ABSTRACT
The strongest US commitment that may involve the use of US military forces overseas, and the only one that commands, at least in theory, the support of most Americans, is the commitment to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Europe was the source of about 80 percent of the population, whose predecessors came in successive waves from the fifteenth into the twentieth century. Analysis of possible means for a successful conventional defense of Germany showed that one of the essentials would be deployment of defensive positions in great depth, leading to a war, like World War II in many respects, that would be fought on German and other Western European soil. In modern warfare in Europe casualty rates, especially losses of particular kinds of weapon systems on each side, can be expected to be high. From the NATO point of view, then, the way to depart from the tactical-nuclear weapon paradox in Europe is to have stronger conventional forces.
