Enduring Dilemmas: Sources of American Ambivalence Toward European Defense Autonomy, The EDC and ESDP in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Since World War II, transatlantic security relations have reflected a tension between American desires for Europeans to share more of the defense burden without having to give up its leadership role and European desires for greater defense autonomy without having to devote more resources toward military capabilities. The dissertation explores this tension and argues that systemic theories of international relations do not adequately explain why the US supported a potentially competitive institution with NATO - the European Defense Community (EDC) - during the 1950's, while resisting a much-looser version of European defense cooperation in European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) in the late 1990's. The dissertation focuses on additional variables at the domestic level, such as fragmented political systems, divergent threat perceptions, and core beliefs and influence of policy entrepreneurs in explaining US behavior toward European defense ambitions during these two discrete periods of time.