ABSTRACT
The crucial new responsibility that Germany faces is to help design the new post-cold war order. The crucial responsibility that the United States faces is to hold together the alliance that won the cold war victory and to use that alliance to shape a new order. German-American relations after World War II represented more than the bilateral ties between two countries and two peoples. They also helped to make Western Europe part of the global concert, giving the maritime powers a firm position on the European continent and giving West Germany and Western Europe the protection of the maritime powers. The global concert under the leadership of the United States was prepared to commit itself to the freedom of Western Europe and of West Germany, and to the unity of all of Germany, but it is not prepared to link itself politically or militarily to all of Europe.
