Nuclear weapons in Germany: mitigating a hypothetical end of the nuclear-sharing arrangements
- There is a good deal of scepticism about nuclear weapons deployments in Germany, and it has probably been growing in recent years. Predicting what will happen is difficult, yet the scenario of Germany pulling out from the nuclear-sharing arrangement within NATO cannot be ruled out. The paper is agnostic about this choice, but advances policy recommendations the German government would have to adopt to mitigate any negative effects, were such a decision taken. These policy courses are neither widely popular nor easy to implement. The German government would probably still have to contribute to the elaboration of NATO’s nuclear strategy. It would likely have to dramatically increase its defence expenditure in order to signal its commitment to burden sharing. The country would also have to leave the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, into which billions of investments have been poured. Finally, Germany would need to try to strike a major multilateral agreement to bring Russia back into compliance with previous arms control treaties. This list of actions is by no means exhaustive, and opponents of nuclear sharing will have to spend much time on developing ideas that can help to accommodate the concerns of proponents of the current posture. Ending nuclear sharing without offering any concessions would undoubtedly harm Germany’s, or any other host state’s, international posture and diplomatic relations.