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3 J. Common Mkt. Stud. 1 (1964-1965)

handle is hein.journals/jcmks3 and id is 1 raw text is: THE CONCEPT OF ATLANTIC COMMUNITY By JAMES RICHARDSON I No theme in international relations is so conducive to the outpouring of words, often very tenuously related to recognizable political fact, as that of Atlantic community. In recent years, indeed, it may have outstripped the United Nations as a source of the rhetorical expression of aspirations. In reaction against the stream of words, certain political analysts-Stanley Hoffmann, Henry Kissinger, Hedley Bull'-have questioned the foundations of the Atlantic claims, their critique tending to reinforce equally astringent comments from the direction of Paris. The burden of the critique is that the notion of Atlantic community lacks descriptive content, but serves the political function of rational- izing American interests in relation to Europe. At a time when European economic recovery and integration pro- vide a basis for independence from the United States, it is suggested, America proposes that the uniting of Europe should be contained within an Atlantic framework: while there should be 'partnership' in economic affairs between two equal powers, there should be a single community in military affairs, a single authority for the control of nuclear weapons. The language of partnership thus cloaks an American bid to retain hegemony in the North Atlantic world, through a monopoly of the crucial form of armed force: nuclear weapons. Even worse, just as Britain allegedly sought to establish a Free Trade Area in order to prevent the integration of the Six, so the United States is charged with obstructing European developments through the intro- duction of Atlantic considerations. 'The only instance where the idea of European unity has yielded results-modest but real-is where it was not in competition with the idea of American hegemony; whereas it has failed to prosper wherever the ground was covered with Atlantic vegetation.'2 A second strand of criticism bases itself on the distinction between the European Community of the Six, where there exist institutions and procedures for giving effect to common interests as well as an increasing sense of allegiance to the 'European idea', and the fictitious 'Western' or 'Atlantic' community, lacking such institutions and 1

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