Perspectives around the European Defence Community : what can history tell us about European defence ? Delphine Deschaux-Dutard Dozentin für Politikwissenschaft – Universität Grenoble Alpes Delphine.deschaux-dutard@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr In a context of Brexit and of geopolitical uncertainties in the world, European defence resurfaced in political discours, mainly in the words of the French President Macon and the German Chancellor Merkel. Indeed during the last decade, despite the ever-intensifying security challenges they face, EU members progressively lost interest in the idea of deepening EU’s defense policy. Perhaps the challenges raised by Brexit but also by the actions of Putin since the annexion of Crimea in 2014 and the election of Donald Trump serve as a driver for an enhanced CSDP. The European Council stated on 15 December 2016 that Europeans should „take greater responsibility for their security“, commit „sufficient additional resources“, reinforce „cooperation in the development of required capabilities“, and „contribute decisively to collective efforts“ in order to be able to act autonomously when and where necessary. 1 Will these wishes turn into reality ? Nothing seems more questionable. A good way of understanding why one cannot created an effective European defense overnight consists in looking at the historical event which imposed a tabou on the subject for over 40 years. History sometimes tell us a lot about the present. This is why this article will deal with the historical attempt and failure of the European Defense Community in a context of international tensions. The European Defense Community project, also known as Pleven Plan 2 , is directly linked with the international context in 1950. In June 1950 the Korea War breaks out, increasing the geopolitical tensions between the Western and Soviet blocks just after the Berlin blockade few months earlier. The Korea War is the signal for the American political leaders that the time has come to rearm Germany, which has been deprived from its military forces in 1945 with the allied occupation of the German territory. Thus the Atlantic Alliance founded in 1950 adopts a new forward strategy necessitating more soldiers to resist the Soviet conventional threat on the European ground. The American Secretary of State Dean Acheson stated on September 16 th 1950 that he wanted to have Germans in uniform by the year 1951, so as to reinforce the allied military presence in Europe. Such a project was of course unacceptable for the French government, which was torn between the American financial aid and the French members of parliaments and public opinion for whom it could not be possible to recreate a German army so soon after the end of the second World War. Thus the solution imagined by the Americans 1 European Council Meeting, Conclusions, Brussels, 15 December 2016, p. 3. 2 René Pleven was at the time President of the French Council under the 4 th Republic, which is today’s equivalent of the Prime Minister.