Partners and Rivals: Assessing the American Role

Abstract

History writing on the role played by the United States (US) in the genesis and development of European integration has taken place within the boundaries imposed by two overlapping interpretative debates. The first of these is the debate over the post-war American motivation in pressing for European integration (as it indisputably did). The earliest generation of practitioners — diplomats, politicians and political commentators — presented a very benign picture of the US’ actions and purpose. Ernst van der Beugel (1966, 393), a Dutch diplomat-turned-historian, is typical: ‘Since 1947, the constant element in United States foreign policy has been to consider European co-operation and integration as a vital contribution to the strength of the Atlantic world and the interests of the United States. American support for European integration in general was based upon the conviction that the medium-sized nation-state in Europe was obsolete in relation to the solution of basic political, military and economic problems. It was inspired by the genuine and almost missionary belief that the United States should use its power to transplant the blessings of its own federal system and of its own continental size to the countries of Europe, with which it felt itself so emotionally linked.’