ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the future military protection of central Europe. NATO’s conventional defense of central Europe has been criticized for its many problems and failings. Since the early 1980s, NATO has developed forces for operational counterattack in order to neutralize the perceived threat from the East. The definition given for a confidence-building defense concurs with the idea of war avoidance through denial. Early concrete concepts of non-offensive or alternative defense have envisaged a military posture that looked quite bizarre and, in any case, very different. As of June 1992, the Federal German armed forces had roughly 450,000 soldiers under arms. The network infantry is well protected against concentrated artillery barrages, able to disappear in dispersed shelters, which could be rapidly constructed from prefab parts, and has an organic extrication capacity. In principle, a ground force posture with a much reduced target profile facilitates the air defense task of protecting friendly troops from enemy fighter bombers.
