s of the Petersberg Tasks
             into the Treaty on the European Union, giving the Western European Union
             (WEU), Western Europe's own security apparatus, a specific role in
             humanitarian and conventional operations. This helped to strengthen the
             WEU, as it appointed a Secretary-General and a planning cell, responsible
             for assessing and planning for operations as they came up. The number of
             troops available to the WEU grew and it was envisioned that the WEU would
             act independently or as part of a United Nations (UN) force in humanitarian
             operations that the United States would not be involved in. In other
             operations, it would act as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
             (NATO). Both the US and Western Europe believed that these proposals would
             strengthen NATO by providing increased cooperation and coordination.
             The high economic growth in Western Europe during the post-war period until
             1973 caused some dramatic changes in its political economy (Norton, 2002).
             As advances in transportation and communication extended international
             trade into new areas of the world, as manufacturing facilities overseas
             were established, and as European real wages increased, the industrial base
             that had served as the foundation for Western European growth in the 1950's
             and 1960's quickly moved to Western Europe's poorer neighbors. It has now
             become clear that European industry can no longer compete in traditional,
             large-scale industrial sectors. European successes are now being seen in
             specialized, high value-added industry and from intelligent, flexible
             companies that can capitalize on movements in global demand. As a result,
             Europe has transitioned to a post-industrial society, in which the stable
             economic order of mass employment in the large-scale industry has given way to
             mass unemployment and a breakdown of the political and social consensus
             that was strong throughout the post-war period. These chan...