ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to highlight the crucial factors influencing European-American differences. It assesses the principal points of disagreement. The chapter describes the differing roles and role-expectations each side has regarding the Atlantic division of labor in this region and in specific countries. But the Atlantic division reflects the lines of sharpest disagreement on the Central American contingency. The continuing challenges the Central American balance of political forces will pose to the reformulation of a foreign policy consensus in the United States. In operational terms, policy expectations have always been more limited and sensitive to the range of allied perspectives and capabilities. More controversial are the political instruments pursued vigorously during the 1970s by a number of European political actors. Most troublesome of all to European political actors was the specification of contingencies under which the use of force or violence was justified.
