The Projected European Union and American International Prestige

There are variations in the concept of prestige, but no serious injury to United States prestige is likely to result from President de Gaulle's veto of British entry into the Common Market and his plans to develop "Europe of the Six" for both economic and political purposes. The United States supported British entry into the Common Market, but it is not certain that opinion in either France or Britain desired it, and better alternatives may emerge. Many Europeans who welcomed American leadership in 1947 have come to resent it, because they are conscious of the great changes in economic and political relations in the last decade and believe that their continent can now provide for its own defense and development with United States friendship. The effect of customs unions on trade liberalization is problematical, but United States and world economic interests may be better forwarded if such unions are kept small. A strong United Nations is an American interest and may be served by the simultaneous decentraliza tion of both great alliance systems so that the Charter pro visions subordinating regional and collective defense arrange ments to collective security can be implemented. The United States has an opportunity to increase its prestige by accommo dating itself to the obsolescence of the bipolarized world and developing the potentialities of collective security under the United Nations.