemenceau, Georges 26, 31 Clinton, Bill 5, 115, 117–18 Cold War 3, 5–6, 43, 46, 48, 53–4, 57–9, 63, 65–7, 69, 71–2, 75, 81–2, 84, 89–90, 93, 98, 101, 105–6, 108–11, 115–16, 118, 123–5, 142, 152, 159–60, 166–7, 170–5 colonies/colonialism 4, 8–14, 20–2, 25–6, 28, 30, 40–3, 45–7, 53–4, 62, 64–6, 72, 90, 96, 100, 114 191
192
Index
Comecon 75 Cominform 70 Comintern 70 Common Agricultural Policy 76, 80, 165 Common External Tariff 80 Commonwealth, the 74, 75, 100 Communism 5, 8, 45, 54, 59, 65 Conference on European Security 82 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 92, 111, 160, 162, 165 Congo 11 Constatine II 95 containment 53, 57, 60, 62, 98, 113, 149, 165, 173 Conventional Forces in Europe 109 Coolidge, Calvin 35–6, 38, 171 Council of Europe 61, 163, 166 Croatia 116, 118 Cuba 12, 97, 100, 108, 114 Cuban Missile Crisis 78, 83, 107, 172 Cyprus 72, 96, 173 Czech Republic 115 Czechoslovakia 30, 42–3, 57, 60, 63, 66, 69, 72, 81–3, 102, 108–9, 112, 145, 151, 159, 165, 167–71 Dawes Plan 37–8, 171 Dayton Agreement 117–18 De Gaulle, Charles 46–7, 66, 75, 77–82, 90, 92–3, 125–6, 169, 171–3, 175 De Murville, Couve 81 De Spínola, António 96 Declaration of Independence 7, 46 Declaration on Liberated Europe 55, 142 decolonization 9, 46–7, 54, 65–6, 96–7 Delores, Jacques 104, 114 democracy 5, 10, 12, 19, 22, 29 Denmark 64, 75, 92, 95, 103, 166, 167 Depression 33–4, 38, 40, 43, 172, 174 Détente 69, 81–5, 89–90, 92–3, 95, 97–8, 102–3, 105–6, 157, 159, 165–6, 168–70, 172–4 Dillon, Douglas 76, 80, Dubcek, Alexander 83–4, 171 Dulles, John Foster 67–8, 70, 72–6, 82, 125, 171 Dunkirk Agreement 63 Eanes, Ramalho 96 Eastern Europe 54–7, 59–60, 65, 67, 69–71, 75, 81–2, 85, 90–1, 101, 105, 108–9, 112, 114, 123, 145, 168, 171–2, 175 Ecevit, Bülent 96 Eden, Anthony 73, 171 Egypt 13, 72–3 Eisenhower, Dwight 56, 63, 67, 70, 72–4, 76, 82, 171, 173–4 empire 4, 6, 8, 20, 26, 31–2, 44–5, 62, 64, 74, 96, 123 end of History 5
Erhard, Ludwig 79, 82, 171 Estonia 54 Ethiopia 41 Europe, passim European Coal and Steel Community 61–2, 75, 166, 169, 174–5 European Commission 5, 98, 104, 114 European Co-operation Administration 64–5, 166 European Defence Community 67–8, 124, 166 European Economic Community 69, 74–6, 78–9, 81–2, 84, 89, 91–8, 100, 103, 109, 151–2, 156, 158, 160, 166–9, 171–3, 175 European Free Trade Association 69, 75–6, 79, 92, 166, 168 European integration 4, 60, 72, 89, 93, 123, 175 European Monetary Union 104, 114 European Payments Union 61 European Political Cooperation 95 European Recovery Plan, see Marshall Plan European Union 105, 113–18, 126, 161, 163 Exchange Rate Mechanism 103 Farouk, King 72 fascism 5, 40–1 Faure, Maurice 74 Ferdinand, Francis 21 Finland 62, 114 First World War 4, 19–21, 23–33, 37, 40–2, 49, 53, 124, 165, 170, 173, 176 Ford, Gerald 173 Four Freedoms 44, 46, 140 Four Powered Allied Control Council 63 Fourteen Points 29–30, 32, 34, 46, 135, 167, 173, 176 France 13–14, 20–1, 23, 26, 30–3, 35–7, 39, 41, 43–4, 46–8, 56, 59–60, 62–9, 71–5, 79, 81–2, 92, 94, 97, 100–2, 110–11, 114–17, 125, 139, 145, 149, 165–7, 170–1, 173 Franco, Francisco 41, 97, 171 French North Africa 48 Gadsden Purchase 10 Gasperi, Alcide de 63 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 76, 80, 109, 114, 166 Germany 5–6, 14, 20–8, 30–3, 35–45, 47–9, 56–7, 59–64, 105, 110–14, 116–17, 123, 125, 132–5, 139, 142–6, 149, 165, 168, 170–1, 173 East Germany 57, 64, 67, 76–7, 82–3, 102–3, 108–10, 159, 168–9 West Germany 59, 60–4, 67–9, 74–5, 77–85, 92–5, 99–100, 102–3, 110, 159, 166–9, 173, 175
Index Gerö, Ernö, 71, 172, 174 Glasnost 106, 166, 172 Gomulka, Wladyslaw 71, 83, 172 González, Felipe 97 Gorbachev, Mikhail 103, 106–13, 166–9, 172, 174, 176 Gottwald, Clement 63 Grand Alliance 45–7, 54–5 Grand Design 76, 78–9, 154, 172 Gray, Edward 24 Greece 22, 54, 58–9, 95–6, 118, 123, 125, 145, 167, 173 Grenada 100, 175 Gromyko, Andrei 101, 107 Guatemala 72 Guinea-Bassau 96 Gulf War 112, 118 Hallstein Doctrine 82, 166 Harding, Warren G. 35, 171–2 Hay, John 14 Heath, Edward 92, 172 Helsinki Final Act 1975 92 Henderson, Loy 58 Herter, Christian 76 Hitler, Adolph 41–5, 47–8, 56, 165, 168, 172, 174–5 Ho Chi Minh 26, 65 Holbrooke, Richard 117 Holocaust 43, 48 Holy Alliance 8 Honecker, Erich 102–3, 109 Hoover, Herbert 35, 37, 39–40, 172 House, Edward 22, 24, 29, 31 House-Grey Memorandum 24 Hughes, Charles Evans 35 Hull, Cordell 49 Hungary 32, 54, 60, 69–73, 77, 81, 84, 108–9, 112, 115, 168–9, 171–4 Iceland 44, 64, 107, 167 Imperial Preference System 40, 42 imperialism 4, 11–13, 19–20, 27, 45–6, 65 India 45, 58 Indochina 26, 44, 46, 66, 68, 74 Intermediate-range Nuclear Force 107–8, 167 International Monetary Fund 26, 55, 73, 165, 167 Iran 73, 94, 114 Iran-Contra affair 108 Iraq 94 Ireland 24, 92, 95 Iron Curtain 8 isolationism 34, 37–8, 41–2, 53, 109, 129, 132, 171 Israel 72–3, 94, 98, 168 Israeli lobby 72 Italy 5, 14, 20, 22, 31, 35, 40–1, 44–5, 48, 54, 59, 62–4, 75, 100, 149, 166, 172, 174 Izetbegovic, Alija 116
193
Japan 5, 13–14, 22, 31, 35, 41, 44–5, 47, 89–91, 94, 98–9, 103, 149, 157, 172 Jaruzelski, Wojiech 102, 168, 172 Jefferson, Thomas 9–10, 129, 154 Johnson, Lyndon 80–2, 84, 172 Kádár, Janos 71 Karamanlis, Constatine 96 Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928, 36, 139, 172 Kellogg, Frank 172, Kennan, George 46, 57, 59, 63, 142, 165, 172 Kennedy, John F. 76–8, 80, 82, 152–4, 167, 172–3 Kerensky, Alexander 25, 28 Keynes, John Meynard 31, 37, 136 Khrushchev, Nikita 67, 70–1, 76–7, 152, 173–4 Kiesinger, Kurt 173 Kissinger, Henry 6, 84, 91–4, 97, 173 Kohl, Helmut 103, 110–11, 114, 173 Korea 62, 66–7, 166 Kornilov, Lavr 28 Kosygin, Aleksei 84, 173 Kosovo 4, 116, 118–19 Kristallnacht 49 Kuwait 94 Lansing, Robert 22, 24, 29 Latin America 7–8 Latvia 54 League of Nations 29, 31–2, 34, 137, 167, 176 Lebanon 100 Leiblnecht, Karl 32 Lend-Lease 44–5, 47, 169, 174 Lenin, Vladimir 26, 28–31, 173 liberalism 20 Liberty 5, 10, 12 Libya 101, 114, 175 Lippmann, Walter 173 Lithuania 54 Lloyd George, David 26, 31, 137, 173 Lloyd, Selwyn 73 Locarno Treaty 1925 36 Lodge, Henry Cabot 31, 32, 137 Lomé Convention 97, 167 London Conference 1933 39 Lorraine 20 Louisiana Purchase 7, 9 Lusitania 24 Luxembourg 21, 62–3, 75, 100, 103, 165–6 Luxemburg, Rosa 32 MacDonald, Ramsay 35 Macedonia 118 Macmillan, Harold 73, 75–6, 78, 173 Madison, James 9 Maine, USS 12
194
Index
Makarios, Archbishop 173 Malaya 44, 159 Malenkov, Georgi 67, 71, 173 Manifest Destiny 10 Mao, Tse-tung 67 Marshall, George 48, 58–9, 62, 146, 166, 174 Marshall Plan 56, 59–64, 91, 109, 125, 146, 166–7, 169, 174 Marti, Jose 12 Maastricht Treaty 114 Molotov Plan 174 Molotov, Vyacheslav 174 Mossadeq, Mohammed 73 Mayer, René 68 McKinley, William 13 Mellon, Andrew 38 Mendès-France, Pierre 68 Mexico 7, 10, 22, 25, 27 Middle East 48, 59, 94, 101, 167 Milosevíc, Slobodan 116, 118–19 Mitterand, François 111, 114 Mollet, Guy 74 Molotov, Vyacheslav 60, 62 Monnet, Jean 60, 62, 124, 125, 174 Monroe Doctrine 7–9, 14–15, 32, 46, 130, 169 Roosevelt corollary 16, 131 Monroe, James 7–9, 123 Morgan, J. P. 38 Mozambique 96–7, 170 Multilateral Force 78–80, 84, 167 Mussolini, Benito 40–1, 174 Nagy, Imré, 71, 84, 172, 174 Napoleonic Wars, 7 10 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 72 National Missile Defence 5 nationalism 5, 10, 26, 30 Native Americans 10–11 Naval Act (1890) 15 Naval Treaty 1922, 138 Nazis 40–3, 49, 146, 172 Nazi-Soviet Pact 44, 174 Netherlands, The 46, 62–4, 75, 94, 100, 103, 123, 165–6, 168 neutrality 22–6, 41–2, 132, 134, 140, 174, 176 New Deal 40, 43 New International Economic Order 98 Nicaragua 100 Nixon, Richard 84, 90–4, 100, 156–7, 173–4 North Atlantic Cooperation Council 115 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 4–6, 62, 64, 66, 68, 75–6, 79–82, 84, 95–6, 98, 100, 103, 105, 108, 110–13, 115–19, 124–6, 147, 152–3, 157, 159, 162–7, 169, 171–5 Norway 64, 75, 92, 166–7
Novotny, Antonin 83 NSC–68 66, 149, 165, 167 Nuremburg Laws 49 Nye Committee 41 Open Door notes 14, 131 Open Door policies 15, 21, 32 Organisation of American States 72 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 76, 124, 167 Organization for European Economic Cooperation 61, 64, 76, 124, 166–7, 169, 175 Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries 89–90, 94–5, 125, 167–8, 173 Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe 119 Orlando, Vittorio 31 Ostpolitik 69, 77, 82–5, 90–1, 93, 102, 168, 170, 172–4 Ottoman Empire 13, 22, 26, 30, 32, 149 Overlord 47 Owen, David 117–18 Palestine 49, 98 Panama Canal 15 Papandreou, George 95–6 Partnership for Peace 115, 162–4 Pearl Harbor 44–5 Perestroika 106, 168, 172 Philippines 12–13, 44, 46 Pieck, Wilhelm 64 Pleven, René 67 Poland 43, 54–5, 57, 60, 81, 83–4, 101–3, 108, 110, 112, 115, 145, 159, 168, 172, 175 Polk, James 9 Pompidou, Georges 92 Portugal 13, 20, 22, 64, 75, 96–7, 166–7, 170, 174–5 Potsdam Conference 56 Prodi, Romano 5 Puerto Rico 12 Putin, Vladimir 5 Rakosi, Matyas 71, 174 Reagan, Ronald 81, 97–103, 107–8, 111, 159, 167–8, 170, 174–5 Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act 39 Reichstag 41 Romania 22, 54, 60, 81–3, 109, 168, 170 Roosevelt, Franklin 39–49, 53–6, 140–2, 165, 169, 170, 174 Roosevelt, Theodore 15, 131 Russian Revolution 25, 27–8 Salazar, Antonio 96, 170, 174 Saudi Arabia 73, 94 Schmidt, Helmut 102–3
Index Schröder, Gerhard 82 Schuman, Robert 62, 166, 175 Second World War 4, 5, 19, 26, 33–4, 38, 43, 48, 64, 74, 90, 92, 123, 156, 167, 169, 171–2, 174 self-determination 5, 10, 12, 14, 19, 22, 26, 28–9, 30, 32 Serbia 21, 116–19 Shevardnadze, Eduard 106–7, 113 Shultz, George 103, 175 Silva, Anibal Cavaco 96 Singapore 44 Single European Act 103–4, 114 Slovenia 116 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act 1930 39 Soares, Mário 96 Solidarity 101–3, 108, 168, 172, 175 South Africa 13, 20, 97 Soviet-communism 5 Soviet Union/Russia 5, 8, 11, 14, 20–3, 25–30, 32, 36, 40–1, 44–6, 48, 53–9, 61–3, 64–71, 74, 77, 81–5, 90–1, 97–8, 100–3, 105–7, 110–12, 115–17, 123–6, 142–5, 149–52, 159–60, 166–76 Spaak, Paul-Henri 62, 75, 175 Spain 7–8, 12, 20, 44, 64, 96–7, 101, 167, 171 Spanish-American-Cuban War 11 Spanish Civil War 41 Stalin, Joseph 40, 47, 54–8, 64, 67, 70, 142, 144, 173–5 START 109 Stoltenberg, Thorvald, 117 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I & II, 107, 168, 170 Strategic Defense Initiative 98–9, 168 Strauss, Franz-Josef 82, 175 Suarez, Adolfo 97 Suez crisis 71–4, 94, 117, 125, 171, 173 Sussex 24 Sweden 75, 79, 114, 166 Switzerland 75, 79, 166 Talbott, Strobe 123 Tehran Conference 1943 54 Teller Amendment 12 Thailand (Siam) 13 Thatcher, Margaret 100, 102–3, 111, 174–5 Tito, Josep Broz 58, 70–1, 83, 175 trade unionism 20
195
Transatlantic Declaration 114, 160 Treaty of Rome 75, 151, 166 Trilateral Commission 98 Triple Alliance 21 Trotsky, Leon 28–9 Truman Doctrine 8, 59, 145 Truman, Harry 57–8, 63–4, 66, 70, 74, 169, 172, 174–5 Trusteeship System 46 Turkey 58, 95–6, 125, 145, 167, 173 United Nations 26, 46, 56, 71–3, 92, 95, 108, 142, 147–8, 151, 160, 167, 170, 174 United States, passim. independence 4, 129 Vance, Cyrus 117 Vandenberg, Arthur 58, 60, 175 Vatican 102 Venezuelan crisis 15 Versailles 19, 26, 31, 36–7, 42, 67, 136, 167–8, 172–3, 176 Vietnam 80, 89, 97, 125, 154, 159, 172 Walesa, Lech 168, 175 Wall Street Crash 33, 38–9 Warsaw Pact 64, 71, 81, 83–4, 101, 108, 112, 115, 165, 167–8, 170, 173–4 Washington, George 23, 129 Washington Treaty 1922 35, 172 West European Union 62, 68, 100, 115, 163 William II 31 Wilson, Harold 81, 175 Wilson, Woodrow 4–5, 8, 19, 21–32, 34, 46, 53–4, 132–3, 135–8, 167, 170, 172–3, 175 World Bank 55, 165 World Trade Organisation 114, 166 Yalta 55, 142 Year of Europe 93 Yeltsin, Boris 113, 176 Young Plan 38, 168, 171 Yugoslavia 5, 30, 54, 58, 70–1, 83, 105, 116, 119, 167, 175 Zhukov, Georgii 56 Zimmerman, Alfred 25
SEMINAR STUDIES
IN HISTORY
General Editors: Clive Emsley & Gordon Martel
The series was founded by Patrick Richardson in 1966. Between 1980 and 1996 Roger Lockyer edited the series before handing over to Clive Emsley (Professor of History at the Open University) and Gordon Martel (Professor of International History at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada and Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University). M E D I E VA L E N G L A N D
The Pre-Reformation Church in England 1400–1530 (Second edition) Christopher Harper-Bill 0 582 28989 0 Lancastrians and Yorkists: The Wars of the Roses David R Cook
0 582 35384 X
Family and Kinship in England 1450–1800 Will Coster
0 582 35717 9
TUDOR ENGLAND
Henry VII (Third edition) Roger Lockyer & Andrew Thrush
0 582 20912 9
Henry VIII (Second edition) M D Palmer
0 582 35437 4
Tudor Rebellions (Fourth edition) Anthony Fletcher & Diarmaid MacCulloch
0 582 28990 4
The Reign of Mary I (Second edition) Robert Tittler
0 582 06107 5
Early Tudor Parliaments 1485–1558 Michael A R Graves
0 582 03497 3
The English Reformation 1530–1570 W J Sheils
0 582 35398 X
Elizabethan Parliaments 1559–1601 (Second edition) Michael A R Graves
0 582 29196 8
England and Europe 1485–1603 (Second edition) Susan Doran
0 582 28991 2
The Church of England 1570–1640 Andrew Foster
0 582 35574 5
196
Series list
197
S T U A RT B R I TA I N
Social Change and Continuity: England 1550–1750 (Second edition) Barry Coward 0 582 29442 8 James I (Second edition) S J Houston
0 582 20911 0
The English Civil War 1640–1649 Martyn Bennett
0 582 35392 0
Charles I, 1625–1640 Brian Quintrell
0 582 00354 7
The English Republic 1649–1660 (Second edition) Toby Barnard
0 582 08003 7
Radical Puritans in England 1550–1660 R J Acheson
0 582 35515 X
The Restoration and the England of Charles II (Second edition) John Miller
0 582 29223 9
The Glorious Revolution (Second edition) John Miller
0 582 29222 0
E A R LY M O D E R N E U R O P E
The Renaissance (Second edition) Alison Brown
0 582 30781 3
The Emperor Charles V Martyn Rady
0 582 35475 7
French Renaissance Monarchy: Francis I and Henry II (Second edition) Robert Knecht 0 582 28707 3 The Protestant Reformation in Europe Andrew Johnston
0 582 07020 1
The French Wars of Religion 1559–1598 (Second edition) Robert Knecht
0 582 28533 X
Phillip II Geoffrey Woodward
0 582 07232 8
The Thirty Years’ War Peter Limm
0 582 35373 4
Louis XIV Peter Campbell
0 582 01770 X
Spain in the Seventeenth Century Graham Darby
0 582 07234 4
Peter the Great William Marshall
0 582 00355 5
198
Series list
EUROPE 1789–1918
Britain and the French Revolution Clive Emsley
0 582 36961 4
Revolution and Terror in France 1789–1795 (Second edition) D G Wright
0 582 00379 2
Napoleon and Europe D G Wright
0 582 35457 9
The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia, 1762–1907 David Moon
0 582 29486 X
Nineteenth-Century Russia: Opposition to Autocracy Derek Offord
0 582 35767 5
The Constitutional Monarchy in France 1814–48 Pamela Pilbeam
0 582 31210 8
The 1848 Revolutions (Second edition) Peter Jones
0 582 06106 7
The Italian Risorgimento M Clark
0 582 00353 9
Bismarck & Germany 1862–1890 (Second edition) D G Williamson
0 582 29321 9
Imperial Germany 1890–1918 Ian Porter, Ian Armour and Roger Lockyer
0 582 03496 5
The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 1867–1918 (Second edition) John W Mason 0 582 29466 5 Second Empire and Commune: France 1848–1871 (Second edition) William H C Smith 0 582 28705 7 France 1870–1914 (Second edition) Robert Gildea
0 582 29221 2
The Scramble for Africa (Second edition) M E Chamberlain
0 582 36881 2
Late Imperial Russia 1890–1917 John F Hutchinson
0 582 32721 0
The First World War Stuart Robson
0 582 31556 5
Austria, Prussia and Germany, 1806–1871 John Breuilly
0 582 43739 3
EUROPE SINCE 1918
The Russian Revolution (Second edition) Anthony Wood
0 582 35559 1
Lenin’s Revolution: Russia, 1917–1921 David Marples
0 582 31917 X
Series list
199
Stalin and Stalinism (Third edition) Martin McCauley
0 582 50587 9
The Weimar Republic (Second edition) John Hiden
0 582 28706 5
The Inter-War Crisis 1919–1939 Richard Overy
0 582 35379 3
Fascism and the Right in Europe, 1919–1945 Martin Blinkhorn
0 582 07021 X
Spain’s Civil War (Second edition) Harry Browne
0 582 28988 2
The Third Reich (Third edition) D G Williamson
0 582 20914 5
The Origins of the Second World War (Second edition) R J Overy
0 582 29085 6
The Second World War in Europe Paul MacKenzie
0 582 32692 3
The French at War, 1934–1944 Nicholas Atkin
0 582 36899 5
Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust Albert S Lindemann
0 582 36964 9
The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews David Engel
0 582 32720 2
Germany from Defeat to Partition, 1945–1963 D G Williamson
0 582 29218 2
Britain and Europe since 1945 Alex May
0 582 30778 3
Eastern Europe 1945–1969: From Stalinism to Stagnation Ben Fowkes
0 582 32693 1
Eastern Europe since 1970 Bülent Gökay
0 582 32858 6
The Khrushchev Era, 1953–1964 Martin McCauley
0 582 27776 0
Hitler and the Rise of the Nazi Party Frank McDonough
0 582 50606 9
The Soviet Union Under Brezhnev William Tompson
0 582 32719 9
N I N E T E E N T H - C E N T U RY B R I TA I N
Britain before the Reform Acts: Politics and Society 1815–1832 Eric J Evans
0 582 00265 6
200
Series list
Parliamentary Reform in Britain c. 1770–1918 Eric J Evans
0 582 29467 3
Democracy and Reform 1815–1885 D G Wright
0 582 31400 3
Poverty and Poor Law Reform in Nineteenth-Century Britain, 1834–1914: From Chadwick to Booth David Englander 0 582 31554 9 The Birth of Industrial Britain: Economic Change, 1750–1850 Kenneth Morgan
0 582 29833 4
Chartism (Third edition) Edward Royle
0 582 29080 5
Peel and the Conservative Party 1830–1850 Paul Adelman
0 582 35557 5
Gladstone, Disraeli and later Victorian Politics (Third edition) Paul Adelman
0 582 29322 7
Britain and Ireland: From Home Rule to Independence Jeremy Smith
0 582 30193 9
T W E N T I E T H - C E N T U RY B R I TA I N
The Rise of the Labour Party 1880–1945 (Third edition) Paul Adelman
0 582 29210 7
The Conservative Party and British Politics 1902–1951 Stuart Ball
0 582 08002 9
The Decline of the Liberal Party 1910–1931 (Second edition) Paul Adelman
0 582 27733 7
The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign 1866–1928 Harold L Smith
0 582 29811 3
War & Society in Britain 1899–1948 Rex Pope
0 582 03531 7
The British Economy since 1914: A Study in Decline? Rex Pope
0 582 30194 7
Unemployment in Britain between the Wars Stephen Constantine
0 582 35232 0
The Attlee Governments 1945–1951 Kevin Jefferys
0 582 06105 9
The Conservative Governments 1951–1964 Andrew Boxer
0 582 20913 7
Britain under Thatcher Anthony Seldon and Daniel Collings
0 582 31714 2
Britain and Empire, 1880–1945 Dane Kennedy
0 582 41493 8
Series list
201
I N T E R N AT I O N A L H I S T O RY
The Eastern Question 1774–1923 (Second edition) A L Macfie
0 582 29195 X
India 1885–1947: The Unmaking of an Empire Ian Copland
0 582 38173 8
The Origins of the First World War (Second edition) Gordon Martel
0 582 28697 2
The United States and the First World War Jennifer D Keene
0 582 35620 2
Women and the First World War Susan R Grayzel
0 582 41876 3
Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust Albert S Lindemann
0 582 36964 9
The Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1949 (Third edition) Martin McCauley
0 582 77284 2
Russia, America and the Cold War, 1949–1991 Martin McCauley
0 582 27936 4
The Arab–Israeli Conflict Kirsten E Schulze
0 582 31646 4
The United Nations since 1945: Peacekeeping and the Cold War Norrie MacQueen
0 582 35673 3
Decolonisation: The British Experience since 1945 Nicholas J White
0 582 29087 2
W O R L D H I S T O RY
China in Transformation 1900–1949 Colin Mackerras
0 582 31209 4
Japan Faces the World, 1925–1952 Mary L Hanneman
0 582 36898 7
Japan in Transformation, 1952–2000 Jeff Kingston
0 582 41875 5
China since 1949 Linda Benson
0 582 35722 5
U S H I S T O RY
American Abolitionists Stanley Harrold
0 582 35738 1
The American Civil War, 1861–1865 Reid Mitchell
0 582 31973 0
202
Series list
America in the Progressive Era, 1890–1914 Lewis L Gould
0 582 35671 7
The United States and the First World War Jennifer D Keene
0 582 35620 2
The Truman Years, 1945–1953 Mark S Byrnes
0 582 32904 3
The Korean War Steven Hugh Lee
0 582 31988 9
The Origins of the Vietnam War Fredrik Logevall
0 582 31918 8
The Vietnam War Mitchell Hall
0 582 32859 4
American Expansionism, 1783–1860 Mark S. Joy
0 582 36965 7
The United States and Europe in the Twentieth Century David Ryan
0 582 30864 X