'Une Déception Amoureuse'? Great Britain, the Continent and European Nuclear Cooperation, 1953-57

Abstract

The joint declaration issued at the British-French Summit at St. Malo envisaged a common defence policy within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union. Previous attempts by France and Britain to form a 'CSDP' were victims to security needs of the Cold War. By 1950 a transatlantic security architecture seemed indispensable to safeguard Western Europe from the fate of South Korea. However, the so-called first détente, triggered by Stalin's death, led to a revival of Anglo-French cooperation and a revival of the Brussels Treaty Organization of 1948. This article focuses on plans during the first détente to form a CSDP by nuclearizing the revised Brussels Pact, now named Western European Union. The challenge to the US reconstruction of (Western) Europe ended with Sputnik and the recreation of the Anglo-American special relationship in October 1957.