American Support for Euratom in the Context of Technological Confrontation between the USA and the USSR in 1950s
https://doi.org/10.21603/sibscript-2025-27-6-1104-1111
Abstract
The Cold War between the USA and the USSR unfolded on the fields of science and technology. Washington did not mind sharing scientific knowledge with its European allies to strengthen its leadership in the Western bloc. Agreement on cooperation was signed between the United States and the European Atomic Energy Community in 1958. The USA supported European integration and efforts to create a nuclear non-proliferation regime. However, the US policy towards Euratom was also influenced by the technological confrontation between the superpowers. The study involved archival materials, published documents on the US foreign policy, speeches and memoirs of American politicians, media publications. The so-called peaceful atom became a new important sector of confrontation between the USA and the USSR in the 1950s. The Eisenhower administration offered Western Europe cooperation in the field of peaceful nuclear energy. Euratom was a supranational community of six Western European countries created to pool efforts in the sphere of nuclear energy development. The launch of Sputnik in the USSR gave additional impetus to the cooperation agreement between the United States and Euratom, increasing Washington’s interest in a joint program that would unite American and Western European science and technology against the USSR. The study provides an insight into the logic of the US policy regarding Euratom and the Soviet-American confrontation during the Cold War.
About the Author
Oksana G. Lekarenko
Tomsk State University
Russian Federation
Competing Interests:
Russian Federation
Tomsk
Competing Interests:
The author declared no potential conflict of interests regarding the research, authorship, and / or publication of this article.
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Review
For citations:
Lekarenko O.G. American Support for Euratom in the Context of Technological Confrontation between the USA and the USSR in 1950s. SibScript. 2025;27(6):1104-1111. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.21603/sibscript-2025-27-6-1104-1111
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