THE US/USSR STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATION TALKS: THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SECURITY OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the military and political issues raised in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and to determine their impact on the security of the Federal Republic of Germany. Although the SALT negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union have raised fundamental issues of European security, the focus of the SALT negotiators and subsequent debate has been on the implications for the superpowers. Most U.S. scholars and policy-makers have failed to examine in depth the immediate and future impact of the agreements for Western Europe.; The Federal Republic shares a border with the East and hosts the largest concentration of NATO troops in Europe. As a result of this geostrategic position, it has been and continues to be a linchpin of European security. The SALT process has both affected and been affected by West German security policy. The focus of this dissertation is the FRG debate of the issues raised by the SALT negotiations and the potential implications for the Federal Republic.; The security policy of the Federal Republic developed within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance and the realities of the Cold War. However, during the decade of SALT negotiations the US/USSR military relationship evolved from U.S. superiority to superpower strategic parity and the US/USSR political relationship from conflict to cooperation.; With the initiation of the SALT process in 1969, West German foreign policy had to adapt to the new superpower relationship and constellation of forces. From 1969-1979 the West German perception of its security interests prompted an increasingly more significant role by the Federal Republic in the SALT process. Its shift in policy orientation has been the result of not only the changing balance of East/West military power, particularly in the European theater, but also the maturation of a democratic German state wih a viable political, economic and military base.; It is the thesis of this dissertation that US/USSR negotiations on strategic arms control have had implications for the security of the Federal Republic in the perception and redefinition of the FRG role in the security concerns of the European continent. While SALT has not been the cause of that redefinition, the SALT process has reflected military and political circumstances which have made a more prominent German role necessary and desirable.; Analysis of the FRG posture with regard to several recurrent issues in the ten years of SALT negotiations--U.S. forward-based systems, Soviet IRBM/MRBMs, non-circumvention, transfer of technology and cruise missiles--reveals not only a heightened perception in Bonn of those potential implications of SALT for its military security but also the initiation and assumption of a more influential political role on those issues of direct and even indirect European concern.; While the long-range implications are difficult to predict, there is no doubt, as Chancellor Schmidt commented recently, that the Federal Republic has emerged from the status of client state to that of partner in the Western alliance. Before any further rounds of the SALT talks are convened, it is imperative that that role and the issues raised in the SALT negotiations be examined for their impact on the US/FRG relationship and the future of the Atlantic Alliance.