THREE-WAY STRETCH: THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY IN THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY, 1969-1976

In the early 1970's, the Atlantic economy was plagued by frequent and acrimonious debates between the Federal Republic of Germany, its European partners, and the United States. This study investigates the motivations, interests, and pressures shaping and constraining West German foreign economic policy in an effort to explain the pattern of conflict and cooperation in the Atlantic economy between 1969-1976. Toward that end, I suggest that the level of economic openness, the national economic culture, and the economic balance of power are critical for an understanding of the limits on national autonomy and the foreign economic policies of advanced capitalist states.;I demonstrate that a disequilibrium in the economic balance of power undermined the liberal economic strategy adopted by the West Germans in the post-war period. The West Germans were caught in a three-way stretch between the dictates of the national economic interest, the demands of their European aspirations which required French cooperation, and American efforts to extract economic concessions in exchange for continued security benefits. This configuration of pressures and interests produced a foreign economic policy that combined the regional mercantilism of France with an American inspired global liberalism; and forced the West Germans to initiate a closure of the national economy, to modify their market-oriented economic culture, and to exercise their economic power to shape an international eonomic order supporting national economic preferences.;This study also suggests that dissimilar elements of national economic cultures provide intractable and persistent sources of conflict between advanced capitalist states; and that conflicts between the United States and the Federal Republic are embedded in cultural antagonisms not amenable to compromise solutions.;I have employed the qualitative method and have relied upon public documents, journalistic accounts, and the memoirs of principal actors as the raw materials of this study. This study proceeds chronologically and is divided into four parts. Part one develops and presents a model of foreign economic policy; part two describes the changing international context of West German foreign economic policy; part three examines the West German efforts to achieve monetary autonomy in an inflationary world economy; and part four examines the threats posed to the security of West Germany's raw materials and energy supply.