Interdependence, Asymmetric Crises and the European Defence Community (1950-1954)

This paper seeks to explain the difficulties encountered by European defence co-operation as a case of secondary alliance dilemma, in which states face the risk of being either abandoned, trapped, or hindered. I argue that European defence co-operation is a response to external crises that place European states in a situation of military interdependence. Conversely, asymmetric crises that affect European states unevenly provide incentives for those states to maintain their autonomy of action. Defence co-operation thus becomes a hollow shell because states tend to abandon one another, a trap, because co-operation pushes states to intervene in conflicts that do not interest them, or a hindrance, because co-operation limits the room to manoeuvre of states that are willing to intervene unilaterally. The failure of the European Defence Community (EDC) can be explained by this secondary alliance dilemma. In the 1950s, the driving force behind the EDC project was the interdependence between France and Germany in the context of the East-West crisis in Europe. However, the French gradually came to face a dilemma between their European commitment and their colonial crises. The EDC thus became a hindrance to French efforts in Asia and North Africa. On the one hand, the East-West crisis that justified the EDC project gradually subsided after the end of the Korean War in 1953 and the détente that followed. On the other hand, anti-colonial conflicts that encouraged France to preserve its autonomy of action became increasingly constraining from 1952, with the North African uprisings. This context prompted French military leaders and politicians to gradually abandon the EDC project. Finally, I argue that this secondary alliance dilemma resurfaced in the context of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), since the recent simultaneous rise of crises in Africa (Sahel) and Eastern Europe (Ukraine). Consequently, tensions have increased between France on the one hand, which still has interests in Africa and fears abandonment, and its European partners on the other hand, which have no strategic interests in Africa and fear entrapment.