Description
Bureaucratic politics plays a significant, though often understated, role in shaping nuclear policy within states and alliances. This paper applies this framework to examine a pivotal episode in German nuclear policymaking: then-Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle’s 2009/2010 initiative to remove U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons from Germany. Since Greece’s withdrawal in 2001, this initiative marked the first and only instance in which government actors from a European nuclear sharing state—not merely its parliament—pursued withdrawal as an official policy, enshrined in a coalition agreement. Despite early momentum, the initiative ultimately stalled due to opposition from key bureaucratic actors within both the United States and Germany, notably the German Chancellery and the Foreign Office itself. Drawing on elite interviews and newly accessed archival material from the German Foreign Office, this study traces the interdepartmental negotiations, conflicting interests, and strategic pressures that shaped the initiative’s trajectory. In exploring this case, the analysis highlights the role of bureaucratic agency in nuclear alliance management and considers its broader implications for democratic accountability.
