Indicators of Defensive Intent in Conventional Force Structures and Operations in Europe

Abstract

Since the early 1950s, the security of Western Europe and the full participation of the Federal Republic of Germany in NATO have been seen to rest on two fundamental military prerequisites. The first is a common commitment to immediate forward defence at the inner-German border. The second is the existence of an integrated peacetime Western military organization, particularly the continuous political and military risk-sharing of Europe and the United States embodied in the ‘layer cake’ structure of forces in the Central Region. Large, well equipped, standing conventional forces were needed for both prerequisites, for purposes of both deterrence and warfighting. And while the capabilities NATO raised never approached the goals of military planners or prevented dependence on tactical nuclear supplements, active Western forces from the late 1960s to the late 1980’s totalled at least one million men and over 300,000 major equipment items.²