The one thing that successive Irish governments want to avoid is having to make a choice between Europe and the US. As long as the US is guardian of the Grand Bargain, Ireland can be European and American. With one foot in each camp, commercially we are American and technically we are European. This Grand Bargain, set up by the United States after the second World War, has brought peace and prosperity in Europe. The US took care of European security via Nato and, in return, the old imperial powers of Europe – Germany, Britain and France – accepted American hegemony, undertaking to drop their previous aggressions.

Under this protective American umbrella, various European projects were advanced. Without having to worry about security, the European Union could begin its slow development from a coal and steel treaty in 1957 to a single currency. American nuclear deterrence ensured Russia/Soviet Union remained in check. Meanwhile, France and the UK dissolved their empires as American supplicants not rivals, understanding that hard power had shifted from Europe to Washington.

In return for this munificence, the US got free trade and an intricate system of alliances, treaties and partnerships as well as leadership in a variety of American-created institutions such as the UN, the World Bank and the IMF. It also populated the world with American military bases, which brought the borders of the US right up to the doorstep of its two biggest foes, Russia and China. Pax Americana backstopped globalisation, a rules-based system policed not just by the hard power of the world’s biggest military but the soft power of........

© The Irish Times