The Abandonment—Entrapment Years: the 1980s

Abstract

The two external dynamics of the superpower squeeze and the Soviet threat which shaped most of European security cooperation since the 1940s, played a major role in revitalising European security cooperation in the 1980s. Within this period, the limited degree of externalisation which had appeared in the 1970s grew much stronger, as the development of common Western European positions towards East–West relations materialised. In the 1960s, de Gaulle had set a precedent for Western European states to deal with East–West relations on their own terms. In a way the Western European initiatives of the 1980s can be viewed as a continuation of de Gaulle’s legacy. Furthermore, the experience of cooperating within NATO in the 1960s and 1970s, helped the Western Europeans to develop common ground on security and defence matters, which they were able to put into practice outside the NATO framework in the 1980s.