Drawing on East German, Soviet, and Western sources as well as years of study, travel, and military service in Germany and Eastern Europe, Major Macgregor examines East Germany's critical political-military role in the Soviet strategy to maintain control of Eastern Europe. He offers an analysis of the trends that have shaped Soviet-East German military collaboration; traces its origins in much earlier forms of Russo-German military alliance, and observes a revival of past strategic and military convergence as Moscow attempts to preserve control of an increasingly unstable Eastern Europe. The Soviet-East German military alliance has thus emerged as the backbone of the Warsaw Pact, and in the context of political uncertainty elsewhere in the Eastern bloc an enlarged military and political role in Soviet security policy for the East German state seems inevitable.