NEWS ANALYSIS : Germany: Subject of Most Talk, Least Progress : Summit: The issue of how unification will affect Europe’s military balance remains unresolved.

If Germany was the most important topic at the U.S.-Soviet summit, it was also the one that President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev did the least to resolve. And in putting the issue aside, they postponed coming to grips with the sometimes unwelcome implications of their own policies.

Bush held to his position, supported by all his NATO allies as well as half the nations of the collapsing Warsaw Pact, that a united Germany should be a full member of NATO. As such, it would fall under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and need no nuclear force of its own.

But the U.S. stance, while almost identical with that of West Germany on unification, differs in one crucial respect--one that could spell trouble in the future, not just with Moscow but inside the Western Alliance as well.

To allay Moscow’s concern--as well as its own--over a resurgence of German military power, Bush has stated that the United States wants a united Germany to be a full member of NATO “within its integrated command structure.”

This bureaucratic language has major significance. It means that Germany, unique among North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations, would lack its own military command structure. As is now the case, it would be able to go to war only as part of NATO, not separately, and could only plan for defensive war.

But some Germans are wondering why a sovereign German state should not have its own independent military command, as other alliance members do--an idea that stirs uneasy memories of the powerful German General Staff of the two world wars.

So West German leaders ignore Bush’s language when they endorse full membership in NATO. Chancellor Helmut Kohl did it at the White House two weeks ago. So did Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher during his pre-summit trip here last week.

Some officials of both countries insist that Germany wants to stay within NATO’s integrated command structure. It is for domestic political reasons, they say, that German leaders are reluctant to say as much in public.

“The United States emphasizes the military nature of NATO, but we want to emphasize its political nature,” one European explained.

At least some German military officers, however, have long complained about their lack of a German command organization. And German politicians, appealing for nationalist votes, may one day demand such a structure as proof that the united Germany has achieved full sovereignty.

The Soviets’ posture, like that of the Americans, contains some elements that could come back to haunt them. Even some of Gorbachev’s own aides acknowledge the problems.

Gorbachev wants the new Germany to belong to both NATO and the Warsaw Pact--or to neither alliance. He has suggested replacing NATO and the Warsaw Pact with a European-wide security council of 35 nations, including neutrals. Alternatively, he has mused that the Germans might move outside of NATO’s military structure, much as the French have done.

Gorbachev’s proposed 35-member European security council--in effect, a U.N.-like organization for Europe--would face enormous difficulties if called upon to resolve serious disagreements between its members.

“It’s very difficult to solve problems when you have such a broad framework,” said Andrei Kortunov of the Soviet institute on U.S. affairs. “And when agreements are not binding, it’s very difficult to impose decisions on sovereign countries.”

Such a loosely knit council would almost certainly be unable to contain the German political and economic powerhouse that is likely to emerge, if that proved necessary. More than that, said Kortunov, “I cannot imagine how this council of larger Europe can deal with a possible Romanian-Hungarian conflict” over Transylvania.

As for Gorbachev’s suggestion that Germany be positioned like France--politically a part of NATO but militarily separate--even some of his own aides consider it poorly thought out. Many U.S. and Soviet analysts say it could leave Moscow with the worst of both worlds.

Kortunov called it “madness.” A united Germany outside of NATO, even without nuclear weapons, would revive the specter of a German General Staff capable of going to war on its own.

The Soviets recall the horrors of world war all too well. “Our people have survived two wars started by Germany this century,” Yevgeny M. Primakov, a key counselor to Gorbachev, said. “I would hate to see an insecure Germany in Europe, but I would hate even more to have an insecure Soviet Union in Europe.”

American officials believe that with time and patience, Gorbachev will come around to accepting a unified Germany in NATO.

“What options does he have?” asked a senior U.S. official who declined to be named. “He must withdraw his troops from East Germany before they become hostage, unwanted and terrified of mass demonstrations (against them). He doesn’t want to pack up and run, driven out. He could reassert Soviet power in brutal terms, with guns. But that’s not a real option now.”

At least one Soviet military officer agrees. At a recent international conference on the issue, a Soviet general (who remains anonymous under the conference ground rules) accepted that a united Germany would be in NATO. But he laid out several conditions, according to a participant, among which were:

* Limiting a unified Germany to about 300,000 troops, half their present combined strengths.

* Cutting U.S. manpower in Europe to less than 100,000, compared with the current 320,000 and the projected 225,000.

* Restricting NATO forces to what is now West German territory and allowing Soviet forces to stay on East German territory for a transition period of several years.

* Withdrawing most nuclear weapons from Germany.

These conditions, if reflected in future Soviet positions, could become the basis for solving the German problem, for many are not far away from present NATO and U.S. proposals.

And despite the best efforts of Bush and Gorbachev to push the resolution of the German question into the future, it will not be long before the U.S. and Soviet leaders come face to face with the future of Germany.

Within days, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze will meet in Copenhagen. When they do, the German question will not be far away.