European Defence, an Old Look and a New Look at Directions that NATO Might Take

During the seventies the United States became increasingly disappointed in the detente process. The Americans were primarily looking at the accelerated arms build-up by the Soviet Union during the period after the VietNam War when the military expenditures of the US had diminished. Since the late seventies, and this is a fundamental change from the fifties when NATO had just been founded and West Germany entered NATO, Europeans have been less worried that a war between East and West might erupt in Europe than that the conflicts on the perimeter of Europe or beyond might spill over into the continent and finally involve them against their will. The geographic circumstance makes it necessary to link the United States with Europe in order to face the risk of confrontation.