The recent French-American crisis over Iraq has raised questions about whether a historic shift has taken place in relations between the two countries: has unmatched American military superiority and a new policy of unilateralism in Washington clashed with a French ambition to lead a united Europe independent of Washington in a “multi-polar” world. There is little that is new in this confrontation, however. Historians have long recognized French ambitions to develop an independent nuclear force, solidify relations with Germany, and use the Franco-German connection to lead a united independent Europe in a bid for renewed great power rank. Such ambitions were assumed to have begun with de Gaulle after the end of the Algerian war, but in fact have been traced back to the Suez crisis of 1956, and even back to the early period of heavy American influence in France from 1945-54. In the study of that period, open to critical examination since I first published a document-based study in 1991, scholars such as William Hitchcock, Michael Creswell, and Allessandro Brogi have found increasing examples of the same French independence, differing only about its degree, motivations, and success.

    Critical examination of this debate reveals the deep historical continuities in French policy, which were manifested once again during the Algerian war. Further examples emerge from my recent studies of critically important aspects of continuing French ambitions of policy independence which gave rise to critical, sometimes panicky reactions in Wahsington: French aspirations to create a “Eurafrica” out of the remnants of its empire following the country’s experience with decolonization, French opposition to the American war in Vietnam (in part retribution for the American opposition to the French war to keep Algeria), and the independent French effort, begun under de Gaulle to establish a separate European policy of détente with the Soviet Union. De Gaulle’s détente was premised not upon managing a situation of permanent hostility between Communism and the West, like that of Henry Kissinger, but overcoming that hostility and creating a united Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals”, presumably under French leadership. De Gaulle’s détente became the basis for an independent multi-faceted détente policy pursued by several NATO powers and was eclipsed by the much more dramatic “Ostpolitik” of Germany’s Willy Brandt. Together they became the basis of the Helsinki agreements of 1975, which led to the end of the Cold War. Historians have stressed the independent European roles in the beginnings of the cold war. They have yet to recognize how the Europeans, led by the French, contributed to its end.