ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the principal European and Atlantic institutions and outlines some of the significant political developments of the Cold War era in order to provide a historical basis for the negotiations that have followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc. European federalists had an additional motivation. They hoped to unite the continent by building a structure of close cooperative relationships, including security and defense, that would devalue the importance of the nation-state and thereby prevent a repeat of past intra-European conflicts. The challenge and success of the subsequent airlift inspired and crystallized American opinion: the Soviet Union was clearly identified as the "enemy," and the Western European countries, including the recent foe Germany, were America's true "friends." The European unity movement was originally the province of the Council of Europe, formed in May 1949; and its economic destiny, the realm of the Organization of European Economic Cooperation, established a month earlier.
