Managing the colonial status quo: Eisenhower's Cold War and the Algerian war of independence

Abstract

The Algerian war of independence (1954–1962) gradually developed into an international diplomatic crisis which affected France's relations with the US, the Atlantic alliance, the UN, and the Arab and Islamic worlds. The conflict has in recent years gained fresh attention among historians making use of newly declassified archival material to advance revisionist hypotheses about its global ramifications. Some of such hypotheses have placed the US at the centre of the denouement of the crisis. In this paper, which utilises a significant amount of declassified archival materials, I offer a new perspective on the Eisenhower administration's stance towards the conflict, and contest the argument that Paris was compelled to concede Algerian self-determination because Washington refused to sustain its vision. I argue that the US only pursued a policy of managing the colonial status quo: the war was tolerated as long as it did not threaten Western interests in the region, and did not open the way for Soviet penetration of North Africa which is at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Alignment to the French position contributed to the erosion of Washington's moral capital in the Maghreb, depriving it of the status of ‘honest broker’ in the conflict.