Conclusion: Integration and Non-Proliferation

Abstract

There were two main goals in American European policy in the period studied here: integration and non-proliferation. They were derived from the most general foreign policy goals such as containing the Soviet Union and Germany, tying Germany to the West, and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons globally. Thus, the motives for US interventions in the negotiations about cooperation and integration in Europe were related to considerations of security and world power above all. Washington wanted to build a security complex in Europe that would prevent Soviet dominance in the Eurasian hemisphere and eliminate Europe’s, particularly Germany’s, potential for causing another world war. Sovietization of Europe, Germany in the first place, would, it was feared, tip the balance of world power. Economic conditions were seen, much more so than later, as a means of strengthening security in Europe. The US was often, at least up to the late fifties, prepared to sacrifice some short-term American economic interests in the interest of security and power. Thus, economic regionalism was seen as a necessary but temporary stage on the road towards the goal of world multilateralism in trade and payments — the traditional goal of the leading economic power since the epoch of British economic dominance in the nineteenth century. Washington’s priority for security and power explains why the normal imperial rule of conduct, divide et impera [divide and rule], was temporarily suspended in favour of the watchword: ‘Europe, unite!’.