Home › Features › Essays › U. S. Policy and the "New Europe"

U. S. Policy and the "New Europe"

By Frank Church
October 1966
Article Summary and Author Biography

President Johnson said recently of Europe: "The Europe of today is a new Europe. In place of uncertainty, there is confidence; in place of decay, progress; in place of isolation, partnership; in place of war, peace." Confidence, progress, partnership and peace-what better testimonial could there be to the health and vitality, both political and economic, of Europe today; and what better promise for Europe's future?

Print Email
Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

President Johnson said recently of Europe: "The Europe of today is a new Europe. In place of uncertainty, there is confidence; in place of decay, progress; in place of isolation, partnership; in place of war, peace." Confidence, progress, partnership and peace-what better testimonial could there be to the health and vitality, both political and economic, of Europe today; and what better promise for Europe's future?

During the summer, in a month of hearings, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined "the Europe of today." Our discussions ranged over the entire continent, literally from the Atlantic to the Urals, and beyond. For a diagnosis of the Atlantic Alliance means considering not only de Gaulle's aims, but the prospects for German reunification, Britain's association with the Common Market, nuclear arms control, greater European cohesion, East-West détente, the impact of Viet Nam, and much more. These problems are connected to each other in a seamless web that joins the United States with Europe, linking us together in the future as inextricably as in the past.

When the Committee's hearings began, it was announced that their purpose was educational. In preparation for them, I visited Europe in May for interviews with governmental leaders, including Wilson, Erhard and de Gaulle, along with prominent spokesmen of the opposition parties and other knowledgeable political observers. I have now had a chance to test my tentative conclusions against what the Committee has been told by a number of distinguished American experts on Europe.

The fact that there is in Europe today confidence, progress, partnership and peace is due, in no small part, to farsighted policy decisions we have taken since the end of the war. But we may stand in danger of being so dazzled by past successes that we could easily stumble into future failures. For Europe is now rumbling, not with discontent, but with a new spirit of independence, in both East and West. We seem to hear the sound, but we may not understand its meaning. To me it is the murmur of widespread European assent to the proposition: "Resolved, that the postwar period has ended."

This is a premium article

You must be a logged in Foreign Affairs subscriber to continue reading. If you wish to continue reading this article please subscribe , or activate your online account to get full online access.

Buy PDF

Buy a premium PDF reprint of this article.

Related

Essay, Jul 1967
Economic Necessities and Atlantic Communities
Alfred C. Neal

In the Atlantic Policy Studies conducted during the past three years by the Council on Foreign Relations four books with a predominantly economic content are being published.[i] The authors and subjects of these books are, in order of publication: John O. Coppock on agriculture; John Pincus on less developed countries; Bela Balassa on trade liberalization among industrial countries; and Richard N. Cooper on international monetary affairs (to be published later this year). From these sources and from others, Harold Van B. Cleveland, in another volume in the series, has drawn conclusions about Atlantic economic relations in his "The Atlantic Idea and Its European Rivals." The purpose of this article is not to review these significant studies but to appraise their conclusions about whether the economic connections and conflicts in the Atlantic are, on balance, moving the nations of the area toward a coherent community in some sense of the word.

Read
Essay, Jul 1965
The Changed Setting of the Atlantic Debate
Alastair Buchan

At the end of 1964, a cycle of American-European argument which had opened some seven years earlier came to a close when President Johnson decided to abandon American pressure for an immediate resolution of the negotiations regarding a multilateral nuclear force. Since then the common assumption has been that there is to be a nine-month lull, until after the German elections in September, before the next phase of the dialogue on the future scope and nature of the Atlantic Alliance is resumed, even though any successful outcome to it may have to wait until the attitudes and policy of post-de Gaulle France are clear.

Read
Essay, Jul 1964
Coalition Diplomacy in a Nuclear Age
Henry A. Kissinger

For several years now disputes have rent the Atlantic Alliance. They have focused on such issues as nuclear strategy and control, the organization of Europe and the nature of an Atlantic Community. However, the most fundamental issue in Atlantic relationships is raised by two questions not unlike those which each Western society has had to deal with in its domestic affairs: How much unity do we want? How much pluralism can we stand? Too formalistic a conception of unity risks destroying the political will of the members of the Community. Too absolute an insistence on national particularity must lead to a fragmentation of the common effort.

Read