ABSTRACT
In recent years, various scholars have argued that nuclear latency—the technical capacity to produce atomic weapons—could theoretically serve as a hedge against future contingencies, notably the rise of an adversary or demise of an alliance. In Germany's 2011 decision to completely phase out nuclear energy, however, latency and its potential impact on international security did not play any role. To better understand this puzzling case, it is necessary to look at the complicated history of nuclear energy in Germany and highlight the crucial changes civil nuclear use underwent. Phase-out was neither only a consequence of a sudden change caused by the Fukushima accident, nor only of long-held domestic opposition to all things nuclear, but a product of certain domestic and international conditions converging. Once German leaders saw no necessity, no credibility, and no viability for retaining latency anymore towards the end of the Cold War, they let the civil nuclear sector die slowly. Today, changed conditions might speak for reversing these policies. German leaders, however, might find the costs of reversal too high.
