journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Ronald W. Pruessen
since developed a sophistication lacking in the earliest studies. Initial emphasis was
almost exclusively focused on American preoccupations with the “international
communist conspiracy.” The argument ran that Cold War anxieties generated a
determination to expand the “containment” contributions of European allies, with a
substantial extra boost to come via the tapping of West Germany’s military and
economic resources. Ongoing research – particularly in US government records not
originally accessible – gradually made it clear that the wellsprings of Washington
policies were actually more complex than such emphasis on Cold War threats suggested.
Of greatest importance, much evidence demonstrated bifurcated US and
European concerns with both a Soviet and a German menace. If the policy makers
of the late 1940s and early 1950s were fearful of immediate Kremlin machinations,
that is, they also worried about the revival of an aggressive Reich. Life experiences
for post-1945 leaders on both sides of the Atlantic made them familiar with two
devils – and the virtue of a program like EDC was that it would utilize German
strength for dealing with one while creating a formal structure within which the
second would be controllable. To use the telling phrase that captures the combination
of motives involved here, EDC was conceived as a tool of “dual containment.” 2
As valuable as this analytical progression has been to an understanding of EDC
– and many other features of transatlantic relations in the earlier years of the Cold
War, for that matter – some additional refinement may yet be in order. In particular,
placing the details of EDC’s history into the context of US thinking regarding
Europe as a whole helps to highlight another important source of Washington policies.
In the end, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the concept of “dual containment”
should be expanded to “triple containment” – indicating the way in
which American desires to solve a variety of more broadly European problems frequently
complemented concerns about Soviet or German ones. From a Washington
perspective, the behavior of allies like Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, and
the Netherlands was often problematic. Relationships were seen as enormously valuable,
but complex and troubled – because of European “bad habits” like colonialism,
excessive nationalism, or flirtations with neutralism. 3 One of the great virtues
of EDC was the way in which it seemed likely to nudge many important European
players – not just the Germans – in valuable directions: toward providing more
meaningful assistance in dealing with a Soviet menace and toward solving much
older continental problems that were not exclusively attributable to German misconduct.
Some scholarly work on various aspects of transatlantic relations has dealt
with the way ambivalent US feelings toward Europe generated broadly-conceived
“reform” campaigns. 4 It is now appropriate to note the way in which these played
2. T. SCHWARTZ, America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany, Cambridge,
Massachusetts 1991, 130.
3. The “bad habits” phrasing is George Kennan’s: Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1950,
Volume III: Western Europe, Washington, 1977, 620.
4. A valuable recent example is J. L. HARPER, American Visions of Europe: Franklin D. Roosevelt,
George F. Kennan, and Dean G. Acheson, Cambridge 1994.