EUROPE AND AMERICA
rr HE history of the tension between Presi- I dent de Gaulle and President Kennedy is full of cross-currents. On the surface, the relationship between them looks rather like that between Mao Tse-tung and Mr. Khrushchev with the older statesman in each case taking a 'harder' and more nationalistic line. But, if President de Gaulle were simply the representative of a harsher attitude towards the Soviet Union or of a policy of 'French greatness,' he would not be the diffi- cult problem that he is for American diplomacy.
What gives his, resistance to American policies its present significance is that it canalises an inchoate and emergent nationalism in Western Europe. There is in Europe a vague desire for a change in the structure of the North Atlantic alliance in order to express more accurately a new power relationship between America and its European allies. There is a claim to parity in the military and political sphere accompanied by a new self-confidence and consciousness of economic strength. The European claim to the possesion of a nuclear deterrent is a symbol of restiveness with what is taken to be a position of inferiority within the North Atlantic alliance, and this is something which should be understood in Britain, since our own nuclear deterrent was acquired for precisely similar psychological reasons.
For the moment President de Gaulle is the representative of this trend, and French objec- tions to the present structure of NATO will cer- tainly be repeated by other European statesmen in the future (the West German Defence Minister's demand for the operational control of tactical nuclear weapons falls into the same pattern). But the Gaullist position is weakened by the President's attitude to European in- tegration. For, if it might be considered logical for an integrated Europe to have its own deter- rent, it is much less so for the possession of a nuclear striking force to ensure French influence in Europe. In that event it would be Europe that would be the partner and France that would hold the symbol and the instrument of partnership— a prospect which even the most ardent 'Europeans' would view with acute dismay.
A genuinely European deterrent would imply a European political authority of some kind to control it, and it may be that the hint dropped this week in Washington that President Kennedy's objections to national deterrents would not apply to a European one has this in mind. Obviously, such a proposal would not be- come a reality for a long time, but it would also provide some hope of solving difficulties of structure within NATO and would have the ad- vantage of appearing, more European than the plans of President de Gaulle, who would cease to be able to make capital out of Western Europe's desire for greater security and influence. Instead of France playing the European card against the US, the US would be playing it against France.
It is not yet clear whether the US Govern- ment has anything of this sort in mind, but Presi- dent Kennedy must see the necessity for placing the relations between America and Europe on a sounder basis. Part of this process will be achieved when Britain is in the Common Market, but what remains to be done must be done in NATO which will then serve as the link between Western Europe and America—a link that might, in favourable circumstances, turn out to be an embryo of an Atlantic community. For the present, if the Brussels negotiations succeed, Britain's task is to help to make the new Europe while, at the same time, considering relations be- tween the new community and America as of paramount importance. No steps towards Atlan- tic community can be taken until European in- tegration has progressed much further, but European statesmen can at least make sure that the aim is not forgotten. There is, indeed, a sense in which the creation of Europe is bound to diminish American influence in the world, but those who most desire European unity should be prepared to use their new-won power wisely—as wisely as those American leaders who have en- couraged the countries of Europe to come to- gether undeterred by the thought that they might be bringing to birth an economic and political force that they would be unable to control.
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