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Germany Between the Superpowers
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15635 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1989 |
3,271 Words |
| Author
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Jed C. Snyder
Jed C. Snyder is a senior research fellow at the Washington
office of the National Strategy Information Center, where he
is directing a project on "New Approaches to Transatlantic
Security." He served in the State Department during the first
Reagan administration, and from 1984 to 1987 was deputy
director of national security studies at the Hudson Institute.
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It seems a truism to argue that the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) has been and remains the most important U.S. ally. It should be equally obvious that the United States is West Germany's most important Western partner as well. Consensus, however, on the importance of the relationship does not extend to discussions of its health--to the state of this strategic partnership.
Statesmen and security specialists on both sides of the Atlantic now believe that growing uncertainty about the FRG's ultimate East-West orientation has become the central problem for the Western alliance.
Germany's position between the United States and the Soviet Union and among its European neighbors complicates the formulation of security policy for both the Soviet Union and the United States. A succession of Bonn governments have moved Germany to a point on the East-West spectrum that is equidistant from Moscow and Washington. Taking notice of this slow but certain drift, many American observers argue that the next decade will test the strength of Germany's political fiber in ways for which Bonn's leaders are unprepared.
As the United States finds its NATO partners less willing to support Washington on a number of key alliance issues (such as nuclear modernization, East-West credit, and technology transfer), the pressure on Germany to affirm Washington's security policies will increase. This will occur, however, as the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Germany moves to solidify its position in anticipation of replacing the current conservative governing coalition in the 1990 national elections. Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democratic
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