ABSTRACT
One of the main hypotheses at the start of this study was that Franco-German security cooperation would become more difficult in the post-Cold War era; the analysis of the first few years of that era confirms that assessment. With the Cold War no longer in place to harmonize their interests, France and Germany had great difficulties forging common security policies toward European security institutions and in Yugoslavia. They played very different roles in the Persian Gulf War and have developed structurally dissimilar interests in Central and Eastern Europe. While there seems to have been some convergence on attitudes toward NATO (France moving toward Germany) and on the question of joint security policies outside Europe (Germany moving toward France), favorable government attitudes and policies in each country toward the other probably have not been strengthened by the events of the past few years. Potentially even more important, a Germany freed from past constraints and under great new demands may be obliged to place other foreign policy priorities above its traditional relationship with France, which could conceivably trigger French efforts to obstruct German goals.
