ABSTRACT
A consideration of the goals of nuclear-arms control must, in the first instance, recognize and accept the reality that arms control inevitably occurs in a political context. For the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as for their respective allies, arms control has always had fundamental implications for the nature of East-West relations and for the shape of the global and European political order. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union not only achieved rough parity with the United States in strategic intercontinental capabilities, but gained a significant edge in eurostrategic nuclear capabilities. For the West German government the issue of whether eurostrategic nuclear parity would strengthen the US strategic nuclear commitment to Western Europe or whether it would, on the contrary, enhance US opportunities for limiting a nuclear war to Europe, was somewhat theoretical and academic.
