ABSTRACT
Chancellor Schmidt shocked Washington in October 1977 when he publicly warned that the Western alliance was failing to provide the instruments needed to implement its strategy of extended deterrence. Schmidt's stated that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) "must be ready to make available the means to support its strategy, which is the right one, and to prevent any developments that could undermine the basis of this strategy." NATO members generally agreed that the alliance had to take action to match the Soviet build-up. Many West European and West German political figures and parties opposed deployment of the new NATO weapons even as the Soviet build-up continued. From 1983 to 1985, the INF deployment proceeded in NATO Europe while the Soviet Union refused to negotiate. The Federal Republic asked for US and NATO agreement for East-West talks about reducing the short-range shorter-range nuclear missile forces systems that the Germans found "singularizing.".
