Continental drift: Franco-German relations and the shifting premises of European security

Faced with a superpower threat to their survival during the Cold War, West Europeans joined together to balance that threat, as might be expected. But what was not expected was that they should balance against both the Soviet Union and the United States. The structure of postwar international politics left European states at the mercy of others, whose interests were not only divergent, but also, as the Suez, Berlin, and Cuba crises indicated, frequently at odds with their own. Given the destructive power of nuclear weapons, an impulsive or hesitant American reflex could be as devastating for Europe as a Soviet invasion. Unless they could forge a common power bloc, European states would be treated as pawns in a pax atomica where they would be vulnerable to either a collision or collusion between the superpowers. The best hope for survival lay in uniting Europe into a third force which could chart its own destiny between an America that was too distant and a Soviet Union that was too close. Postwar Europeans were thus led to balance against the colossus in the West as well as in the East to avoid becoming either a Soviet colony or an American protectorate. Hegemonic theorists claim that American security guarantees instilled Europeans with enough confidence to work together against a common enemy. But the impetus for Franco-German cooperation in political, economic, and military affairs was provided as much by apprehension over their American ally as by the hostility of their Soviet enemy. Institutional theorists claim that Europeans were motivated to cooperate to break the cycle of internecine wars which had reduced them to insignificance in international politics. But Franco-German cooperation took place largely outside of European institutions and sometimes expressly in opposition to them. This finding flies in the face of conventional explanations of Franco-German reconciliation, based on the reassurance of hegemonic stability or the transparency of international institutions. It also casts doubt on the viability of a European security structure premised either on the reassurance of American hegemonic power in NATO or on the watery institutional cement of the European Union.