ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the reorganization of Western governance structures taking place between 1967 and 1975. The power shifts that occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s meant that security and defense could no longer be separated from the debate about the political and economic structures that governed the West. North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) institutional reform between 1966 and 1968 provided an effective solution to the Alliance’s nuclear problems. The Europeans became increasingly unhappy with the US conception of détente in the early 1970s. Having advanced superpower detente, restructured relations with China, and hammered out a Vietnam peace deal, Kissinger finally shifted attention to Western Europe in 1973. In effect, Kissinger proposed to strengthen Western governance by reopening the Harmel exercise and expanding the thematic scope of NATO. The major issue still to be resolved about Western governance in 1974/75 was how to organize economic crisis management.
