United States and post-INF Europe

Journal Article · · World Policy J.; (United States)

OSTI ID:7033518

Lucas, M

Europe's traditional fears of American abandonment are - despite a reduced Soviet threat - providing a new rationale for both US and European proposals for strengthening NATO's military forces, proposals that could, if implemented, pull Europe into a new round of East-West military competition. Post-INF Europe thus finds itself at a crossroads - with one path leading to deepened detente, an increasingly pan-Europeanized economy, and a new common-security order, and the other leading to what could amount to a mere reshuffling of the Cold War cards in Europe. How all this plays out depends partly, of course, on the direction of US policy. More than in Europe, where deepened detente seems to hold an answer to Europe's security future, thinking in Washington is anchored to the increasingly anachronistic rules of the postwar world. The notion of the Soviet threat dies hard, as does the notion of America's preeminent leadership position in NATO. Thus, the US faces the danger that the current gap in US-European thinking will only widen and that Washington, blind to the real basis of this rift, will act in a way that will both complicate Europe's search for a new security order and work to decouple the United States from Europe politically and economically.

• Research Organization: World Policy Institute, Frankfurt (Germany, F.R.)
• OSTI ID: 7033518
• Journal Information: World Policy J.; (United States), Journal Name: World Policy J.; (United States) Vol. 5:2; ISSN WPOJE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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