Research for French

While much attention is paid in the United States to Soviet perspectives on U.S. security policy, less is known about contemporary Soviet thinking about European security issues. This memorandum is a collection of original translations of the more authoritative Soviet journals, newspapers and monographs. The selections provide an overview of how the Soviets have analyzed European security issues, with special emphasis on the French role in European security.

The Center for Naval Analyses has been examining current issues and future prospects in the Western Alliance since June 1984. The aim is to better inform U.S. Navy policy initiatives and long-range planning for the European theater, by helping to define the planning environments, opportunities, and limitations the Navy may have to face in the decade ahead. While affairs of Alliance are of prominent interest, the examination has not been confined to NATO per se. On the theory that politics among nations begin with politics and related developments within nations, the study has also considered influences on, and frames of reference for, the evolution of national defense policies in individual Alliance member countries. This research memorandum, part of a series of CNA papers on future directions of the Western Alliance, is concerned with these national policies. This particular report looks at six European allies in terms of their own defense aspirations, domestic constraints, and policy choices in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The focus is on those key factors most likely to influence the security priorities and postures of each of the six. The six are France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Spain.

This paper examines France's tactical and strategic nuclear policies, and analyzes the changes which French nuclear forces are likely to undergo in the 1980s and 1990s.

This paper was written for a panel dealing with the systematic assessment of Soviet-American competition. It focuses upon one psychological dimension of this competition, perceptions of Western European leaders concerning the state of East-West tension in Europe. Its goals are to show, in a systematic manner, the course taken by these perceptions in France, the United Kingdom, and the Federal Republic of Germany, and to relate these perceptions to other elements in the system of East-West competition that has existed since WW II.