ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the ‘original’ states-system in Europe and lay out two models of interaction, ‘Community’ and ‘Transatlantic,’ as the modes of diplomacy that have grown out of change in Europe at both the state and the system levels. Western Europe’ is, strictly speaking, the region comprising the westerly countries of Europe. The Western European Union, in turn, was a military alliance established by seven European nations allied with the United States and tasked with implementing the Modified Treaty of Brussels. The ‘Community’ model offers the story of interpenetrating states overcoming divisions to create a union of states that is both wide and deep, forging habits of consensus and cooperation where once there was a regular pattern of war. The Community model begins by accepting the English School notion that there is a European states-system. The European version of embedded relations is illustrated in the diagram of the Community model.
