Abstract

Will Europe Go Right? I. Decline of the Third Force

This article focuses on the ideological crisis faced by Western Europe, and the threatened disappearance of the so-called Third Force. The "Third Force" has been much discussed as an ideological, a political, and a military concept. There was a time-about three or four years ago when one frequently heard it said that Western Europe, under the inspiration of the Labor Party of Great Britain, would develop a social and ideological system of its own which would be different from both American capitalism and Soviet communism. The military, or geographical, Third Force was the brain-child of French political thinkers. But, long before the signing of the Atlantic Pact, which finally turned Western Europe into part of the American military sphere, this concept of the Third Force went up in smoke.