Calleo argues that it is now possible and indeed desirable that the United States should devolve a major portion of the heavy military responsibilities it has carried in postwar Europe. This should be seen not as a return to American isolationism, but rather a resumption of European responsibility. Should we attempt to prolong our postwar burdens and privileges much longer, we run the risk of unraveling that Western European and transatlantic solidarity whose fostering has been the glory of America’s postwar diplomacy. An “Atlantic community” cannot be governed from Washington. The attempt will fail in the end and will corrupt and embitter both sides. The Europeans are America’s best friends in the world, but they are also independent great powers. When all is said and done, Europe is not America’s front porch, but somebody else’s house. Standing in the way of the sensible policy of devolution is an Atlanticist ideology which has, on both sides of the Atlantic, become a thinly disguised cover for permanent American domination. Calleo dissects the usual Atlanticist political and military arguments and finds the Gaullist arguments to be not only more convincing but also more in America’s own national interest.
‘Calleo understands the present situation as a unique mix of stable and unstable elements… No assessment of [his] analysis can be all-embracing. It is a book of many parts.’
– Michael J. Brenner, The American Political Science Review, June 1971