ABSTRACT
British perspectives on East-West relations are quite different and reflect the diversity to which North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Central Region has adapted. The Central Region of NATO includes the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Political and economic changes affecting these countries have often reflected relationships with other regions. Germany especially the Federal Republic in the West, has also passed from rags to riches. Indeed, since 1949 the whole of central Europe has bloomed economically and socially within an expanding multinational community. In one respect, that position was no more than a reflection of its national economic and commercial regeneration—a regeneration that was in train even before the initiative by Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman. Like the British, however, the French had inherited a sense of obligations beyond Europe and a conviction of their special ability to fulfill them.
