Diverging perceptions of security: NATO, nuclear weapons, and social protest

The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the emergence of protests against defense and alliance policies in Western Europe and the United States. This chapter focuses on the discussions of NATO and NATO strategy in the protests against nuclear weapons in Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), and France during this period. It seeks to illuminate important political dimensions stemming from NATO’s nuclear dilemmas in the early 1960s,1 and it aims to contribute to a more precise understanding of NATO’s crisis than the analysis of great-power diplomacy alone might allow.