ABSTRACT
The Intense political controversy in the early 1980s over the deployment by the Soviet Union and the United States in Central Europe of new medium-range nuclear-armed missiles brought much increased public attention to general NATO strategy and to the concepts of non-offensive defence (NOD). The absence of armoured counterattack capability would make the attacker's own territory a protected sanctuary from which it could launch further attacks. The negotiating obstacle posed by the disappearance of a symmetrical two-alliance structure has been widely noted. In addition, at Helsinki 92 the CSCE member states undertook to expand post-CFE arms control talks in the new CSCE Security Forum to include the European neutral states, including Austria, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland. The requirements of NOD are for a combined active-duty and reserve structure sufficient only to defend home territory with a relatively modest surplus for multilateral intervention outside the home territory.
