A Nuke Is What You Make of It:

Constructivism and the Politics of Nuclear Proliferation in

West Germany

R AFAEL L OSS

University of Bremen

Abstract. In light of the P5+1 negotiations with Iran and growing tensions between nuclear-
capable China and its neighbors over territorial claims in the East and South China Seas,
nuclear weapons again are a much discussed issue. However, the scholarly debate on their
proliferation has largely been dominated by rationalist approaches, neorealism in particular. This
analysis of the West German nuclear discourse explores how constructivist theories can be
fruitfully applied to security politics. I will show that constructivism cannot only provide
additional insights, but that an approach that takes into account the socially constructed
meaning of nuclear weapons, the national and international discourse around them, as well as
the position of individuals within the state and the position of states within the international
society, might be best suited to explain why some states invest in the development of nuclear
weapons while others forego their nuclear option. Although the substantive findings of this study
are not necessarily transferable to other cases due to Germanys severely limited sovereignty after
the Second World War, using a rarely applied framework to examine early German nuclear
politics in a least likely case design will bring into focus understudied determining factors
potentially relevant for further studies of nuclear proliferation.1

KEY WORDS: Nuclear Weapons, Constructivism, West Germany, Nuclear

Proliferation

I NTRODUCTION

W hy do states develop nuclear weapons? International relations literature

provides us with a number of alternative explanations, including both
demand- and supply-side approaches based on various theoretical frameworks.

1For very useful comments on earlier drafts, I thank Vera Otterstein, Tasia Wagner, and two
anonymous reviewers.

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 KEY ISSUES | Volume 1 | November 2015

Most prominently, neorealist theory suggests that states either acquire nuclear
weapons themselves or seek to ally with a nuclear weapon state in order to
balance against foreign threats (Walt, 1987). It postulates that states interact in a
sphere of anarchy with an unequal structural distribution of capabilities. Thus,
they have to resort to self-help as their only means to ensure their national
security (Waltz, 1979). Liberalism often considers foreign threats to national
security merely as windows of opportunity for domestic actors, such as the
scientific nuclear establishment, the military, or political parties, to promote their
own parochial nuclear interests. Such actors seek to capture the state apparatus,
or at least critical parts thereof, for resources, prestige, or public support (Sagan,
1996). Supply-side approaches consider the availability of nuclear technology and
expertise as the most important determinant of nuclear proliferation (Fuhrmann,
2012; Gartzke/Kroenig, 2009).
Constructivism, now widely recognized as one of the three most important
schools of thought among scholars of international relations, however, provides
little analyses on states decision to acquire nuclear weapons. Instead,
constructivists largely focused on the nuclear taboo and the international non-
proliferation regime, seeking to explain how norms affect the international society
of states (Long & Grillot, 2000; Rublee, 2009; Tannenwald, 1999) while only few
studies have concerned themselves with how norms emerge and exert influence
within the state.
Therefore, this study should be considered as a contribution to further
refine constructivism not only as a school of thought in international relations,
but also a viable framework to analyze foreign and security policy decision-
making2. To make the complex field of nuclear proliferation and decision-making
more accessible and assessable, the more limited research question I seek to
answer here from a constructivist perspective is as follows: Why did West
Germany forego its nuclear option despite incentives to do the contrary?
Although West Germany, after the Second World War, only had limited
sovereign power to decide its fate in world politics, using a rarely applied
framework to examine early German nuclear politics could bring into focus
understudied determining factors potentially relevant for further studies of
nuclear proliferation. The aim is thus not to provide transferable insights per-se
but to assess the applicability of constructivist theories to the study of
international security. Accordingly, I will first introduce the body of constructivist
theories more thoroughly and elaborate on its contribution to the understanding
of nuclear proliferation. Second, I will outline the methodology and research
design of this study, which is a case study on nuclear decision-making in West
Germany. Subsequently, I will provide insights into Germanys nuclear politics by
drawing on secondary literature on the states formative years, the late 1940s,

2
See Colin Elman (1996) for an application of international relations theory (neorealism)
as a framework to examine the foreign policy behavior of states.

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 A Nuke Is What You Make of It

1950s, and 1960s. It was then that West Germanys governments set the course
to non-proliferation. Furthermore, the adoption of international treaties put in
place far-reaching regulations and oversight mechanisms regarding the use and
non-use of nuclear technology, which have largely been attributed the success of
containing the proliferation of nuclear weapons since the 1970s3.
This study builds primarily on original research by Catherine McArdle
Kelleher (1975), Michael Knoll (2013), and Hans-Gert Pttering (1974) who
largely based their works on speeches, newspapers articles, interviews, and
documents to provide an understanding of the processes and actors involved in
early West German nuclear politics. As with all secondary literature, potential
subjectivity and incomplete information could result in distorted findings.
However, these three authors and some additional sources will provide a
balanced and sufficiently comprehensive basis for my study. While Pttering
approaches the issue from a security studies perspective, emphasizing military
doctrine, transatlantic security cooperation, and broader alliance politics, Kelleher
focuses on Germanys domestic politics and the influence of different
governmental and non-governmental actors. Knoll in turn highlights the role of
prominent individuals such as Adenauer and Strauss in the earlier period of West
Germanys formative years. Furthermore, whereas comparable studies of, for
example, U.S. or Israeli nuclear programs frequently encounter difficulties due to
restricted access to original sources, much more material is available to
researchers in the case of Germany because it has no nuclear program that would
require continued secrecy.
My findings suggest that although traditional models (i.e. neorealism and
liberalism) provide valuable insights into international structural dynamics and
struggles over influence in the domestic decision-making processes, they fail to
accommodate for critical determinants: the identity of states, the meaning
ascribed to nuclear weapons, the influence of individuals on national discourses,
and the international normative structure. These, I will argue, were the key
determinants for why West Germany decided to forego its nuclear option.

C ONSTRUCTIVISM AND N UCLEAR W EAPONS

Constructivist theories gained prominence as a critique to mainstream rationalist

and materialist approaches to international relations (neorealism, liberalism,
neoliberal institutionalism, and others) in maintaining that socially constructed
ideas can indeed transform world politics, shape the identities and interests of
actors as well as the legitimacy of their actions and are thus a causal variable to
their behavior. Although E. H. Carr already in 1939 argued that both power and
morality are necessary to theorize about international relations (Carr, 1981, p. 97),

3
Still in 1963 US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara assessed that in the coming
years an additional 10 to 15 states would develop nuclear weapons (McNamara, 1963).

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norms and beliefs had largely been neglected by theorists following the behavioral
revolution in favor of structure and process. Both neorealism and liberalism,
for example, assign the dominant role in international relations to states: in
neorealism, states are considered as unitary actors with exogenous interests; in
liberalism, state behavior is presented as an aggregate of a multitude of interests
of sub-state actors. Because of their rationalist assumptions, both, as Alexander
Wendt (1992, 1995, 1999) argues, cannot properly account for changes in
identities and interests. Instead, he proposes a research agenda that considers
interests and identities as endogenous to interaction, applying a sociological
social psychological approach (Wendt, 1992, p. 394).
Like other schools of thought, constructivism has bred many theories to
explain countless phenomena in international relations. Nevertheless, they all
share some core assumptions in that they emphasize the social construction of
meaning as an alternative to material interpretations of the world. Rather than the
distribution of material capabilities (or power), constructivists maintain, it is the
distribution of knowledge that determines how actors perceive themselves and
one another. Wendt (1995: 73), for example, observes that 500 British nuclear
weapons are less threatening to the United States than 5 North Korean nuclear
weapons.
Furthermore, these theories assume that the identities actors in international
relations hold, are manifold and contingent upon their environment and
socialization and subsequently the basis of their interests (Legro, 2005; Wendt,
1992). Interests in turn are explicated in the process of defining situations and
follow the logic of appropriateness: Actors identify problematic situations and
respond according to their understanding of the situation and the norms that
guide their actions, whereby iteration creates expectation 4 . Socialization and
institutions, as relatively stable sets of identities, thus help shape and facilitate
expectations about how the world works. Inherent in the constructivist
approach is, lastly, the idea that states and the international environment are
mutually constituted (Hurd, 2008, p. 304) and that, consequently, Anarchy is
what states make of it (Wendt, 1992). Accordingly, constructivism can account
for similarities in state behavior despite varying material factors for it is social
structures, such as norms and shared believes, and not functional needs or
internal conditions that provide for rapid preference shifts across dissimilar units
(Finnemore, 1996, p. 22)5.
Following constructivism, nuclear proliferation may result from a norm
according to which nuclear weapons serve a symbolic purpose similar to that

4
Actors realize their interests by following rules that are seen as natural, rightful, expected,
and legitimate. Embedded in a social collectivity, they do what they see as appropriate for
themselves in a specific type of situation. (March & Olsen, 2004, p. 3).
5
See Ian Hurd (2008) for a more thorough examination of the core assumptions and
distinguishing features of constructivist theories in international relations.

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 A Nuke Is What You Make of It

ascribed to advanced conventional weaponry (Eyre & Suchman, 1996). The social
environment in which states act promotes certain behavior as legitimate and
appropriate. Thus, certain policies, although not necessarily cost-effective in the
sense neorealists or liberals apply microeconomic models of rationality, exemplify
power and interests constructed through roles, routines, and rituals. The meaning
states ascribe to nuclear weapons then depends on these social interactions and,
as seen in other instances (e.g. women suffrage), may change over time. Barry
ONeill (2006) and Jo-Ansie van Wyk et al. (2011) suggest that nuclear weapons
are understood as status symbols, providing prestige and power, thus shaping
states inter-subjective realities and thereby their respective foreign policies.
To explain how international norms emerge, which then shape states
conception of appropriate behavior, Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink
(1998) propose a three-stage norm life cycle. In the initial stage, a relatively
small number of actors, usually domestic, may, for ideational commitment,
engage in the strategic social construction of a particular norm, intending to
persuade states to reconsider the appropriateness of their actions (norm
emergence). Once these norm entrepreneurs have persuaded a critical mass6
of state actors to adhere to that norm, it cascades (norm cascade) through the
rest of the state population for a combination of pressure for conformity, desire
to enhance international legitimation, and the desire of state leaders to enhance
their self-esteem (Finnemore & Sikkink, 1998, p. 895)7. Lastly, the norm may
become so internalized and uncontroversial that states almost automatically abide
by it (internalization).
If there is indeed a norm that either promotes proliferation in the sense that
states attribute a positive meaning to nuclear weapons (i.e. prestige and modernity)
or one that discourages their proliferation (i.e. nuclear taboo), the political
discourse around nuclear weapons should reflect that. I should observe that
political leaders frame the discourse not in terms of national security, but as
enhancing the reputation of the country.
An alternative constructivist approach emphasizes the epistemic and
structural power of actors to shape a given discourse (Leander, 2005). In
examining the power of private military companies, Anna Leander first asserts

6
The critical mass of actors is defined here quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The
tipping point is reached when roughly one third of the state actors of the international
society adhere to a certain norm. Success, however, also depends on which specific states
adopt that norm. States may be critical to the process when they have considerable stakes
in the issue or because they have a certain moral stature (Finnemore & Sikkink, 1998, p.
901).
7
In addition to norm entrepreneurs and norm cascades, imitation and norm
bandwagons may also contribute to the dispersion of certain norms domestically as well
as internationally (Finnemore & Sikkink, 1998, p. 893; also Sunstein, 1996, 1999). Waltz
(1979, pp. 75-76) puts forward emulation, praise, and ridicule as reasons for socialization
in international politics.

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that too narrow an understanding of power in many cases fails to recognize the
influence some actors have in international relations. Proposing the concept of
epistemic power, she maintains that agenda-setting and asymmetrical
dependencies as well as the ability to shape others self-understanding and
interests provide actors with power to purposefully construct shared knowledge.
She then looks at the structure level and argues that also more general trends (i.e.
the depoliticization of security) empower certain actors to produce legitimate
knowledge, while they marginalize others.
Drawing on Leanders framework, I should be able to identify a certain
actor (organizational or individual), privileged in his ability to project power by
broader political developments, who purposefully constructed a particular
meaning of nuclear weapons in order to realize his interests.
The question that follows from these two competing constructivist
explanations is whether broadly shared beliefs (i.e. an internalized international
norm) or rather actors structural and epistemic power is central to the
development of a certain policy. The former would consider Germanys decision-
makers as rather passive actors constrained by international norms, the latter
could recognize them as purposeful actors. After reviewing the methodological
foundation of this study and the secondary literature on the issue, I will explore
which of the two approaches is more appropriate to analyze the politics of
nuclear proliferation.

C ASE S ELECTION , M ETHODOLOGY AND R ESEARCH D ESIGN

West Germany provides an unusual case for the study of foreign policy decision-
making: under occupation, it had only limited sovereignty to determine its
political future. Especially in its external relations and security policy it heavily
depended on the Western Allies. Accordingly, some might argue that it is
unsuitable to fully realize the potential of this undertaking. Nevertheless, the West
German government had some wiggle-room in deciding its path through the
Cold War, as will be shown in the empirical section of this study. Building on a
least likely case design, I reject some scholars assessment that alliance constraints
and security guarantees alone were causing Germanys non-proliferation (e.g.
Bange, 2009; Knoll, 2013) and instead seek to test constructivisms prospect as a
viable alternative in the study of security issues.
James E. Dougherty and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr. (2001, p. 23) write that by
their nature the various contending theories of international relations approach
phenomena with different propositions about cause-effect relationships and thus
emphasize different variables as determining state behavior. Nuclear politics, and
German nuclear politics as a subset of those, have largely been studied from
rationalist perspectives, narrowing the matter of inquiry to mainly material factors.
If Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff are correct, using a rarely applied framework to
examine early German nuclear politics could bring into focus understudied

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 A Nuke Is What You Make of It

determining factors. Leanders relatively young theory of epistemic and structural

power might produce new insights despite the peculiarity of the German case.
As has been plausibly shown by countless studies, often making competing claims
about the relevance of certain variables, nuclear proliferation is a complex matter.
In such cases, process tracing helps to uncover causal mechanisms as well as the
constructive processes of norms and beliefs as the basis of interests in decision-
making processes. As Lupovici (2009, p. 202) notes, "process tracing provides a
way of studying ideational factors, the evolution of social phenomena, and the
influence of these phenomena on actors behavior". Discourse analysis will
complement this approach by allowing me to conclude from their language, as
constituting our social world (i.e. norms, rituals, roles, etc.), the perceptions of
relevant actors as well as the dominating collective and possibly divergent
individual ideas about nuclear weapons. Because both process tracing and
discourse analysis are demanding qualitative analytical methods, they require
extensive work with primary sources. This, however, would overstate the scope
of this contribution. Accordingly, I will employ these two methods only loosely
to analyze how certain actors constructed a certain meaning of nuclear weapons
and how they subsequently promoted their understandings in the political process
throughout early West German politicking. The secondary literature presented
here can thus only help to present the case from an intermediate distance.
Nevertheless, as the three authors have largely put forward neorealist and liberal
explanations for Germanys decision to not acquire nuclear weapons, I will not
simply summarize their discussions but provide a constructivist reinterpretation
and re-narration of their findings.

T OWARD THE B OMB ? T HE N UCLEAR D ISCOURSE IN W EST G ERMANY

Despite serious concerns that Nazi Germany would eventually seek to develop
nuclear weapons, as expressed by Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard in a letter to US
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Lanouette & Silard, 1992), no such endeavor
had been seriously expedited. Rather, German engineers and physicists directed
their research toward missile systems and conventional weapons. After the Allies
had defeated Germany, at the Potsdam Conference in July and August 1945, they
decided upon the complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany. The
Allies Control Council further specified the measures in 1946, including means
of atomic warfare. Subsequently, the few German scientists who had worked on
nuclear physics during the war were kept under close scrutiny (Kelleher, 1975, p.
13).
Only when the Soviet threat superseded concerns over resurging German
hegemonic ambitions did restrictions on atomic research and development
gradually change. After the Moscow and London conferences of 1947 could not
renew the momentum for allied cooperation in post-war Europe, particularly
concerning the partition of Germany, a deepening rift emerged between the

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Western Allies and the Soviet Union (USSR). Discussions about Western
European defense integration, the combination of the American and British
occupation zones in 1947, the Czechoslovakia coup of 1948, and the Berlin
blockade of 1948/49 provided additional stimuli to consider West Germany as
the front-line state of the emerging Cold War. Thus, the Mobilization of
German resources against [the Soviet] threat became a primary consideration in
the West (Kelleher, 1975, p. 13). Alongside came discussions about the possible
rearmament of West Germany and European economic recovery. A thoroughly
integrated Germany was deemed essential to revitalize Western European trade
and economies and could serve as a shopping window for the socialist East
under Soviet control. The European Recovery Program, better known as the
Marshall Plan, was to kick-start this development beginning in 1948.
Regarding German defense, however, little changed in the following months,
not even with the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in May 1949. In
November of that year, although the Western Allies agreed to reestablish limited
sovereignty in foreign affairs to the newly founded West German state, they
reaffirmed the demilitarization of its territory and the restrictions on military and
civil nuclear research. Simultaneously, leading German politicians expressed their
disapproval of rearmament (Knoll, 2013, p. 122).
After having repeatedly argued against the creation of German armed forces,
Germanys first Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, in early 1950, proposed to create
a twelve-division, 500,000-man German military establishment (Kelleher, 1975,
p. 15) within the European Defense Community (EDC), while still rejecting a
sole German army. He found approval by the Western Allies in light of the Soviet
intervention in the Korean War and the testing of nuclear weapons by the USSR.
However, when the Eisenhower administration came into office in 1953,
concerns over long-run fiscal responsibility led to a reassessment of the US
federal budget, which had been expanded significantly to accommodate for the
Korean War. Eisenhowers New Look thus emphasized both military and
economic dimensions of potential Soviet aggression toward the West. Military
planners proposed a reduction of total US troops from 3,500,000 down to
2,900,000 and a withdrawal of personnel from Europe. Simultaneously, they
proposed an increasingly important role for air defense and nuclear weapons,
both strategic and tactical (Pttering, 1974, pp. 48-50).
At the same time, Few in the German leadership knew of or appreciated
the significant shift in American doctrine. (Kelleher, 1975, p. 16). The Social
Democratic opposition, on the one hand, fundamentally opposed the
rearmament of Germany for its potentially adverse consequences for the prospect
of German reunification. Additionally, the Social Democrats were convinced that
rearmament with conventional weapons was inadequate to prevent Soviet
conquest of large parts of West Germany since, according to military planning,
Western ground forces were primarily intended to bind Soviet troops to allow for
tactical nuclear strikes, ensuring the atomic destruction of Germany (Pttering,

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 A Nuke Is What You Make of It

1974, p. 59). On the other hand, Adenauers idea of integration with the West
required equality in all spheres of activity. Germany, he argued, should not only
provide the troops and the battleground, it should be an equal partner within the
Western alliance. While some scholars consider this a first hint of nuclear
ambitions, arguing that equal status would require German nuclear weapons
(Kntzel, 1992), others argue that Adenauer simply demanded the re-
establishment of German sovereignty and international legal equality on the basis
of the Charter of the United Nations (Pommerin, 1999). In support of the second
argument stands, first, that German military planners did not consider nuclear
weapons to be of any significance to the capabilities of the future German armed
forces and that, second, the negotiating partners found a compromise on German
rearmament within the European Defense Community. Whereas at first, during
the EDC negotiations, Adenauer demanded weapons of all kind for his troops,
he later satisfied with weapons necessary to fulfill [the] assigned tasks to [the]
defense of Europe. (Pommerin, 1999, p. 329). However, rather than including
the prohibition of German nuclear weapons development in the treaty itself,
Adenauer succeeded in attaching the disclaimer as one of three additional
documents to the treaty, assuring to enshrine the compromise in German
national law. Thus, Germany, in the treaty, was on equal ground with the other
signatories.
Shortly after the EDC treaty had failed in the French National Assembly in
1954, the German chancellor changed his mind and became less willing to make
extensive commitments. During the London and Paris Conferences in September
and October 1954, the future status of West Germany was to be determined.
Although the general attitudes of the participating countries vis--vis Germany
had not changed significantly, the French government was now in a much weaker
position, having not been able to secure a parliamentary majority in support of
the treaty8. Nevertheless, it was still determined to prevent a resurgent Germany.
Adenauer, on the other side, was no longer willing to accept a unilateral
renunciation of the nuclear option. The violent suppression of popular protests in
the German Democratic Republic in June 1953 convinced him and many others
of the aggressiveness of the policies the USSR and its allies pursued. Additionally,
tests of neutron bombs by the U.S. and the USSR marked the beginning of a
nuclear arms race between the superpowers and illustrated the deterrent effects
they ascribed to these weapons. Ultimately, Adenauer agreed to unilaterally
renounce only the production of nuclear weapons on German territory. This
compromise allowed Germanys admission to the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) as one among equals, thereby restoring its near-
sovereignty (Kelleher, 1975, pp. 21-28; Knoll, 2013, pp. 125-134). He later
asserted that the final decision to forego the production of nuclear weapons on

8
In addition to West Germany, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States were present at the conferences.

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 KEY ISSUES | Volume 1 | November 2015

German ground was made without prior consultation and under considerable
time constraints during the negotiations. Again, some argue that this stance might
signify an intentionally ambivalent bargaining strategy to enable Germany to
acquire nuclear weapons through different means (Kntzel, 1992). This reading,
however, can hardly explain why the allies, particularly France, agreed to that
provision. As Reiner Pommerin (1999, p. 330; also Kelleher, 1975, pp. 27-28)
argues, no foreign power would have provided Germany with nuclear weapons
nor seriously allowed the Federal Republic to produce nuclear weapons on
foreign ground. Most German leadership still considered tactical nuclear weapons,
at most, as complement to the Lisbon force goals regarding the size of Western
European conventional armed forces, in which NATO had already set the
number of German armed troops to 500,000. Furthermore, the scientific
establishment was too small, too busy with recovery tasks, or too disillusioned by
wartimes experiences to contemplate major civil or military nuclear development
programs. (Kelleher, 1975, p. 29). Michael Knoll (2013, p. 134) suggests that
Adenauers understanding of international relations simply made necessary a
theoretical possibility for Germany to acquire nuclear weapons as to have equal
status among sovereign states.
A parliamentary debate in the German Bundestag during the summer of 1956,
clarified the conception for the future German armed forces. The
parliamentarians of the governing coalition emphasized the central role the
Bundeswehr was to play in the defense of Germany and Europe as an integral part
of NATO strategy. Georg Kliesing (CDU/CSU) argued that the German armed
forces, in concert with their allies, would be able to defend Western Europe
against an attack across a broad front. If, however, Germany decided not to
contribute to this collective defense mechanism, NATOs conventional defensive
strategy would collapse. Strategic nuclear weapons would then replace
conventional weaponry, and signify the end of the German people. The
establishment of the Bundeswehr was thus to decrease the likelihood of nuclear
warfare (Pttering, 1974, pp. 65-66).
The Social Democratic opposition shared reservations regarding the
prospect of a remilitarized Germany with prominent members of the US foreign
policy establishment, among them George F. Kennan and Walter Lippmann.
Fritz Erler (SPD) maintained that NATO strategy, even with a 500,000-strong
German contribution, could not contain conflict to conventional levels. As a
matter of fact, strategy papers explicitly expressed the possibility of immediate
nuclear engagement, if deemed necessary by the president of the United States.
Hans-Gert Pttering (1974, pp. 76-77) thus interprets Erlers statement as an
implicit approval of NATOs nuclear strategy and an acknowledgement of the
deterrent effect of nuclear weapons. To solve Germanys security problems,
rather than pursuing the rearmament of Germany, the SPD proposed general
disarmament talks.

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 A Nuke Is What You Make of It

In 1956, the Adenauer administration changed its stance on nuclear weapons.

Before the fall of 1956, Adenauer himself was rather critical of nuclear weapons,
pleading for conventional defense of Europe in light of the revelation of the
Radford Plan (Pttering, 1974, pp. 78-115). In December 1956, however, he and
Defense Minister Franz Josef Strau suggested the nuclearization of NATO at
the North Atlantic Councils meeting in Paris to exercise joint control over US
nuclear weapons. In a first step, Adenauer, paraphrasing US government officials,
downplayed the dangers of small tactical weapons as opposed to big and
devastating strategic bombs. During a press conference in January 1957, he
presented tactical nuclear weapons as merely a natural advancement of
conventional weaponry with which all armies would eventually be equipped
(Knoll, 2013, p. 147; Pttering, 1974, p. 122).
Without access to critical strategic plans and decision-making within the
Western alliance, beginning in 1957, the SPD, together with unions, churches,
scientists, and other social groups, took the protest to the streets. Under the
heading Kampf dem Atomtod (Campaign Against Nuclear Death), they urged
Adenauer and the government to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapon delivery
systems and to promote global non-proliferation. Although this first anti-nuclear
protest movement could gain substantial support from extragovernmental elites,
the rearmament issue was settled between the two major parties when the Social
Democrats lost the critical elections in North Rhine Westphalia in 1958. This
electoral defeat ensured the intraparty triumph of the right-wing reformists
(Kelleher, 1975, p. 114) around Willy Brandt and Fritz Erler. They began to
transform the SPD into a Volkspartei to make it a capable and credible alternative
to the CDU/CSU. In the following years, the SPDs foreign policy moved much
closer to the CDUs, replacing pacifism with a more pragmatic approach to
alliance politics and rearmament to bring incremental change from within the
system. Thus by 1960 militant domestic opposition on nuclear issues had all but
ceased. (Kelleher, 1975, p. 116).
At the same time, the government sought to enter into cooperation with
France (and Italy) to explore the option of a European nuclear force. For
Adenauer, this coalition was appealing for two primary reasons: to strengthen
French-German relations as the core of a united Europe and to include Germany
in joint nuclear decision-making processes. After Charles de Gaulle became
president of France, however, he quickly ended this cooperation. Second, in
1962, the US proposed a Multilateral Force (MLF) of warships and submarines
manned by international NATO crews. For Adenauer, and later Erhard, this
presented the most viable option to have a say in nuclear decision-making, while
the US intended to prevent a German nuclear weapon and French-German
nuclear cooperation. However, neither France nor the United Kingdom were
particularly inclined to participate and due to irreconcilable differences over the
ultimate control over nuclear warheads between the U.S. and Germany, the
project was eventually laid to rest in 1965 (Knoll, 2013, pp. 297-313).

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When the CDU/CSU and the SPD formed a coalition government under Kurt
Georg Kiesinger and with Willy Brandt as foreign minister in 1966, Germanys
approach to nuclear weapons began to change. Although the government was
able to secure permanent membership in NATOs newly founded Nuclear
Planning Group and to obtain an assurance that the U.S. would consult the
government before using nuclear weapons on German territory (Knoll, 2013, pp.
333-334), increased U.S.-Soviet cooperation coupled with Brandts Ostpolitik as
well as the process that would culminate in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) were now beginning to be considered as
opportunities for the active advancement of German interests (Kelleher, p.
1975, p. 297), recognizing the restrictions on the country desired by its
neighbors and allies and viewing civilian particularly economic and social
achievements as equally or more important than being on a level playing field
with France and Britain in military terms. (Mller, 2003, p. 3).

T HE M EANING OF N UCLEAR W EAPONS

What shaped West Germanys understanding of nuclear weapons? As one of two

constructivist theories to be tested, Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) argue that
international norms first emerge with the help of norm entrepreneurs and then
cascade through the international society before they become habitual behavior.
Accordingly, the use of atomic bombs over Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the U.S.
to end the war against Japan could have illustrated the value of nuclear weapons
for states national security to Germany and other states. Somewhat involuntarily
the U.S. government could have become a norm entrepreneur by establishing a
positive notion of nuclear weapons. However, as the conceptions about the
appropriateness of certain kinds of behavior differ, the proliferation norm had
been contested from the beginning, challenged by an increasingly powerful non-
proliferation norm. Famously, Albert Einstein described his letter to President
Roosevelt as his greatest mistake. Rather than observing a pro-nuclear norm
being internalized by the international society through bureaucratic arrangements
and international law, quite the opposite happened. In 1957, the International
Atomic Energy Agency was established and by 1970, the NPT entered into force.
Today, an international non-proliferation regime of various international
agreements, treaties, and organizations as well as a nuclear taboo constrain
states (Tannenwald, 1999). Thus, it is questionable if a consolidated pro-nuclear
international norm ever existed, which would have promoted the acquisition
nuclear weapons in West Germany throughout the period of observation. That is
not to say that sometimes some states have and might continue to put forward
grounds, like prestige or power to justify their pursuit of nuclear weapons. By and
large however, nuclear weapons are considered as illegitimate and their use, even
the threat of use, inappropriate. In return, the international norm of non-
proliferation only began to form after the Second World War and thus could have

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had no restraining effect on early West German governments. The norm life-
cycle theory might thus be better suited to explain states restraint to develop
nuclear weapons since the 1970s.
While a strict application of their life-cycle model does not yield useful
results here, Finnemore and Sikkink (1998, p. 906) also argue that states insecure
about their international status or reputation [] embrace new international
norms most eagerly and thoroughly. West Germany could thus be considered a
pariah of the international society particularly keen to accommodate international
norms to restore its standing. If nuclear weapons promised prestige, the
discussion of their acquisition would have been framed accordingly. According to
ONeill (2006, p. 1), a party holds prestige in a group for a certain desirable
quality if the groups members generally believe that they themselves generally believe
that the party possesses that quality. Accordingly, nuclear weapons could be
desirable because they provide prestige by setting one state apart from others.
However, the literature overwhelmingly suggest that Adenauer sought the
theoretical option for a German nuclear force as to reestablish German
sovereignty and equal status, and not desirable distinctness, among its Western
partners. Later periods admittedly show that options for shared control were
explored within French-German cooperation or the MLF. Though again, these
should be interpreted as attempts to establish West Germany as an equal and no
longer unequal partner. A too narrow focus on prestige should therefore be
dismissed in favor of a wider notion of status concerns.
Nevertheless, if it does not center on prestige but rather opens itself for a
variety of epistemic arguments, a constructivist approach can explain states
decision to acquire nuclear weapons. Thus, I propose a discourse-analytical
framework that examines both the unit-level construction of the meaning of
nuclear weapons through structural and epistemic power and the dissemination
of international norms as proposed by Leander (2005). Accordingly, Adenauer
should be considered as a purposeful actor who made use of his epistemic power
to promote a certain meaning of nuclear weapons closely related to the status of
West Germany. Additionally, he utilized his structural power as the head of
government, the gradual transformation of the German political system toward a
three-party system, and the increasing centralization of power in his person to
implement that policy. As shown, the actual acquisition of nuclear weapons under
sole German control was never the issue. Instead, keeping the nuclear option on
the table and later the attempts to enter into a joint-control regime within NATO
(MLF) or Europe (French-German cooperation), in Adenauers eyes, promised
the re-establishment of German sovereignty and equal status in international
relations, as no other country at that time had voluntarily dismissed the nuclear
option yet. His position as the leader of the administration and the policy of
German integration with the West, which enjoyed considerable public support,
provided him with a dominant position in the public discourse about nuclear
weapons. The meaning he attributed to them was not uncontested as proven my

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parliamentary debates and, albeit limited, public protests, nevertheless it was

dominating the early nuclear discourse in West Germany. By the 1950s, an
international norm of the non-use and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons was
emerging (Tannenwald, 1999). This norm eventually entered the democratic, thus
relatively open, West German discourse, as evidenced by increasing public and
political support for nuclear non-proliferation in the 1960s and onward.
Subsequently, Germany became an important stepping stone for the success of
the international non-proliferation norm (Rublee, 2009).

C ONCLUSION

Having shown that security concerns did not exhaust considerations about the
acquisition of nuclear weapons in West Germany, a purely security-centered
approach would be inadequate in this particular case. Admittedly, security was an
important issue, but the capability of nuclear weapons as mere advanced
defensive weaponry undervalues the variety of meanings that can be ascribed to
them just as easily: Adenauer considered them as an instrument to regain equal
status, the international society today considers them as illegitimate and
inappropriate.
A constructivist approach that builds on the epistemic and structural power
(Leander, 2005) of actors to determine the course of the discourse on nuclear
weapons is thus well positioned to examine and explain nuclear decision-making.
Further studies on the causes of nuclear proliferation should thus explore states
constructed meaning of nuclear weapons by looking into the national and
international discourse around them. Furthermore, the position of individuals
within the state and the position of states within the international structure
should be considered to analyze how national and international normative
discourses affect each other. The success of a norm, accordingly, depends on the
social structure and the compatibility of the norm in preexisting social settings.

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