Russia's NATO Expansion Myth

This article originally appeared in Cicero Magazine on 28 May 2014.

It has recently been argued by some that Russia’s invasion and intrigue in the Ukraine was foreseeable and a natural consequence of NATO’s broken promise to Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapsing USSR not to expand eastwards into its former domains. Russian President Vladimir Putin is, so the theory goes, reacting to a 24-year program of US/NATO eastward expansion stemming from that broken promise. This is a grievance Russia has put forward in arguments against Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic States joining NATO and again in 2008 when possible NATO membership for Georgia and the Ukraine was discussed. The ‘broken promise’ thesis was also offered to explain Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia. The claim is that this course of events, or a similar one, was reasonably foreseeable, that some predicted it, and that it is a natural consequence. You reap what you sow. The problem is that NATO did not sow these seeds.

The myth that such a promise was made has been allowed to grow by assertion, speculation and incomplete information. More and more primary sources and memoirs of the participants in the negotiations between Washington, Bonn and Moscow have become available over time. There is a rich background of study of this particular controversy by academics such as Fred Oldenberg, Mark Kramer, Mary Elise Sarotte, and Kristina Spohr, among others. From the available interviews, memoirs, written documents, agreements, transcripts and notes on the multiple bilateral negotiations—from Soviet and East German sources as well as Western—it is clear the subject of the eastward expansion of NATO into former East bloc states was never discussed as a stand-alone issue and no such agreement or promise was given by Washington to Moscow. At a recent Council on Foreign Relations event, for example, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said U.S. negotiators never agreed to such a thing at the time.

The closest the participants ever came to directly tackling the issue was at the very beginning of the negotiations quickly following the collapse of Eastern European governments and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. West Germany’s Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher—more concerned with German issues than the larger Cold War—was concerned Moscow would take a hard line and wanted to make a pre-emptive offer to smooth their feathers—before the issue had ever been formally discussed between East and West—that a unified Germany would not be a member of NATO, but rather either neutral or a member of another strictly European organisation, the OSCE. Interestingly, Genscher became Chairman of the OSCE in 1991.

If NATO expansion was as vital an issue to Russia then as is claimed today, Moscow would and could have insisted on a clear statement of it in writing.
However, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl did not endorse even this view. It would essentially mean West Germany leaving NATO. The U.S. and UK also disagreed. NATO without West Germany would have significantly weakened the organisation, making it an almost solely an Anglo-American affair after France all but exited in 1966. The official West German, U.S. and UK positions in negotiations with Moscow never included Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s idea. NATO’s eastward expansion was only discussed in clear text in the context of German reunification—namely whether NATO troops would be allowed on former-East German soil. NATO took the position that they had to be, as it would make no sense to have unified Germany as a full member with security guarantees for only half the country. Moscow agreed in the 1990 Treaty on Final Settlement with Respect to Germany that, yes, reunited Germany would remain in NATO, but no NATO troops should be moved into former East Germany until after all Soviet troops had departed. NATO was held to and kept this promise. Arguably, as NATO’s security blanket now also covered eastern Germany, it already represented an eastward expansion of NATO—by way of agreement with Moscow.

If NATO expansion was as vital an issue to Russia then as is claimed today, Moscow would and could have insisted on a clear statement of it in writing. It certainly would and should have wanted more than verbal assurances given during ongoing and evolving diplomatic negotiations. Of course some argue this away by claiming Moscow was outsmarted or outmanoeuvred by George HW Bush and Helmut Kohl and that the Soviets were under pressure to move quickly because of the impending collapse of Eastern European governments. Such a vital point must surely have been apparent to the Soviets. That former East bloc states may want to join the alliance one day was not so far outside the realm of possibilities. The idea had occurred to the U.S. State Department and Hungary and Poland were already discussing NATO membership in February 1990.

One important question should be asked: Why would NATO agree not to expand NATO eastwards? In 1990 the world held its breath at the prospect of the end of 45 years of Cold War. The United States and its trans-Atlantic partners had come out on top. Many in the Bush administration saw the job now as to help Gorbachev hold the situation together so that it did not descend into violent chaos. However, it would be extremely naïve to believe that the U.S. and its allies would agree to leave everything east of the Oder-Neisse Line alone, especially when they had finally won the Cold War. To do such a thing would fly in the face of 45 years of fighting a battle for democracy, capitalism and freedom against a communist vision of collectivism, oppression and stagnation. Why would NATO agree to forgo the fruits of victory? There is no written provision addressing NATO expansion contained in any of the agreements or communiques stemming from any of the negotiations. Those, such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Americans such as former Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and former US Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock, who assert such a promise was made have no concrete evidence to point to. They rely on retellings of flawed memories or the myths built from an assertion over time, all refuted by primary-source evidence. No such promise was ever made.

Regardless of the truth, the Russian government asserts, and many Russians undoubtedly believe, that such a promise was made and has been broken by NATO and the US specifically. Many others outside of Russia also believe it as an article of faith. Many want to believe it because it conforms to their Weltanschauung—worldview. With such cases, the truth is—sadly—unhelpful. Regardless of what was not promised, no less a personage than George Kennan asserted in 1998 that NATO expansion was unnecessary, that with the USSR gone there was no longer any threat and US support for continued expansion placed Russia up against a wall. Russia had to struggle to rebuild itself in a new post-Soviet image with a new role in Europe. Unable to join NATO or the EU, it watched as its former foe swallowed up more and more of its former satellites and crept into its ‘near abroad’. A reaction was to be expected. If this view is true, Vladimir Putin maintains a lingering Cold War imperialist mindset. Putin must see the 1990 negotiations, not as the final testament and rites of a dying empire, but as a sort of Neo-Potsdam Conference in which the Oder-Neisse Line was still being maintained, just with open borders, friendlier relations and looser control over satellites. Perhaps he considers it a bit like a much wider and more severe Polish or Prague Spring. He believes Russia was promised something by the US—that it would leave its near-abroad alone. He must also still believe Russia has a right to and should maintain dominance over its bordering states, as in the time of the Czar and Stalin after him. He does not believe these nations have a right to independent self-determination.

Putin must refuse to believe that Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Georgia and now the Ukraine determined themselves they wanted to join NATO and/or the EU. For Russia, it can only be that America—and its partners Britain and France—conned or cajoled these states into coming over to their side of the ‘Iron Curtain’. For Putin, there is only Russia and the US and every other state is just a piece on the game board. If this is all true, it is understandable why Vladimir Putin wants to believe the US promised to leave Eastern Europe to him and Russia in 1990. This thinking also portrays some wishful thinking on America’s part, hoping against hope for the ‘end of history’ and the ‘peace dividend’. It is true that NATO was conceived to collectively confront the Soviet threat, now gone. However, to believe that the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact meant that NATO was no longer necessary because the last great evil had been defeated portrays naïve thinking and perhaps the doomed repetition of history.

The West still has not learned some lessons. We believed WWI was the ‘war to end all wars’. It was not. We believed the same at the end of WWII in 1945 and again at the end of the Cold War in 1990. While threats from Islamic terror and atomic rogue states have been exaggerated over the last 15 years, the history of the 20th century shows that America and Europe still need NATO. The world is still a dangerous place in which collective security remains necessary. In fact, looking at individual European military forces and defence budgets, collective security under NATO is all they have. None maintains a fighting force capable of mounting any sizeable operation without US support. History always returns. As with the dominant narrative of the Cold War, this thinking also leaves out the agency and will of other states besides the US and Russia. If the Cold War is truly over, then the Baltic and Eastern European states such as the Ukraine are not anymore just pawns or peons or customers to be convinced or coerced into choosing one side or the other. Even if such a promise had been made between NATO and Moscow 24 years ago—and it was not—they do not have the power to make decisions for these other countries today. They are sovereign, independent nations.

These states, their governments and their people control their own relations and chose to be members of NATO, the EU, the OSCE, and etcetera. After all, this freedom is what the US claimed to be fighting the Cold War for. It is within the Western rhetoric of freedom, independence and democracy. It was not the US or Europe who overthrew the Russian puppet government in the Ukraine in some Cold War-esque covert action—it was the Ukrainian people taking to the streets to demand change as they have several times over the last decade. To say that the US and its allies should have predicted and it was foreseeable that expanding NATO and considering Ukrainian EU membership would lead to a backlash from Russia is to ignore the individual will of Ukrainians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians and reduce what they want to a secondary consideration. Anyone who claims this future was predictable based upon a false version of the past should be seriously questioned. Vladimir Putin believes Russia is entitled to control its neighbouring states as in the days of the USSR and the Russian Empire. It is not entitled to, no matter what it falsely believes it was promised 24 years ago.

‘Nobody intends to put up a wall’: Walter Ulbricht, Khrushchev and Building the Berlin Wall, 1961

March 2014

Drawing predominantly on the work of Harrison, Maddrell, Slusser and Zubok, this essay will argue that the Berlin Wall was not conceived of nor built by Nikita Khrushchev alone, that building the Berlin Wall served the immediate needs of East Germany’s Walter Ulbricht more than Khrushchev’s international goals, and that Khrushchev was heavily influenced by Ulbricht’s campaign to pressure him into finally allowing the DDR to erect the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961.

Khrushchev’s International Goals v Ulbricht’s Immediate Needs: Maximum & Minimum Objectives
Much of the early Western-based literature on the Berlin Wall Crisis of 1961, and indeed throughout the Cold War, pictured Nikita Khrushchev as a puppet-master, pulling the strings of satellite states. It portrays Khrushchev as the sole architect and decision-maker on Soviet and socialist bloc policy in Berlin. However, this is a misrepresentation (Slusser,1973:ix). Archives and recollections of Cold War actors show Khrushchev did not decide alone to build the Berlin Wall. Khrushchev’s decisions were especially influenced by East German head-of-state Walter Ulbricht, First Secretary of the German Social Unity Party (SED) of the German Democratic Republic (DDR). Harrison (2000:53-74) discusses at length the lack of study of ‘super allies’ in the Cold War that led to the focus solely on ‘super-powers’. As Leffler (1996:120-135) argues, the picture developed from Cold War archives is more complex.

Slusser (1973:2) holds many Western scholars have reduced Ulbricht’s role because it was official Western policy that the DDR did not exist, that Ulbricht and the DDR had no recognised rights in Berlin, and there were no official ties between the DDR and Western governments in 1961 (Slusser, 1973:2). Bonwetsch and Filitow (2000:155-56) point out responsibility for die Mauer and Ulbricht’s role was and continues to be deflected onto Khrushchev by many former-DDR officials attempting to avoid public and criminal liability since the Wall fell in 1989. Khrushchev and the USSR are no longer there to defend themselves.

Harrison (1993:7-8) lists comprehensively motives ascribed in the literature to Khrushchev in the 1961 crisis: ‘to prevent West Germany from having access to nuclear weapons, to get Western recognition of the East German regime and thus stabilize that regime, to show Khrushchev's domestic opponents how strong and successful he was, to show Khrushchev's Chinese critics that he was not "soft on the imperialists," to divide the Western alliance, to force the West to accept the Soviet Union as its political and military equal, to test the rules of the new nuclear game to see if nuclear weapons could be used for coercive purposes, and to force the West to a summit conference to discuss German and disarmament issues.’ Khrushchev’s concerns in 1961 Berlin had more to do with global issues and the position of the USSR and socialism than with the future of Berlin itself.

Walter Ulbricht had much more immediate concerns. For the DDR, West Berlin in 1961 presented three threats to its very existence (Harrison, 2002:99). First, Berlin, with free movement throughout all sectors of the city guaranteed by the post-WWII four-partite agreement, was a ‘loophole’ that could not be closed by the DDR. The borders throughout the rest of East Germany had been secured since 1952 (ibid.; Schaefer, 2011:509) However its citizens could still freely cross into West Berlin and fly out of Tempelhof Airport, leaving the DDR permanently behind. Western powers did not recognise the DDR had any control in Berlin which would allow them to close the border. 1,000 people per day were fleeing the DDR into West Berlin (Schake, 2001:29). In June 1961, The Economist reported that since 1949 2.5 million citizens had fled the DDR (Slusser, 1973: 67). The annual number rose from 120,230 in 1959 to 182,278 in 1960 (Harrison, 2002:108) and continued to rise in 1961 (ibid.; CIA, 1961:2). Pictures and press testimonials of Germans leaving the DDR was bad publicity for the DDR, USSR and socialism as a whole. Additionally, many of those leaving were skilled professionals. According to CIA:

‘The high proportion of professionals, engineers, and intellectuals has been of particular concern to the (DDR) regime. From 1954 through 1960, the refugees included 4,334 doctors and dentists, 15,330 engineers and technicians, 738 professors, 15,885 other teachers, and more than 11,700 other college graduates. In addition, industrial managers have been leaving East Germany in significant numbers, many of them Socialist Unity Party (SED) members of long standing’
(CIA, 1961:2).

The flood of migrants not only reflected bad light on socialism, but also represented a ‘brain drain’ of skilled workers from East to West Germany.

A second threat was the economic impact of Grenzgaengern (Harrison, 2002:99): the estimated 50,000 East Germans who worked in West Berlin, were paid in West Marks and who returned home daily to East Berlin to enjoy the advantageous exchange rate against the East Mark. The term also included West Berliners who crossed into East Berlin to shop, also enjoying the exchange rate and contributing to scarcity of goods in the East, thus increasing prices for less-wealthy East Berliners (ibid.). The number of East Germans working in West Berlin rose from 50,000 to 65,000 in 1961 alone (ibid.:108).

The third threat was to DDR security. Western intelligence agencies used Berlin as a transit point for intelligence material and agents. Maddrell (2006:829-847) argues that while the DDR refugee crisis and the economic situation were the main impetus for building the Berlin Wall, DDR security concerns regarding Western espionage were a more important factor than often cited. Western intelligence agencies used Berlin as a major base of operations, obtaining information from refugees and using the free movement of Grenzgaengern to conduct espionage, ferry information and meet agents. To be fair, the East bloc used it in the same manner against the West. The DDR State Ministry for Security—the Stasi—was concerned that Western intelligence would use the fragile state of the DDR in 1961 to incite an uprising in East Berlin similar to that of 1953, which Ulbricht had blamed on subversion coming from West Berlin (US State Department, 1954), ending in a massive uprising against Ulbricht’s government that was only eventually put down by Soviet tanks. Maddrell (2006:833) points out, ‘in the whole history of states, it is hard to think of a state which has suffered an espionage and subversion crisis as grave as that which gripped the DDR in the years up to 1961.’ For Ulbricht, choking off this attack point was vital to DDR survival.

Slusser (1973:9) argues that for Khrushchev, Berlin was a ‘lever’ to be used in the larger struggle with the West, while for Ulbricht Berlin was not a means to an end, but the end itself. For Ulbricht, Berlin was the prize to be won (Harrison, 1993:11). Ulbricht sought elimination of the embarrassing refugee problem, the ‘brain drain’, Grenzgaengern, security worries and the vanishing prestige of the DDR itself. Building a wall could do that. Khrushchev’s international concerns were secondary to him. Harrison (2002:103) agrees Khrushchev’s goals in Berlin were larger, global concerns, whereas Ulbricht’s were DDR-specific and could be immediately addressed by building the Berlin Wall. During 1961, it was Ulbricht who was impatient, confrontational and aggressive, while Khrushchev was patient and more restrained (ibid.). As Ahonen (2011:40-56) points out, for Ulbricht controlling the borders was about the legitimacy of the DDR.

Slusser (1973:93) adroitly describes this tension between Khrushchev’s larger international goals and Ulbricht’s immediate needs as a choice between ‘maximum’ and ‘minimum’ objectives. He describes Khrushchev’s maximum objective as, ‘inflicting a major diplomatic defeat on the Western powers by forcing them to accept the fait accompli of a Soviet-East German peace treaty, bringing with it the end of Western occupation rights in West Berlin.’ Ulbricht’s minimum objective was, ‘shoring up the East German regime by shutting off the escape route via West Berlin.’ In the end, Khrushchev set aside his maximum objective and in favour of Ulbricht’s minimum objective.

Ulbricht Probes Khrushchev and the West on the Border
Why would Khrushchev, premiere of the Soviet Union, be influenced by Walter Ulbricht, the leader of a divided country dependent upon aid from Moscow and not even recognised by Western powers? Zubok (1993:11-12) argues Khrushchev was tied politically and sentimentally to Ulbricht because of their history. During the 1953 East Berlin uprising, Khrushchev sided with Ulbricht over other Soviet leaders and accused them of abandoning socialism in the DDR, thus tying himself politically to Ulbricht’s success. While Khrushchev faced uprisings in Poland and Hungary in 1956, Ulbricht swiftly quelled protests and had no quarrel with Soviet troops on East German soil and in fact welcomed them, a story explored further by Granville (2006:422). Ulbricht’s commitment to building socialism in East Germany won him Khrushchev’s praise (CWIHP, 1993:60), though it was these very ‘collectivisation’ policies that caused the economic hardship in the DDR that precipitated the refugee crisis. Zubok (1993:11-12) says Khrushchev did not want to lose the DDR, a place millions of Russians died to win in WWII, a place where a higher standard of living was enjoyed than anywhere else in the socialist bloc (CWIHP, 1993:61), and the place Westerners could most easily come into contact with socialism to be ‘won over’ by it. Khrushchev developed a similar affinity for the embattled socialist island of Cuba (Zubok, 1993:12). In 1961, Ulbricht ‘masterfully exploited’ Khrushchev’s fears of losing the DDR to force a confrontation with the West over Berlin (CWIHP, 1993:58).

Talk of a Berlin Wall neither began in 1961 nor just between Khrushchev and Ulbricht. There is evidence that Wilhelm Zaisser, the first head of the DDR’s Stasi, put forward a plan to build a wall to separate the two halves of Berlin in the early 1950s (Maddrell, 2006:833). Though DDR security officials such as Erich Honecker, charged with erecting the Wall, claimed the operation was a surprise to and great success against Western intelligence (Harrison, 2002:113), that the border may one day be sealed was no surprise at all to them. In fact, Western intelligence had been planning and instructing its agents regarding the possibility since 1953 (Maddrell, 2006:833). The Soviets had been turning down DDR requests to seal the border in Berlin for at least that long (Harrison, 2002:96). Erecting a barrier between East and West Berlin was not a new concept in 1961.

The rest of the DDR border outside Berlin was sealed since 1952 (Schaefer, 2011:509). The East Berlin border was temporarily sealed during the 1953 uprising, but soon reopened. The DDR announced in 1957 that it was now illegal for East Germans to leave the country without official permission (Maddrell, 2006:833). Until 1960, attempts by Ulbricht to secure the Berlin border were limited to controlling transit of East Germans into the West. However, from 1960 Ulbricht began to probe Western responses—and Khrushchev’s—to increased security measures affecting West Berliners and the Western allies. He acted without consulting Khrushchev and often even against Soviet cautions.

On 21 September 1960, Ulbricht, frustrated with Khrushchev’s slow approach on a permanent solution regarding the status of the DDR and Berlin, decided to press the issue by requiring Western diplomats obtain DDR Foreign Ministry permission to enter East Berlin. He had not notified Moscow and under the post-war four-partite agreement on Berlin (to which the DDR was not a party) he had no recognised authority to do so. The Soviet response was negative as they wanted no reciprocal restrictions made against them (Harrison, 2002:105).

On 17 October 1960, the Soviet embassy cabled Moscow that, ‘Our friends [East Germany] are studying the possibility of taking measures directed towards forbidding and making it more difficult for DDR citizens to work in West Berlin, and also towards stopping the exodus of the population of the DDR through West Berlin. One of such measures by our friends could be the cessation of free movement through the sectoral border and the introduction of such a process for visiting West Berlin by DDR citizens as exists for visiting the BRD [West Germany].’ (Harrison, 2002:107; Zubok, 1993:18). The next day, 18 October, Ulbricht wrote to Khrushchev directly defending the restrictions, arguing they should stand firm against the Western powers which did not recognise the DDR’s right to control its own borders, a fundamental right of any state. In a 30 November meeting, Khrushchev instructed Ulbricht to refrain from measures on the border (Harrison, 2002:107). Ulbricht tried again. On 19 May 1961 Soviet Ambassador Pervukhin reported that an impatient Ulbricht was not following Soviet guidance and wanted to immediately close the border to address the growing economic and refugee problems (ibid.:110-11).

On 15 June, Ulbricht held an infamous press conference. He offered, ‘there are people in West Germany who would like us to mobilise the building workers of the DDR capital to put up a wall. I am not aware of any such intention…Nobody intends to put up a wall.’ This only two months before the Wall would go up. It has since become a phrase many Germans repeat when someone is not being completely honest. Ulbricht went on to mention Soviet/DDR control of Berlin would mean closing Tempelhof Airport, the main escape route for refugees, and that Berlin would become a neutral city, ‘free’ from ‘disturbance’ by Western forces (Slusser, 1973:8-10). Slusser argues that rather than just a blatant lie or an attempt to calm tensions, Ulbricht’s intent—and the effect—was to increase the panicked atmosphere in Berlin to force Khrushchev to bring a swifter conclusion to the crisis.

Ulbricht’s probing continued. On 28 June, Ulbricht ordered all foreign air traffic to notify DDR controllers upon entering and exiting DDR airspace, a move quickly brushed aside by the Western allies (ibid.:43). On 8 July, the East Berlin police chief refused entry of West German delegates to an All-Germany Protestant church conference. That day, 2,600 refugees crossed into West Berlin. Throughout July, DDR ministers continued to publicly push the issue of DDR recognition and control of Berlin. On 16 July, the Ministry of Justice publicly released a detailed plan for the administration of West Berlin under DDR control (ibid.:63). Western figures show that over 100,000 refugees left the DDR in the first six months of 1961 alone (ibid.:66).

Rather presciently, on 30 July US Senator and Kennedy-ally William Fulbright remarked to the press that he did not understand why the DDR does not build a wall in East Berlin, as he considered it their right to do so (ibid.:94; Zubok, 1993:29). It appears Khrushchev made the decision to finally agree Ulbricht’s request at just this time.

There is no ‘smoking gun’ record of when exactly Khrushchev decided to agree to Ulbricht’s continuous request to seal East Berlin. Harrison puts the period between 15 and 25 July 1961 and argues that it came about broadly as a result of Khrushchev’s disappointment with the Vienna talks with Kennedy in June (2002:110). Slusser (1973:93-4) believes the decision fell on 27 July and came about after Khrushchev read Kennedy’s 25 July television speech in which he announced a large increase in US defence spending, which Khrushchev interpreted as an escalating US response to his own recent decision to increase Soviet defence spending. Zubok (1993:26-7) also places the decision on or around 27 July, citing Khrushchev’s own recollections.

Khrushchev also claims credit for the idea of building a concrete wall, not just a barbed wire barrier. Literally interpreted, Khrushchev may be said to be responsible for a Berlin ‘Wall’, not just a Berlin fence. Khrushchev recalls Ulbricht, upon being informed of the decision said, ‘This is the solution! This will help. I am for this’ (ibid.). Ulbricht sent Khrushchev a copy of the speech he would deliver at the coming 3-5 August Warsaw Pact conference on Berlin, stating that in regard to sealing the borders, ‘we have prepared all the necessary measures’ (Harrison, 2002:111). The Berlin Wall would be erected as planned on 13 August 1961.

Conclusion
Contrary to much of the early Western-based literature on the Berlin Wall, more recent literature based on archival research shows Khrushchev did not make the decision to build it alone. Building the Wall served Ulbricht’s immediate needs to stabilise the DDR more than they did Khrushchev’s larger international goals in the Cold War. Ulbricht had been seeking to seal the DDR’s Berlin border for several years and his probing campaign, beginning in late 1960, played a key role in pressuring Khrushchev to finally allow DDR forces to build the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

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High Time for a US-EU Trade Agreement

This article originally appeared on The Truman Doctrine on 20 June 2013.

Despite our differences, many of which have come to a head in recent years over the War on Terror, the United States and its allies in the European Union share overwhelming common interests. Beyond shared values, culture, and military and political systems, these interests are also the result of diplomatic design and modern history. The U.S.-EU free trade negotiations recently announced at the G8 summit in Enniskillen are a natural progression of this relationship and are an important step for both blocs in responding not only to today’s problems, but tomorrow’s problems as well.

WWII left the European continent devastated for the second time in only 30 years. The labour force was decimated, production had ground to a halt and national treasuries were empty, with crushing inflation and debt. Determined that European states should never go to war with each other again over resources or ‘balance of power’ politics, European leaders formed the European Coal and Steel Community, which evolved into the European Union of today. The EU is the world’s largest common market for goods and services. Though often misunderstood and even demonized, the EU is in great measure responsible for the continental peace that has followed its creation. Economic integration has created overriding mutual interests among EU states. Those who trade together, stay together.

The Marshall Plan helped to rebuild Western Europe’s economy. Continuing cooperation between intelligence agencies has been vital to both sides of the Atlantic. The joint military structure of NATO ensured that the U.S. and Europe remained engaged in each other’s national security. NATO is still a vital tool through which America and Europe engage with the world in the post-Cold War, post-9/11 era. The U.S. and its western European allies recognized the need for intelligence and military cooperation to confront the Soviet Union and the spread of communism during the Cold War and again in the fight against terrorism.

But an over-arching agreement on transatlantic trade has been missing for many decades due to national protectionist instincts that often kick in on both sides. Many Americans blame ‘globalization’ and trade agreements such as NAFTA for the loss of jobs. Many Euro-sceptics wrongly blame the EU for the same. Britain often finds itself at odds with the EU, most memorably in relation to weights and measurements when Imperial units became a nationalist rally point. France has been guilty of setting emissions standards that strangely only Peugeots and Citroens could pass. Even in this most recent agreement announced at Enniskillen an exception, pushed for in France and Poland, was made for the European film industry, which fears it would be driven to extinction by Hollywood blockbusters.

A bilateral U.S.-EU trade agreement would give American and European businesses access to millions of new customers for goods and services. The increased competition and elimination of tariffs should lead to better prices for consumers on both sides. The opening of new markets will create new jobs, something sorely needed in both Europe and America. It will also help cut through a lot of the red tape for importers and exporters already in the transatlantic trade.

But there are also bigger strategic reasons to hail such an agreement. Both sides of the Atlantic have suffered attacks and face the continuing threat of international terrorism. The 2008 economic downturn was fuelled by questionable lending policies by major banks in both America and Europe and are where the effects have been most acutely felt. U.S. and EU governments have faced similar struggles regarding foreclosures, government austerity, ‘bailouts’, bonuses and tax evasion. Both the U.S. and Europe continue to require fossil fuel energy. Despite better efforts than America to increase use of renewables, Europe must often depend upon Russia for oil and gas, giving Moscow a larger share of leverage than they may ordinarily be due. War and instability in the Middle East and Africa have shown the folly of America’s continued dependence on foreign oil, an issue the Obama administration has set out to tackle to the opposition of many in Congress. The world’s insatiable appetite for energy is growing at an even faster rate. The rise of China and India and other smaller tigers mean that the dominance the U.S. has enjoyed since the end of WWII may be challenged. This increase in global competition for energy resources may lead to conflict sometime in the near future.

This is no time for the EU or the U.S. to call ‘every man for himself’ and turn to their own tasks. The two blocs face the same challenges and the success or failure of one side is of great consequence for the other. China and India did not grow themselves in a vacuum. American and European consumers, investors and business out-sourcing have fuelled their growth. The same capital employed there could have flowed back and forth between American and European states, but the want of cheap labour and materials, less or non-existent regulation and reduced government red tape caused it to flow eastward instead. The U.S. and EU have been fuelling the growth of their own competitors at a time when both are in dire need of economic growth.

Hopefully that will change or slow with a successful U.S.-EU trade agreement. It is high time for one.