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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 6, 1984
In their penchant for leaving, or loosening, this most entangling
of America's alliances, conservative and liberal critics [in the
U.S.] of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) part ways
mainly over defining the country's proper role minus Europe....
Attention inevitably focuses on the international order that the
United States has built in Western Europe. That system may not
be entirely just. It certainly is not cost-free. Nevertheless,
by enduring so long it has impressively discharged the three key
tasks of an international order: It has preserved the security
and independence of its members; it has been stable; and it has
muted, if not inhibited, the use of force.
In the first half of the 20th century, the West European state
system failed miserably on all three counts.... In stark
contrast, the postwar West European system has not only been
stable, but ultrastable. While some hundred wars and civil wars
have battered the rest of the world, Western Europe has remained
a solitary island of peace.... Most important, the nascent West
European order endured beyond expectations because it succeeded
in solving two existential problems at once. .!_! managed to�
velop the �otential of Germani, Europe's past claimant to hege
mony; and it managed�o contain the might of the new contender,
the Soviet Union. Both achievements� made possible� the
oermanent entanglement of the United States. America's role in
the containment of the Soviet Union is familiar enough. What is
widely neglected, however, is the e rotector's role� pacifier �
as the key agent in the construction of an interstate order in
Western Europe that muted, if not removed, ancient conflicts and
shaped the conditions for cooperation.... By protecting Western
Europe against others, the United States also protected the half
continent against itseTI": •. [and] also built the indispensable
foundation for ri::i""ture cooperation.
France accepted community with its ancient rival and nemesis
precisely because the United States and Great Britain at last
extended tangible assurances against the dread consequences of
West Germany's resurgence.... For its part, the Federal Republic
accepted a host of unprecedented constraints, notably the for
swearing of nuclear weapons and the complete integration of its
armed forces into NATO....
In contrast to the interwar period, when the fears of the victors
and the resentment of the vanquished created a vicious cycle of
repression and revanchism, France and West Germany could join
hands in the alliance and in the European Community because a
greater power could insure both countries against the potentially
perilous consequences of their new posture. Thus, instead of
occupying the Rhineland as in 1923, France relinquished the
Saarland. The smaller states of Western Europe could swallow
integration with the powerful because they did not need to fear
their domination....
It is only tempting to conclude that so stable an order might now
dispense with the foundation laid by the United States in the