well, i really dont like to keep bringing up old news as especially germany has righted much of her past mistakes. however, the fifties was very close the forties and at that time the past was more relevant, i think you might agree? the real reason we did protect you was because if you had done nukes in the fifties, russia would have swallowed europe whole or the world would really have had a real nuclear war. russia while pretending to be nervous about resurgent fascism was just waiting for an excuse to take europe and isolate the usa, which we sucessfully defended against by defending you and others.
So you basically say, that if then-Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (voted to by the greatest German last year) had continued his plan for a nuclear Bundeswehr, we would have had a hot war with the Union of the Sovereign Soviet Republics? Nah, you and I know that the Soviets wouldn´t have been that dumb. But it surely could have harmed the West on minor sceneries in the world (such as Berlin, Cuba, seas).
Btw, was my English grammar correct in this post? I still feel insecure on the "would"-cases in the past.