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This sectioncontains a set of political data relating to the political system of each country in Western Europe.
This chapter offers a reflection upon an European Union (EU) foreign policy complex that seeks both to address the major definitional issues surrounding the nature and direction of the EU's external relations but which also draws our attention to contemporary theoretical debates in both international relations and European integration. Many texts on the international capacity of the EU focus upon the development of decision-making and policy within Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The field of study in European political cooperation (EPC)/CFSP has been dominated by empirical accounts of decision-making, policy-making and regional or issue-based case studies. Fewer studies have sought to make explicit theoretical claims upon CFSP and to situate it in broader debates within either European studies or international relations. In the early twenty-first century, the EU is making massive leaps to expand both geographically and sectorally.
This chapter is concerned with the formation of West German strategic culture. It examines several aspects of the rearmament process during the 1950s and estimates the external and internal factors in the rearmament of West Germany. It then tries to draw out the antecedents of (West) German strategic culture, before it presents an account of the creation of the Bundeswehr, which uses the lens of strategic culture. This chapter concludes that the creation of a new strategic culture in West Germany happened through two principal channels, namely the post-war domestic conditions in West Germany and the burden of the demands and will of the allies with regards to the kind of role the Federal Republic should play.
Launched in 1970, Europe's common foreign policy has, to some degree, come of age. This chapter aims at exploring possibilities of theorising the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) 'the constructivist way'. Most theory-informed research on the CFSP employs the deductive method and a large number of theories or frameworks of analysis have been applied in research on the CFSP. The chapter describes how the balance between deductive and inductive theorising is quite asymmetrical. It discusses nine rules for creative theorising - developed by Rosenau and Durfee - as a point of departure and combine their rules with social constructivist ways of framing research questions and designs. For each rule there is consideration of how theories would have been, had Rosenau and Durfee's prescriptions been informed by a social constructivist perspective.
European foreign policy functions as a 'system' of multi-level policies structured in four levels (conflicting, cooperative and institutionalised intergovernmentalism, and supranationalism), each of which refers indirectly to one of the main integration theories. This chapter discusses the following three dimensions of European foreign policy-making with reference to the case of arms export controls: convergence or vertical coherence, consistency or horizontal coherence and variable geometry. The various levels of foreign policy-making inside the European Union (EU) allow for different speeds and degrees of integration in different policy areas of the three pillars as well as within the pillars, and also in various aspects of the same policy area. Each area of foreign policy decision-making in the EU seems to be inspired by different ideological approaches to integration favoured by the different foreign policy actors.
It is demonstrated throughout this chapter that US financial assistance, in the guise the British Prime Minister James Callaghan wanted never materialised during the IMF Crisis of 1976-77. Callaghan believed that Britain’s position with the Western alliance would ensure that the US would pressure the International Monetary Fund into providing preferential loan conditions for the United Kingdom. The Ford administration, however, did not believe Britain warranted such treatment and even efforts by the Callaghan government to link the continuation of British security efforts to a preferential loan were rebuffed. Ultimately, the years of economic and military decline meant that the United Kingdom was no longer important enough in Washington’s opinion to warrant such preferential treatment. Therefore, the efforts of Wilson and Callaghan to build a closer ‘special relationship’ failed to ultimately deliver the political capital when it was most needed.
The conclusions to the book are made within this chapter. It is argued here that the era of détente is really one where the US-UK relationship underwent severe strain but also demonstrated that it was extremely resolute given that areas of the most sensitivity, such as intelligence and nuclear cooperation, continued. In here three elements which are most apparent within the relationship, cooperation, competition, and coercion, are discussed. Cooperation is highlighted most clearly with regards to the intelligence and nuclear weapons realm. Competition is evident with regards to Britain’s EEC entry and how certain elements of Cold War diplomacy should be undertaken. Coercion was obvious throughout the ‘Year of Europe’ and towards Harold Wilson’s defence cuts. By bringing all three of these elements together, the US-UK relationship during 1969-77 is a rather more complicated than existing accounts suggest.
This chapter provides the introduction to the book and argues that existing interpretations of the US-UK relationship in the 1970s have emphasised conflict in the relationship to the degree that areas of cooperation, such as in the intelligence, nuclear, and the political realm, are often overlooked. It is here that the third element in the relationship, that of coercive diplomacy, is also highlighted (again an element entirely overlooked in existing accounts). A number of correctives about Edward Heath’s European ambitions, along with US policy towards this, are also highlighted. Thus, it is suggested here that British membership of the EEC was not a zero sum affair in regards to the US-UK relationship as depicted in existing accounts. Moreover, in contrast to the existing orthodoxy, the Nixon administration was rather more reticent about British membership of the EEC. A breakdown of every chapter’s core arguments is also made.
The chapter begins with an overview of the main foreign policy aims of each country and an analysis of how foreign policy was created in each capital. From here, this chapter demonstrates the evolving nature of the US-UK relationship within the context of Britain’s application to join the European Economic Community, and American efforts to institutionalise détente with the USSR. It is shown throughout this chapter that the Nixon administration grew increasingly concerned that British membership of the EEC would permanently undermine the US-UK relationship, or, worse still, encourage the creation of a competitive power bloc that would be opposed to US interests. It is further highlighted how the détente policies of the Nixon administration caused apprehension within British policy-making circles in that superpower cooperation could lead to superpower condominium that would leave British interests severely undermined.
In spite of such areas of difference, this chapter does highlight the continuing political, military and diplomatic cooperation between the two sides, and thus acts as a balance to interpretations that emphasise only conflict within the relationship. Thus, we have discussion about US-UK cooperation in the realm of nuclear weapons, intelligence collection, British support for Nixon’s Vietnam policies, and Cold War diplomacy.
This is the first monograph length study that charts the coercive diplomacy of the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford as practiced against their British ally in order to persuade Edward Heath’s government to follow a more amenable course throughout the ‘Year of Europe’ and to convince Harold Wilson’s governments to lessen the severity of proposed defence cuts. Such diplomacy proved effective against Heath but rather less so against Wilson. It is argued that relations between the two sides were often strained, indeed, to the extent that the most ‘special’ elements of the relationship, that of intelligence and nuclear co-operation, were suspended. Yet, the relationship also witnessed considerable co-operation. This book offers new perspectives on US and UK policy towards British membership of the European Economic Community; demonstrates how US détente policies created strain in the ‘special relationship’; reveals the temporary shutdown of US-UK intelligence and nuclear co-operation; provides new insights in US-UK defence co-operation, and revaluates the US-UK relationship throughout the IMF Crisis.