ABSTRACT
All countries have what might be called a national strategic culture, a set of attitudes and policies toward defense and security that arises from history, geography, and political culture. Although France and West Germany obviously shared a preoccupation with the overriding Western security concern of the postwar era—the Soviet threat—the two countries had very distinct perspectives and priorities within that overarching consensus. For France, the overriding foreign policy goal after World War II was the restoration of French status as a great—or at least significant—power, including in the military domain. The attitude toward military independence in postwar West Germany was quite different. The coming to power of Charles de Gaulle in France in 1958 gave new impetus to the stagnating Franco-German strategic partnership. As the reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began to appear more and more credible, the most visible impetus to Franco-German defense cooperation of the past thirty years—the Soviet threat—began to fade.
