Do you want Germany to raise military expenses?

[Husar]

There probably weren't firm guarantees that allied troops would fight to the death to protect West Germany either in the event of a Soviet invasion, only a promise to commit troops. So legally NATO could have skirmished for a token period before withdrawing back to France and nuking Germany to stop the Soviet advance. Would this have been against the spirit of the alliance? Aye, but do the legal details of the NATO contract demand anything more?

So you're saying there is not NATO manadate to spend 2% but a NATO spirit to spend 2%?

In that case the alliance seems to have lost its spirit: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graph...daily-chart-11

Someone should thank Putin for making at least Poland and Estonia spend the spiritual 2%.

As for nuking Germany, I thought that was the Plan B all along? Wasn't there some old cold war joke about how the Bundeswehr was just there to delay the Soviets until the army arrives? (might work better in German, the insinuation being that the Bundeswehr is not a real army but the US Army is)
I think at least the use of tactical nuclear warheads on German territory was considered to destroy larger formations if conventional forces could not stop them.

[HopAlongBunny]

I think at least the use of tactical nuclear warheads on German territory was considered to destroy larger formations if conventional forces could not stop them.

I think that the use of tactical nukes was a given; I'm pretty sure the USSR possessed them, although I can't remember if doctrine was explicit about their use.
The allies (U.S.) went so far as to develop the Neutron bomb; maximal radiation burst, minimal blast, with the added benefit that the radiation would dissipate faster than a regular nuclear device:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...As for nuking Germany, I thought that was the Plan B all along? Wasn't there some old cold war joke about how the Bundeswehr was just there to delay the Soviets until the army arrives? (might work better in German, the insinuation being that the Bundeswehr is not a real army but the US Army is)
I think at least the use of tactical nuclear warheads on German territory was considered to destroy larger formations if conventional forces could not stop them.

Yes, tactical nukes were always considered. They were generally though unlikely to be used because of a possible (probable?) strategic response by the Soviets.

And yes, that joke may have obtained in the early years following the war, when the USA was really the only one with an atomic capability and Germany had barely begun to re-arm.

Those yanks I knew who were in the military and practiced with the Bundeswehr in the 80s and 90s respected your troops a lot -- some of them even wondering if there was a panzertruppen gene somewhere in the German genome.

[Strike For The South]

A shooting match between the Americans and the Russians would start by a torched contiental Europe. As the Cold War ended we have moved that torched are from Germany/the Low Countries to the baltics/Poland. Slavs always getting the short of end it.

[Sarmatian]

A shooting match between the Americans and the Russians would start by a torched contiental Europe. As the Cold War ended we have moved that torched are from Germany/the Low Countries to the baltics/Poland. Slavs always getting the short of end it.

And it would end with most of the northern hemisphere torched. I wouldn't feel discriminated against in that situation. Come to think of it, I probably wouldn't feel anything at that point.