ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the perceptible growth in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) self-confidence and stature as it strives to overcome the vestiges of its past isolation so as to define its national interests in relations with other states. The missile deployment to which Honecker referred was not North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but the upcoming deployment of Soviet missiles in the GDR and Czechoslovakia. The history of the GDR is punctuated by continual efforts to create its own identity, to establish separateness from its West German counterpart. The GDR is, in short, pursuing a more expanded foreign policy—an "expanded realism of foreign policy activity," as Hanns-Dieter Jacobsen has observed. The smaller states would be compelled to fully support the Soviet Union's position in the formulation of their own foreign policy, thus limiting their sphere of action. The Soviet Union also perpetuates its influence in the GDR through its ongoing status as a victorious ally in the anti-Hitler coalition.
