University of Virginia Library

Political and Military Tension

Finally, the political and military tension maintained
between them constantly puts peace in
question. There is no ideology that can justify
such an artificial and dangerous situation."

Since World War Two, therefore, Europe,
and especially France and Germany, have had
to address their policies, domestic and international,
to the "realities" of a divided Europe
and a bipolar world. They have not responded
to these political facts, however, from identical
perspectives and in similar terms. Whereas the
conscious imperialism of Soviet Russia in the
East imposed a similar political assessment and
a similar European policy on those states,
American dominance in the West, which was
situational rather than deliberate, left a great
margin of autonomy to the Western European
states in defining their position in Europe and
their relation to the dual hegemonies.

It is no surprise, therefore, that endowed
with marginal autonomy, the different national
situations of France and Germany gave rise
to different perspectives, different priorities,
and different policies. Indeed, the irony of the
post-World War Two world is that the very
pressures generated by the political collapse of
Europe and the rise of the two superpowers at
once pushed France and Germany into cooperation
and defined the limits of that cooperation.
For France and Germany had to define simultaneously
their relationship to each other and
to the two superpowers. The degree to which
they defined their relations to the two
superpowers in different terms, to that extent
their definition of France-German cooperation
would differ.