ABSTRACT
The bipolar international system is widely supposed to have been the central feature of international politics during the second half of the twentieth century in Europe. As the United States and the Soviet Union squared off against each other, potential disagreements among Europeans in each bloc were marginalized. Nowhere was this clearer than in West Germany, where German foreign policy was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) policy in the first instance, Europe's in the second, but never particularly Germany's in its own right. At least, this is usually the way simplistic versions of Cold War history go.
