A Study On The Relationship Between The United States And Europe In The First Oil Crisis,1973-74

In the early Post-World War Ⅱ era, Europe was dependent on the United States in the areas of security, politics and economy due to coming of the Cold War and the US dominant position in the West world. However, since 1970s, European nations had experienced the economic recovery and boom, especially with the European Community founded in 1950s becoming an important political and economic force in Europe, while the US was on a relative decline of national strength because of the trauma of Vietnam War and the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, which somehow gave rise to a rift between the US and Europe. After the outbreak of the 1973 Middle East Oil Crisis, as a result of different dependence on oil, the US and Europe responded in an uncoordinated way for maintaining respective oil supplies and their strategic reeds, which caused their contradictions and conflicts by how to solve Middle East and oil problems. Therefore, the transatlantic relationship was facing a crisis. This thesis aims to study the development, causes, and management of the US-European conflicts in this period so as to explore and discuss the nature of changes of the US-European relations.This thesis consists of three parts, that is, an introduction, main body, and a conclusion. The introduction is centered on the reasons of choosing this topic, the review of research literature at home and abroad, the display of research methods and material sources, the description of research approaches and the basic framework, and the mention of the thesis’innovations and flaws.Its main body is constitutive of four chapters. The first chapter summarizes the development of the US-European relations from 1945 to 1973 and the feature of the solutions to the US-European divergences. In general, Europe in that period was obedient to the US global strategies and the US also wanted to balance the Soviet Union with the help of Europe. Against the background of the Cold War, the US and Europe by and large had maintained their cooperation. However, the changes of international circumstances resulted in some changes of the variables which yielded important impacts on the US-European relationship. To deal with the conflicts, the United States, on the one hand, pinned down European nations through bilateral or multilateral consultations and negotiations, and on the other hand, thanks to its overwhelming advantages in politics, economy and military, it imposed pressures on European nations through "Carrot-and-Stick" policy. Despite the pressures from the US, the European nations’tendency to gain independence grew increasingly, through internal intensification of European cooperation and integration to improve their strengths.The second chapter is mainly committed to the research of the international circumstances around 1973, the distinctive measures taken by the US and Europe to deal with the Oil Crisis and the significant differences in their respective Middle East policies after the outbreak of the crisis. In 1970s, the international environment had gone through some dramatic changes, and the US-Soviet confrontation and the relative decline of the US power thwarted the US global strategies and shook the foundation of the US-European relations somewhat. The US’policy differed from Europe’due to their different sensitivity and fragility to oil supply, which enabled the US to cope with the Oil Crisis and Middle East issues in a more independent way, while Europe more often resorted to their own policies and bilateral treaties to ensure the supply of oil. Uncoordinated policy impeded the US-European relations and produced their constant conflicts.From the perspective of international regimes, the third chapter is directed to researching the management modes of US-European conflicts. In the beginning, the US still looked to the traditional conflict management mode, and after realizing that did not work well, it hoped to get the conflicts and contradictions solved under the international mechanisms including the equal negotiations, the establishment of the International Energy Agency, holding the Washington Conference and the 9th World Energy Conference, and the Camp David talks. Apart from the formal mechanisms, some informal international mechanisms also were applied, namely, using the traditional relations among great powers to resolve the crisis.Chapter four is focused on the analysis of the regime factors in managing the US-European conflicts, through observing why the US and the European nations eventually chose to maintain their cooperation via regimes, and its final effect. Due to the consistency of core interests of the US-European cooperation, interconnectfon of traditional and nontraditional security and the impact enforced by international environment in the Cold War era, the US and Europe finally chose the cooperation to reach their consensus. Influenced by their own traditions of international regimes, as to choosing what type of the cooperation, the US and Europe finally tilted toward international institutions, which could reduce the uncertainties of US-European relations in Middle East issues and lead to a better solution to oil problems.The last part is the conclusion. Through analyzing oil crisis and the conflict management modes, this thesis argues that the cooperation between the US and Europe has been the cornerstone of their foreign strategies. In addition, Europe would continue to be put in a position of meeting the demands of US global strategies. Despite all that, the foundation and structure of the US-European relations had begun an inevitable change, and, for the conflicts and contradictions existing in this process all along, both sides needed to adopt formal and informal institutions as the solutions.