specter again haunting Europe at the end of this the most bloody
century of conflict, it is the specter of democracy.

This collection of essays constitutes an interpretive survey, rather
than a history, of American-German relations since World War I.
That story, with its many subplots, is interesting and important in its
own right. But this volume also aims at some illumination of the larger
meaning of the events of 1989, and after. For among the myriad of
relationships between contemporary nation-states that are said to be
"special," that between the United States and Germany has devel-
oped a solid claim to uniqueness. From the American point of view,
the future of democracy in Germany is a central test of the major
premise of U.S. foreign policy. Simply put, that premise is the idea
that liberty is indivisible, and therefore that democracy in America
itself depends ultimately on the survival of democracy in at least some
other nations, particularly the more powerful. A key feature of this
book is the opportunity its publication provides for evaluation of U.S.
policy toward the major belligerent European power since 1871.
After all, the success or failure of peaceful, republican government in
a unified Germany depends in large part on the accuracy of earlier
American perceptions of the German question--which then guided
policy toward Germany between 1945 and the present. It is rare in
history that one state intervenes so resolutely in the reconstitution of
another in order to transplant its own values, and to some extent
institutions. It is even more rare that the horizon of history throws up
a landmark such as German reunification, against which the benefits
of such intervention may be measured. Today, there is a very large
American bet--and several side wagers from European democra-
cies--riding on Germany; for Germany is once again likely to be the
pivot of European and, therefore, world history.

Like the leadership of several other European nations, prior to
World War II Germany's leaders seriously misappraised U.S. power,
just as later some European and certainly Soviet leaders gravely
underestimated American resolve to provide sustained leadership in
international affairs. After 1945, Germany became fundamentally
dependent on the United States to underwrite its national security
and prosperity. The European nation historically most disdainful of
liberalism thus found itself a willing client of a foreign government
constituted on the basis of republican ideals, and powerfully motivated
by liberal notions about how best to sustain world order. As one
result, Germany's and Europe's future today remains mortgaged to
an American, liberal-democratic vision of international affairs. Thus,

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