This article reports research results on the development and demise of the European Defense Community during the early Cold War period. The French government announced the Pleven Plan, which was the prototype of the EDC, as a counterproposal to the U.S. government’s request to rearm West Germany for the entire defense of Western Europe. The EDC was a bold scheme for fusing national military forces of member countries together as a single European defense force under a single supreme commander.
This research explores the question why the French government failed to obtain ratification of the EDC and other relevant treaties from the French parliament despite the fact that it was the French government which originally proposed the Pleven Plan. The paper specifically intends to explain what major factors contribute to the collapse of the EDC from viewpoints of alliance theories. Attempting to find out answers to these questions, the article aims both to demonstrate the theoretical importance of the EDC and then to serve to identify conditions necessary for building a multilateral collective defense alliance.