European International Relations Research Articles

The German problem transformed: institutions, politics, and foreign policy, 1945-1995

Does the new, more powerful Germany pose a threat to its neighbors? Does the new German Problem resemble the old? German Problem Transformed addresses these questions fifty years after the founding of the Federal Republic and ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.Many observers have underscored the reemergence of Germany as Europe's central power. After four decades of division, they contend, Germany is once again fully sovereign; without the strictures of bipolarity, its leaders are free to define and pursue national interests in East and West. From this perspective, the reunified Germany faces challenges not unlike those of its unified predecessor a century earlier.The German Problem Transformed rejects this formulation. Thomas Banchoff acknowledges post-reunification challenges, but argues that postwar changes, not prewar analogies, best illuminate them. The book explains the transformation of German foreign policy through a structured analysis of four critical postwar junctures: the cold war of the 1950s, the detente of the 1960s and 1970s, the new cold war of the early 1980s, and the post-cold war 1990s. Each chapter examines the interaction of four factors--international structure and institutions, foreign policy ideas, and domestic politics--in driving the direction of German foreign policy at a key turning point.This book will be of interest to scholars and students of German history, German politics, and European international relations, as well as policymakers and the interested public.Thomas Banchoff is Assistant Professor of Government, Georgetown University.

Economic Integration and the European International System in the Era of World War I

NOT BEING AN EXPERT ON THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS of Carl Strikwerda's interesting and provocative article, I intend to comment chiefly on how it affects our general picture of nineteenth and twentieth-century European international relations. It seems to me to have important implications in three respects. First, analysis it gives of course of European economic integration, which I take to be basically sound, clearly deals with a major element in overall picture. Second, Strikwerda offers a suggestive interpretation of actual and potential effects of this economic integration on subsequent course of twentieth-century international history. My reasons for disagreeing with this interpretation in certain respects will be main focus of these comments. Finally, his article exemplifies a general approach to international history and a conception of it that I consider valuable not only for historiography but also for public education and policy. As already indicated, I can add little to Strikwerda's main argument on extent to which West European industry, especially coal, iron, and steel, was integrated by 1914. His account, to be sure, seems to confirm rather than drastically alter prevailing picture of a European economy largely open and fairly well integrated in some major sectors. One might view debate' over whether nationalist protection or internationalist integration was dominant economic trend by 1914 as one in which either side could be right, depending on how one judged not merely factual evidence but also eventual outcome. An additional comment might be that any implied or explicit argument that further economic integration in early twentieth century might have averted a general European war would have to take more than Western Europe into account. The issues, tensions, and rivalries that actually produced war, including economic ones, lay more in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. And when Strikwerda argues that the creation of international business connections before World War I indicates relative openness of societies at time, while reaction against these ties and their failure to lead to durable

The Latvian Provisional Government's Foreign Policy 1918-1920 European International Relations in the 1920's

The Latvian Provisional Government's Foreign Policy 1918-1920 European International Relations in the 1920's

American Decline and the Great Debate: A Historical Perspective

AMERICAN DECLINE. AND THE GREAT DEBATE: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE1 Michael H. Hunt T,hat U.S. foreign policy is now very much in transition is a point widely accepted today. The era of Cold War rivalry is sinking like a fading sunset on one horizon, while a more benign international order is eagerly expected to dawn on the other. Harbingers of change abound. Long rigid political, economic, and ideological structures creak and crack, while new centers of power pose ever bolder challenges to the predominance of the Cold War giants. This transition naturally generates its own excitement and fascination but also a fair degree of perplexity about the role the United States should play and the national security objectives the United States should follow in this rapidly changing world. Questions about the future are as urgent as they are difficult to answer. On them depend not only today's hard budget decisions but the basic calculus for future policy makers. In this transitional period opinions about the future are diverse. Some observers worry over the decline of the country's international economic 1. I owe thanks to Richard Ulin at the University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill and to Jim Lobe at the University of Washington for the opportunity to try out before a general audience the ideas on which this paper is based. Paula Hunt, Mark S. Mahaney, and O. Arne Westad gave me the benefit of their criticisms. Michael H. Hunt is professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author ofIdeology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987), and has written extensively on the history of Sino-American relations. 27 28 SAISREVIEW competitiveness, with all its ramifications for national security. Others question the wisdom of inherited commitments abroad or argue for a radically revised notion of international security. And still others warn against an excessive optimism about the future and an exaggerated notion of global change. At a time when Americans need to make choices for the future from a more than usually full range ofpossibilities, the historical record would seem an obvious and important point of reference—a helpmate to which policy makers and the informed public might well turn. Unfortunately, an examination ofthose engaged in the debate over American decline and future policy reveals the names of few historians of American foreign policy. Accordingly, the picture of the past invoked by the participants is all too often simplistic or dated. The uses made of George Washington's Farewell Address, nineteenth-century "isolationism," and the waywardness ofpublic opinion in this century (to take but three commonly invoked subjects) are generally off-handed and betray a lack of familiarity with a new generation of historical scholarship.2 The fault for this historically impoverished discourse over current policy lies in part with those historians who are reluctant to step outside their lecture halls and specialized monographs and offer some perspective on current policy options. The fault also lies with those officials absorbed in day-to-day policy and with academics and journalists preoccupied with commenting on that policy. While all three groups have much to gain by adding a historical perspective to their armory ofanalytic tools, they seem disinclined to give historical studies the systematic and thoughtful attention they deserve. Perhaps they have simply had difficulty deciding which aspects ofthe literature are germane and whether time invested in historical study will be repaid in fresh insights. Admittedly, the search for such insights can be frustrating. Historians cannot always provide decisive answers to important questions and do not always agree because the evidence on which they rely is often insufficient or ambiguous. But in what discipline is the search for truth easy and the results beyond challenge? From my perspective as a historian of American foreign relations, I see two important points that should be injected into the current discussion over the future of this country in world affairs. First, the 2. Paul Kennedy leaps to mind as a notable exception. But it should be kept in mind that he is a specialist in European international relations and was, in any case, constrained in his treatment of...

REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTICES

REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTICES

The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe 1918–1933

Journal Article The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe 1918–1933 Get access The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe 1918–1933. By Sally Marks. London: Macmillan. 1976. 184 pp. £5.95. Pb: £2.95. Ruth Henig Ruth Henig 1University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 53, Issue 1, January 1977, Pages 117–118, https://doi.org/10.2307/2615601 Published: 01 January 1977

European Security after Helsinki: Some American views

INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MEANING AND THE EFFECTS OF THE CONFERence on Security and Cooporation in Europe (CSCE) and its product, the Final Act signed at Helsinki in August 1975, are of sufficient variety to suit anybody's taste. Governments on both sides have hailed the Final Act as a great landmark, the opening of a new era of international relations in Europe based on high principle. Some of the same governments and their spokesmen, mainly on the Eastern side, have also called it the ineluctable result of the changed balance of forces in Europe; and among observers in the West who have agreed with that proposition some have argued that the Soviet Union has by Helsinki prepared the way for the domination or ‘Finlandization’ of the nations of Western Europe, and that the latter are too stupid or too complaisant or too scared to do anything about it. Then there are those in the West who feel neither satisfaction nor alarm but see the whole negotiation as much ado about nothing, changing neither the existing balance nor the outstanding differences.

The Recognition of Latvia

The process by which Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania attained legal sovereignty is typical and serves as an example of the process whereby other new States in post-war Europe came into being. There is no doubt that after World War II the important lessons presented by the Baltic case may be drawn upon in planning future European international relations.

Readings in European International Relations since 1879, by W. Henry Cooke, Edith P. Stickney

Readings in European International Relations since 1879, <i>by W. Henry Cooke, Edith P. Stickney</i>