Money and Security: Troops, Monetary Policy, and West Germany's Relations with the United States and Britain, 1950-1971 (review)

One of the vexing questions underlying western security policies during the Cold War was who was going to pay the enormous costs associated with maintaining the American and British armed forces in the Federal Republic of Germany. In Money and Security, Hubert Zimmermann, Assistant Professor for International Politics at the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany, examines the link between the transatlantic security system and the international monetary system from 1950 to 1971. Focusing on American, British, and West German security and monetary policies, Zimmermann argues that the financial ramifications of the military defense of western Europe dominated postwar relations between the three allies. In doing so, he aims to "reintegrate monetary history into the historiography of the Cold War" (p. 4).

Zimmermann asserts that the postwar foreign policies of the United States, Britain, and West Germany can only be understood in the context of economic and security concerns. Although the three nations reached a consensus regarding the need to secure western Europe from a Soviet incursion, the financial considerations involved in providing security were rife with contentious negotiations. Zimmermann points out that the United States and Britain expected West Germany to furnish its own troops for defense, but delays in German rearmament led to Allied demands for financial compensation. A strong German economy, especially when the pound and the dollar declined in value, exacerbated Allied frustrations with the failure of West German rearmament.

West German relations with Britain and the United States varied widely in the postwar era. Zimmermann contends that despite the fact that Britain's economic status in the world was in decline, the British were unwilling to integrate their defense policies with NATO or abandon the traditional policy of maintaining sterling as a reserve currency. Britain's repeated threats to reduce its number of support troops, however, elicited moderate financial concessions from West Germany. In the end, Britain chose the political benefits of a continued military commitment over the economic drain that such a presence entailed. The author points out that American-West German relations concerning U.S. troops in Germany were far less antagonistic, as the United States dominated the relationship. Zimmermann concludes that "offset" agreements signed in the 1960s cemented American-German military relations and led to West German dependence on American arms.

The strength of Money and Security lies in Zimmermann's thorough research and cogent analysis of American, British, and German monetary issues in the Cold War. Since the author defines foreign policy as foreign economic policy, however, he tends to focus on economic questions over security issues. If money were the dominant factor in western policies during the Cold War, why did the United States and Britain sacrifice so much of it to secure West Germany?

Money and Security is a scholarly contribution to the historiography of the Cold War. Through extensive research into the complex and contentious nature of troop-cost negotiations, Zimmermann points out that domestic policy concerns and economic considerations played a decisive role in the formulation of political and military policies in the Cold War era. Relations between the United States, Britain, and West Germany may have bent under the strain of the financial ramifications of security, but in the end they never broke.