3030046354 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-20T10:22:22+00:00

168

H. GARDNER

the use of force on both geostrategic focal points, Berlin and Cuba.

Moscow was able to use both of these pressure points (deployments of

nuclear missiles in Cuba, coupled with threats to Berlin) as strategic lev-

erage intended to force the US to withdraw its nuclear weaponry from

Turkey and Italy. In contemporary circumstances, Moscow has similarly

been pressuring the US and NATO through its control over Kaliningrad

and Crimea today. As to be argued, although the option was not imple-

mented then, Kennan’s proposal to make a unified Germany “neutral”

appears to possess relevance with respect to Ukraine today (see Chapters

9 and 10).

west germany enters nato

In Europe, the formation of NATO in 1948–1949 as regional system of

defense was seen by Moscow as a means to potentially circumvent the

Soviet veto in the UN Security Council.6 The complex UN–NATO

interrelationship—in which NATO obtained its legitimacy from Article

51 of the UN Charter—would effectively permit the US and its allies to

act outside of the UN framework in situations of collective defense. At

the same time, the US and NATO needed to report to the UN Security

Council once hostilities began. From the US perspective, NATO would

provide defense against feared Soviet efforts to subvert or attack Western

Europe.

Given the fact that the US did not want to pay for European defenses

alone, Washington began to call for the re-militarization of West

Germany in 1950 in effort to counter Soviet military pressures after

the 1948–1949 Berlin crisis and at the time of the 1950–1953 Korean

War. This led to a debate, initiated by France, as to whether the US and

NATO—or a European Defense Community (EDC)—should over-

see European defenses. Yet the debate over the appropriate defense

role of West Germany in a new Europe resulted in checking the possi-

bility of forging the French-proposed EDC—as it was not clear whether

it would be possible to “contain” West Germany under an integrated

all-European defense command structure. Ironically, it was the French

Senate itself which vetoed French Prime Minister René Pleven plans

for the EDC—in fear that the proposal would create a super-national

force above the French national state, and that Germany might be given

undue influence in that body. (In post-Cold War circumstances, the con-

cept of the EDC has been proposed once again, but this time by France

7 FRACTURING OF THE COLLABORATIVE US–SOVIET … 169

and Germany, following the UK’s decision to exit the European Union.

In the past, the UK had generally opposed all-European defense propos-

als (see Chapter 10).

With the failure of proposals to establish an all-European defense

force (which were generally supported by Washington), NATO assumed

the primary role of “containing” the ambitions of Western Europe, while

also “containing” Moscow. This meant that Germany would need to be

integrated into NATO so that Bonn would not rearm. West Germany’s

later membership in NATO in 1955 then represented a unilateral means

by which the US/NATO had hoped to restrain West German military

capabilities and prevent Bonn from pursuing irredentist claims—if not to

develop nuclear weaponry.

Despite Soviet (and French) criticism of NATO, West German mem-

bership in NATO actually served the interests of both the Soviet Union

and France. NATO membership for West Germany helped to reassure

Moscow (and Paris) that West German

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