48
Access to resources and markets, socioeconomic stability, political pluralism, and American security interests wereall tied together.
A fifth view of postwar order also was concerned with encouraging politicaland economic unity in Western Europe a third force.” This viewemerged as a strategic option as wartime cooperation with the SovietUnion began to break down after the war. In 1946 and 1947, the world increasingly began to look as if it would become bipolar. One world designsfor peace and economic order became less relevant.
49 As officials
the State Department began to rethink relations withWestern Europe andthe Soviet Union, a new policy emphasis emerged, one concerned with theestablishment of a strong and economically integrated Europe. The ideawas to encourage a multipolar postwar system, with Europe as a relativelyindependent center of power, in which Germany was integrated into awider unified Europe.
This new policy was advanced by several groups within the State Department.
The emphasis on building centers of power in Europe was a viewGeorge Kennan had long held, and it was articulated most consistently by his Policy Planning staff. It should be the cardinal point of our policy,”
Kennan argued in October 1947, to see to it that other elements of independentpower are developed on the Eurasian land mass as rapidly as possiblein order to take off our shoulders some of the burden of ‘bi-polarity.’ ”
50
Kennan’s staff presented its first recommendations to Secretary of State
George Marshall on 23 May 1947. Their emphasis was not on the directthreat of Soviet activities in Western Europe but on the war-ravaged economic,political, and social institutions of Europe that made communistinroads possible. An American effort to aid Europe should be directed notto combatting communism as such, but to the restoration of the economichealth and vigor of European society.
51
In a later memorandum, the Policy
Planning staff argued that the program should take the form of a multilateralclearing system to lead to the reduction of tariffs and trade barriersand eventually to take the form of a European Customs Union.
52
Moreover,the Policy Planning staff argued that the initiatives and responsibility forthe program should come from the Europeans themselves. This groupclearly envisaged a united and economically integrated Europe standingon its own apart from the Soviet sphere and the United States. By insisting
CHAPTER SIX
on a joint approach,” Kennan later wrote, we hope to force the Europeansto think like Europeans, and not like nationalists, in this approach to theeconomic problems of the continent.”
53
A unified Europe was also seen by American officials as the best mechanismfor containing the revival of German militarism. Kennan held thisview, arguing in a 1949 paper that we see no answer to German problemwithin sovereign national framework. Continuation of historical processwithin this framework will almost inevitably lead to repetition of post-Versailles sequence of developments. . . . Only answer is some form of Europeanunion which would give young Germans wider horizon.”