Leaving France in NATO
If you do away with the kinda dumb France stab-in-the-back-legend you can have the falling out between France and Germany anyway. In this scenario French troops have trouble with German forces and displaced persons as they start to carve out cantons (just like everyone else, it's just seen in a different context). Perhaps rumours are starting that the supply lines coming out of France and Spain also have stuff going back and the Germans feel they're being strip-mined of assets.
If you do have this you can move the non-German, non-British and non-US troops (the only NATO troops in T2K really) up to the gap in the line towards the southern German-Polish border. Sooner or later these troops are going to want to go home for stabilisation work and you can either leave them in place for some good multinational NATO colour or have their cantons deserted as they pull out and make for their respective territories.
This opens up some more backstory. Instead of the French Perfidy you can have NATO thrust right back across the French border in some places at some times and thus whole swathes of German territory have WarPact troops still in place, living off the land and looking for a way out now that their strategic reason for being is gone. Soviet plans might involve linking up with these isolated units and if you're doing Going Home these units might present a problem for the fairly quiet section of getting across Germany.
This also gives you a far greater political angle. When the collapse starts national character is going to figure heavily when it comes to unit cooperation. Does a French unit really want to go to aid of a German unit when another French unit is in danger? Most of the time they will but this strain will steadily mount and the players might have to navigate a national political minefield of competing requirements. Also they can play each off each other, like if they're pulling out and some unit demands all their equipment but a nearby unit is prepared to be far more equitable if they pass through their territory instead (and do that little job for them the PCs don't know about yet).
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