The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present; they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. The main thing is to stick to the few fixed principles that have guided us from the beginning: to gradually create among Europeans the broadest common interest, served by common democratic institutions to which the necessary sovereignty has been delegated.¨CJean Monnet, MemoirsIn his book After Victory, John Ikenberry examines what states do with the power that comes after winning major wars. He believes that the desire to maintain power encourages states to seek ways to limit their own power to satisfy other states. Increasingly, these limits are found in international institutions used to create “strategic restraints” on power. Ikenberry believes that the increasing reliance on institutions causes the postwar order to take on more and more constitutional characteristics. In this article, I am mainly interested in the institutions of the European Union. More specifically, I would like to examine the European Union's struggle to develop its own institutions responsible for maintaining international order. These are collectively known as the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Europe's Collective Security The European Union's (EU) Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was formally established by the Maastricht Treaty and became operational in 1993. However, the European Union has been concerned about collective security from its humble beginnings as an experiment in integrated economics in post-World War II Europe. After the end of World War II, Europe as well as the rest of the world struggled to determine what Germany's future should be. Some countries wanted to strip Germany of its industry and turn the entire country into farmland. Fortunately, some had the foresight to realize that the only way to ensure Europe's security was to rebuild Germany and work together to build a European Community. Among these men were Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer and Jean Monnet. Their vision of Europe was one where individual nations would share some of their sovereignty in exchange for a chance at peace. According to Pascal Fontaine, "success depended on limiting the objectives to specific areas, with a strong psychological impact, and on the establishment of a common decision-making mechanism to which additional responsibilities would be gradually entrusted." integration was steel and coal production. European Coal and Steel Community