The Cold War and European integration, 1947–63

The author discusses the impact the Cold War had on European Integration and, in particular, on the American efforts in support of that initiative. He shows that the perceived Communist threat was an important but not the only motivating force behind America's endorsement of a unified Europe. The other motif he singles out independently of, although not unrelated to, the Cold War was the American aim to contain a renascent Germany. It was this purpose, he maintains, that determined the American long‐term option for a supranational structure for an integrated Europe after the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany.