The Nixon Administration’s Initiatives for the European Community
The Nixon Administration’s Initiatives for the European Community

An Overview and Analysis

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to argue that the Nixon administration (1969–1974) steadily reviewed U.S. relations with the European Community. With a documentary approach, this paper will show that the Nixon administration’s new strategy toward the European Community implied a redefinition of U.S. policy towards European integration. The Nixon administration decided that the U.S. needed to reduce Europe’s free riding on the United States and asked the European Community to be more responsible for its own defense. Four initiatives − the Reduction of Costs and Forces in Europe (REDCOSTE), offset agreements with the FRG, the Nixon doctrine, and the new strategy toward NATO − demonstrated the Nixon administration’s attempts to carry out a new kind of diplomacy which aimed to look after U.S. national interests and leave the internal evolution of the European integration process to the Europeans.

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