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Atlantic Partnership and European Integration: American—European Policies and the German Problem, 1947–1969

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No End to Alliance

Abstract

The destruction of Hitler’s empire in 1945 confronted the United States with a novel situation: the continent of Europe had been wiped out as an independent entity in international relations. It is true that F. D. Roosevelt had anticipated this situation in developing his idea of the exclusive responsibility of the superpowers — his ‘four policemen’ — for keeping the peace, each in its sphere of influence. But when the United States actually faced this void in Europe, it had no alternative but to resort to continued bilateral cooperation with the Soviet Union within the framework of a future world organization.1 The attempt to build up a Soviet-American condominium over Europe failed before it was ever really established. American and Soviet ideas about how liberated Europe was to be were too far apart to provide the ground for a common policy. As Europe split along the Iron Curtain, a similar division seemed more and more probable in defeated Germany.

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Notes

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Authors
  1. Klaus Schwabe
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Norwegian Nobel Institute, Oslo, Norway

    Geir Lundestad (Director) (Director)

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© 1998 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Schwabe, K. (1998). Atlantic Partnership and European Integration: American—European Policies and the German Problem, 1947–1969. In: Lundestad, G. (eds) No End to Alliance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26959-4_4

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