The United States and the European Pillar: The Strained Alliance

291 Pages·1992·28.37 MB·English

by  William C. Cromwell (auth.)

THE UNITED STATES
AND THE EUROPEAN PILLAR
Also by William C. Cromwell
POLmCAL PROBLEMS OF ATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP:
National Perspectives (with Nigel Forman and Josef Joffe)
THE EUROGROUP AND NATO
The United States
and the European Pillar
The Strained Alliance
William C. Cromwell
Professor ofI nternational Relations
The American University, Washington, DC
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-21775-5 ISBN 978-1-349-21773-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21773-1
©William C. Cromwell 1992
Foreword© Josef Joffe 1992
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1992
ISBN 978-0-312-06831-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cromwell, William C.
The United States and the European pillar : the strained alliance
I William C. Cromwell.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-06831-8
1. Europe-Foreign relations-United States. 2. United States
-Foreign relations-Europe. 3. Europe-Foreign relations-1945-
1. Title.
D1065.U5C73 1992
327.4073'09'045-dc20 91-28402
CIP
For Ellen
Contents
Foreword by Josef Joffe ix
Preface xiii
1 The Formative Period of Atlantic Relations
and the European Pillar, 1948-55 1
2 What Kind of European Pillar? 16
The Kennedy Administration and Atlantic Partnership 16
De Gaulle's Counter-design 26
The Denouement 37
3 The European Impulse Revived: European Defence
Cooperation and the United States, 1968-73 42
4 The European Impulse Revived: The Birth of
European Political Cooperation, 1969-73 57
5 The Nixon Administration and Europe, 1969-73 70
6 A Moment of Truth: The 'Year of Europe' and the
Atlantic Crisis of 1973174 79
The Year of Europe 79
The Middle East War and the Oil Crisis 86
The Crisis and Atlantic Relations: Outcome and
Assessment 92
7 The United States and the European Pillar in
the late 1970s and the 1980s 101
American Ambivalence Toward European Unity 101
At Issue: The Iran Hostage Crisis 106
At Issue: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 110
At Issue: The Polish Crisis of 1981182 115
At Issue: The Soviet Gas Pipeline Dispute 118
At Issue: The US Bombing Raid on Libya 122
vii
Vlll The United States and the European Pillar
8 Other Regional Issues 131
Central America 131
The Middle East 139
9 European Pillars in the 1980s 155
Political Cooperation 155
Defence Cooperation 166
10 The United States and the European Pillar in the
1970s and 1980s: Concluding Assessment 180
11 The United States and the New Europe in the 1990s 199
The Transformed European Setting 199
Architecture for the New Europe: the European
Community - Germany and Eastern Europe 202
Architecture for the New Europe: the Atlantic
Alliance 217
Architecture for the New Europe: the Conference
on Security and Cooperation in Europe 232
Conclusion and Prospects 239
Notes 249
Select Bibliography 264
Index 267
Foreword
BY JOSEF JOFFEI
Though a source of unending crisis and frustration, the Atlantic Alli
ance represents a most distinguished chapter in the annals of Ameri
can foreign policy. America's lasting entanglement in the affairs of
Europe marks the maturing of a great power and the final break with a
tradition born in the rejection of the Old Continent. Acquired almost
in a fit of absentmindedness, America's new role and responsibility
did not come easily, but the returns of that investment have muffled
the doubters and vindicated those who -like Truman, Acheson and
Vandenberg - pushed and cajoled the nation into shouldering the
burden of leadership.
Having left Europe to its own devices in 1919, the United States
had another war on its hands a mere twenty years later - only a
far bloodier and more perilous one than World War 1. By contrast,
the commitment undertaken in the late 1940s has paid off beyond
the most optimistic of calculations. Though the defeat of Germany
merely brought a more fearful challenger to the door, World War
III was not to be the fate of Europe and America. Instead, there was
peace-the longest peace in the history of the European state system.
And there was more: the expansion and consolidation of democracy
in a part of the world that had given rise to the twin totalitarianism
of Communism and National Socialism. Finally, America's lasting
intrusion pacified a half-continent which had been the fountainhead
of almost permanent war for centuries.
Gauls and Germans overcame their 'arch enemy', the nations of
Western Europe linked hands in the grand enterprise of integration,
and rivalry gave way to community because the United States had
transformed the rules of the ancient self-help system. Stronger than
France, Britain and Germany, the United States pulled the sting
of rivalry, insuring each and all against the risks of cooperation.
Protecting the Europeans not only against the Soviet Union but
also against each other, the United States laid the indispensable
foundation of community among those who, in the past, had only
known discord and strife.
Partition and heavily armed confrontation was the price of peace.
But that story began to develop a brighter side exactly forty years
ix
X The United States and the European Pillar
after the birth of the Alliance in 1949. Worn down by ideological as
well as economic failure and unable to convert great military strength
into lasting, much less legitimate, influence, the Soviet Union let
go of its East European empire in 1989. One year later, President
Gorbachev virtually declared his country's surrender in the cold war
by consenting to the unification of Germany under Western auspices.
At last, Europe now has the chance to grow together again in peace
and freedom-precisely the great purpose of American foreign policy
in the past forty years.
Yet here too success will breed its own problems. If the cold
war is truly over, then the Atlantic Alliance will not survive in
its traditional shape. Indeed, no alliance has ever lived past vic
tory; logically, the idea of alliance requires the idea of a foe and a
threat. If the Soviet Union completes its withdrawal from Eastern
Europe while eschewing a new form of dictatorship, then the threat
will wane along with the urgency of alliance and the necessity of
America's enduring entanglement. In that case, the great question
of the next 40 years will be: Can Europe's ultra-stable order- in
the last analysis a gift of the United States- persist on its own? Or
will the rules of the self-help system reassert themselves, souring
the magnificent record of European integration? Will the United
States retract too, or might it even be pushed into withdrawal by
Europeans tired of the burden of the US military presence? What
about the future of free trade, whose foundations were also laid
after World War II when the United States opened its markets to
both Western Europe and Japan? With the military bond fraying,
neither the US nor the EC might muster the will (previously con
ditioned by security dependence) to resist protectionist pressures
at home.
In revolutionary times, history is not necessarily the best guide for
the future, but without an understanding of the past, any attempt to
peer beyond the horizon of current affairs would be as enlightening
as reading tea leaves. In this book, William Cromwell offers some
indispensable tools for analysis and perspective. By elucidating the
evolution of the Euro-American relationship, the author lays bare its
functions and structures, its conflicting interests and abiding dilem
mas. And the moral of the story is hardly without relevance for the
future. The history of the Alliance has been the history of its crises.
But it has also been the record of a most successful experiment in
interstate relations. Otherwise, we could not explain the amazing
longevity of this compact.