CAB129-37 — Page 84

Page 84.7. night well prove that, if Soviet pressure were relaxed as a result of some major actical deviation, the development of the system might be arrested in proportion s the compelling cause of the danger from the Soviet Union diminished. This spect of the question will form the subject of another study.

31. There are two further points which require to be borne in mind in onnexion with the consolidation of the West, though they cannot be fully developed within the limits of this paper. The first is that consolidation of the West cannot be solely a matter of agreement between governments. It must also involve an Internal consolidation of the peoples of the Western countries and a rejection If Communist influence.

32. Secondly, it may prove to be the case that the consolidation of the West in a passive sense will not prove to be enough, and that the only final hope for a ettled world will be that the ideas it represents and the system which incorporates these ideas should spread eastwards.

IV. CONCLUSIONS

33. The general conclusion of this paper may be summarised as follows:- (a) The Commonwealth alone cannot form a Third World Power equivalent

to the United States or the Soviet Union.

(b) Commonwealth solidarity is more likely to be promoted by the consolidation of the West than by the formation of a Third World Power independent of America.

(c) A weak, neutral Western Europe is undesirable and a strong independent Western Europe is impracticable at present and could only come about, if at all, at the cost of the remilitarisation of Germany.

(d) The best hope of security for Western Europe lies in a consolidation of

the West on the lines indicated by the Atlantic Pact.

(e) During the next 10-20 years, Western Europe, provided it continues on its policy of co-operation, should emerge from economic and even from military dependence on the United States but the two areas will remain interdependent.

(f) The United Kingdom will have an increasingly important part to play in the consolidated West, and must also seek to maintain its special relations with the United States of America.

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Foreign Office, S.W. 1,

18th October, 1949.

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