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PARTISAN REVIEW
success. Any attempt by Gennany to separate its foreign policy from its
allies so far has failed.
The discussion in Gennany about foreign policy (FSP) is divided into
two camps. On one side are advocates of a low-profile FSP, trying to
depict Gennany as a middle-power which should be on guard against the
seductive forces of power politics. They are in the majority. On the
other side, political scientists and historians (like Christian Hacke, Hans–
Peter Schwarz, Arnulf Baring, or Michael Stunner) try to convince the
public and the politicians that Germany is indeed a world power and
therefore must be prepared to take the lead. Both camps, however, agree
on the principle of multilateralism and refuse to embrace Gennan unilat–
eralism.
During the years of the East-West conflict, the common perception
of the Soviet or Communist threat created a strong political bond be–
tween Western Europe and North America. However, even then, West
Germany's integration, from 1949 on, was characterized by a difficult
and sometimes delicate balance of the two horizons. In the early 1960s,
a deep rift between a Gaullist and an Atlanticist faction of the govern–
ment overshadowed Konrad Adenauer's chancellorship . Serious differ–
ences in security matters and in the perceptions of the U.S.S.R. emerged
again during the first half of the 1980s, between the U .S. and West
Gennany. On the other hand, the Gennan and French conceptions and
priorities for the process of West European integration were hardly ever
in full agreement. In fact, the highly praised Franco-Gennan reconcilia–
tion is based on a myth, and it has worked so well only because they
have not yet encountered major problems.
There is a kind of general rule to Gennany's foreign security policy:
not to get into a situation where a choice between France (and the
European Community, now the European Union) and the United States
is necessary. The EC creates the necessary platfonn from which Gennany
can reach out without being severely handicapped by the shadows of its
National Socialist past. The U .S. is such an important ally for Gennany,
because it holds the Europe-U.S.-Japan triangle together and manages
most of the nuclear aspects ofWestern and certainly Gennany's security.
There was not much enthusiasm for a quick unification among West
Germans. Nor were most European countries especially fond of this
prospect. Still, America played an important role. American diplomacy
was decisive at four pivotal points. First, it shielded Chancellor Helmut
Kohl in early December 1989, when he jumped ahead of other world
leaders on the unification issue. Second, it committed France, the U.K.,
and the U.S.S.R. to the two-plus-four negotiating framework in Febru–
ary 1990. Third, it forged a common Western position on Gennan
