Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book reviews Germany and France as deeply attached to the European Community through anchors of economic interdependence and the evolution of new norms of European international behavior. But for him this liberal internationalism and the recent strong drive for European integration are unplanned and adaptive solutions to old problems of geography and, hence, geopolitics. In Latin America, where the history of dependence on the United States runs even deeper, the book argues that the post-Cold War era heralds less a watershed change than a renewal of longstanding historical patterns of subordination. It provides quite different patterns for Europe, patterns rooted in the permanence of geopolitics and close-quarter conflict. Much of twentieth century politics in Europe is a struggle to square the circle, to deal with the problem of security and industrial development in a particularly competitive world.