skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: West European and East Asian perspectives on defense, deterrence, and strategy. Volume 1. Main report. Technical report, 1 December 1982-15 May 1984

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5520431

This report provides a summary, analysis and categorization of the perspectives of defense elites in Western Europe, together with an examination of such perspective in the People's Republic of China, with special emphasis on nuclear capabilities and directly related security issues. In Europe, attention is focused on Great Britain, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. As a distinctive feature of this report, four schools of strategic thought have been developed for each of the European countries under study. Based upon a comprehensive assessment of the defense views held by strategic theoreticians, prominent government policymakers, political party leaders, and others active in the defense debates of Western Europe, these schools of thought provide a unique tool for identifying and evaluating key issues and spokesmen in the West European security debate of the 1980s. The overall objective of this study is to identify and assess the continuities and discontinuities of security perspectives among West European countries (especially concerning NATO's nuclear weapons options) and, on the basis of this analysis, to examine the prospects for maintaining, or strengthening, the consensus upon which European security is based. In its assessment of Chinese security perspectives, this report focuses on the evaluation of the PRC's strategic approach to international affairs and on the effects of recent personnel and organizational changes in the Chinese hierarchy on the PRC's foreign and defense policies.

Research Organization:
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Inc., Cambridge, MA (USA)
OSTI ID:
5520431
Report Number(s):
AD-A-166162/8/XAB
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English