De Gaulle was not convinced of the American guarantees, in part because he simply didn't see them as rational. The United States had an interest in Europe, but it was not an existential interest. De Gaulle did not believe that an American president would risk a nuclear counterattack on the United States to save Germany or France. It might risk conventional forces, but they may not be enough. De Gaulle believed that if Western Europe simply relied on American hegemony without an independent European force, Europe would ultimately fall to the Soviets. He regarded the American guarantees as a bluff.
This was not because he was pro-Soviet. Quite the contrary, one of his priorities on taking power in 1945 was blocking the Communists. France had a powerful Communist Party whose members had played an important role in the resistance against the Nazis. De Gaulle thought that a Communist government in France would mean the end of an independent Europe. West Germany, caught between a Communist France supplied with Soviet weapons and the Red Army in the east, would be isolated and helpless. The Soviets would impose hegemony.
For de Gaulle, Soviet or American hegemony was anathema to France's national interests. A Europe under American hegemony might be more benign, but it was also risky because de Gaulle feared that the Americans could not be trusted to come to Europe's aid with sufficient force in a conflict. The American interest was to maintain a balance of power in Europe, as the British had. Like the British in the Napoleonic wars, the Americans would not fully commit to the fight until the Europeans had first bled the Soviets dry. From de Gaulle's point of view, this is what the Americans had done in World War I and again in World War II, invading France in mid-1944 to finish off Nazi Germany. De Gaulle did not blame the United States for this. De Gaulle, above all others, understood national self-interest. But he did not believe that American national self-interest was identical to France's.
Nonetheless, he understood that France by itself could not withstand the Soviets. He also knew that neither the West Germans nor the British would be easily persuaded to create an alliance with France designed to unite Europe into one alliance structure able to defend itself. De Gaulle settled on the next best strategy, which was developing independent military capabilities sufficient to deter a Soviet attack on French territory without coming to the Americans for help. The key was an independent nuclear force able, in de Gaulle's words, to "tear an arm off" if the Russians attacked. Mistrustful of the Americans, he hoped that a French nuclear arsenal would deter the Soviets from moving beyond the Rhine River if they invaded West Germany.
But at the core of de Gaulle's thinking was a deeper idea. Caught between the Americans and the Soviets, with a fragmented Europe in between, half dominated by the Soviets and the other half part of an American-dominated NATO, he saw the fate of France as being in the hands of the two superpowers, and he trusted neither. Nor did he particularly trust the other Europeans, but he was convinced that in order to secure France there had to be a third force in Europe that would limit the power of both Americans and Soviets.
The concept of a European alternative was not rooted solely in de Gaulle's strategic analysis. Establishing deep ties through a security alliance (possibly under NATO) and some sort of economic union was viewed by Europe in general and France in particular as an appealing way to end the cycle of violent competition that had begun in 1871.
