ABSTRACT
Most issues of the 1980s are rooted in past decades, which attest to the durability of the military and political division of Europe and the Federal Republic’s security dependence on the United States, as well as to the abiding connections between national security policy and diplomacy, between arms and politics. The case of West Germany is a special one for a second reason: the Federal Republic was one of the main political beneficiaries of the shift from military elements of power to economic-monetary elements. In the immediate post-war years, the deterrence and containment aspects of American strategy were complimentary and mutually reinforcing, not only in their dimensions that were directed toward the Soviet Union but also in those directed toward the Federal Republic. The United States had to deal with the Soviet Union on the basis of recognizing the status quo in Europe, but many Europeans on both sides of the dividing line were seeking to overcome it.
