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Military and Political Policy: Nuclear Weapons and the Preservation of Peace: A German Response

By Karl Kaiser, Georg Leber, Alois Mertes, Franz-Josef Schulze
Summer 1982
Article Summary and Author Biography

The appropriate strategy for the use of nuclear weapons has been the subject of discussion since the North Atlantic Alliance was founded. Open debate on these problems is part of the natural foundations of an Alliance consisting of democracies which relate to each other as sovereign partners. It is not the first time in the history of the Alliance that fears about the danger of nuclear war have caused concern and anxieties in all member countries, although these are more pronounced today than before. They must be taken seriously. The questions posed demand convincing answers, for in a democracy, policy on questions of peace and war requires constantly renewed legitimization.

Karl Kaiser is Director of the Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs, in Bonn. Georg Leber is a Social Democratic member, and Vice-President, of the West German Bundestag; a former trade union chairman, from 1972 to 1978 he was Defense Minister of the Federal Republic. Alois Mertes is a Christian Democratic member of the Bundestag, a member of its Foreign Affairs Committee, and foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Party; he is a former member of the foreign service. General Franz-Josef Schulze (ret.) was Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe from 1977 to 1979 and Deputy Chief of Staff, Allied Command Europe, from 1973 to 1976. The German text of this article is being published simultaneously in Europa-Archiv.

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