ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how geostrategic considerations have shaped the foreign and security policies of France and Germany. The Second World War and its aftermath presided over the ascendancy of the US and Soviet Russia as Europe's pre-eminent strategic powers, marking Britain's relegation to the second rung of global power as well as the political division and external occupation of Germany. The dynamic geopolitical environment of the Cold War largely accounted for patterns of change, adaptation and action in French foreign and security policy. France and Germany actually tried to get the EU to adopt a common defence policy in 1992 and proposed to that end a merger between the Western European Union (WEU) and the EU. However, their proposal was vetoed by Britain both at Maastricht and during the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam negotiations. The 1992–2005 years represented the peak of Franco-German togetherness and the 'centrality' of the Franco-German engine in European politics.
