ABSTRACT
Russia's war against Ukraine has rattled German foreign and security policy, putting into question long-held German beliefs and challenging Berlin's national interests, including in the nuclear domain. The first nuclear decisions made by the German government in conjunction with and soon after Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Zeitenwende speech, however, point to continuity. Germany will continue to play its role in NATO's nuclear sharing arrangement while also remaining committed to the goals of nuclear arms control and disarmament. Civil nuclear phase-out—though facing increasing criticism—will not be reversed. This continuity is somewhat at odds with recent debates in Germany about the country's course on nuclear deterrence or disarmament. It also seems to run counter to three major external sources of change affecting Germany: systemic, technological, and, most recently, the war in Ukraine. How does Germany deal with and adapt to recent changes in the nuclear realm, even more so since war has returned to Europe? This introduction sets the scene for the following chapters and outlines the four-part approach of this volume, which investigates changes to German nuclear policies in the deterrence, arms control and disarmament, and nonproliferation domains.
