Preoccupation with the EU's internal affairs risks ignoring the extent to which Europe will henceforth be shaped by foreign affairs. This book is an exposition of the persistent features of power politics to which Europe, in the form of the EU, will increasingly have to adapt. Using the resources of both political philosophy and diplomatic history, Maurice Keens-Soper urges that the internal developments of Western Europe over the last half century are making a common standpoint in foreign affairs increasingly necessary.