Europe Will Be Left Alone

After the end of the Second World War, the central issue of European security was whether or not American troops would remain on the continent. The experience of the first postwar period raised fears that Washington might once again withdraw, returning to an isolationist stance. In fact, between 1945 and 1947 the United States drastically reduced its military presence in Europe, imagining that stability could be guaranteed through economic reconstruction and a new international balance. Yet the consolidation of Soviet power in Eastern Europe and the Greek-Turkish crisis revealed how fragile that perspective truly was. Without an external guarantee, Western Europe appeared incapable of defending itself.