The Management of Discord in Alliance Relations

Abstract

The usual starting point for a discussion of US-European relations is the recurrence of crisis. From Truman to Reagan, each American President has faced an Atlantic crisis he could legitimately call his own: over Germany’s rearmament, Suez, the Multilateral Force (MLF), the US dollar, OPEC, Afghanistan, and the Siberian pipeline, to cite but a few of the many issues that have confronted the allies since the end of the Second World War. On each occasion the warning was dire, and, struggling to give a new language to the déjà vu of past tensions, observers spoke of an alliance that was cracked, troubled, complex, a fantasy, unhinged, fading, and much more.¹