German views on US nuclear weapons in Europe: public and elite perspectives

Abstract

Stationing of US nuclear weapons in Europe is a pillar of NATO deterrence. Despite their growing contestation, scholarly research on contemporary attitudes of both voters and political elites to the continued stationing of these weapons on their soil is lacking. We conducted original surveys of 2020 Germans and of 101 Bundestag members. Our results show scepticism about the military utility of US nuclear weapons in Germany, and aversion towards their use. At the same time, the results show a sizable support among both politicians and citizens for their removal from German territory as part of new nuclear arms control initiatives.

From Moscow With a Mushroom Cloud? Russian Public Attitudes to the Use of Nuclear Weapons in a Conflict With NATO

“…Koch and Wells (2020) found close to 40% support for a nuclear strike against an unnamed nuclear-armed state's city that hosts its nuclear arsenal, and public insensitivity to the varying levels of retaliation risk. The level of approval in our study appears to be comparable with a recent study in Germany, where 12% of the public agreed with a nuclear "de-escalatory" strike in a conflict between NATO and Russia in the Baltics, 61% disagreed, and 27% did not know (Onderco and Smetana 2021).…”

Hawks in the making? European public views on nuclear weaponspost‐Ukraine

“…Moreover, the shift to more pro‐nuclear attitudes after the Russian invasion may not be necessarily limited to ordinary citizens. While there is survey evidence on statistically significant gaps in attitudes towards nuclear weapons between the general public and political elites in Germany (Smetana & Onderco, 2022a), the measured differences in support for nuclear strikes in those studies were only in the range of some 5 to 8 per cent points (Onderco & Smetana, 2021), and at least part of these differences was likely driven by the different socio‐demographic characteristics of the two samples (Kertzer, 2020). While we certainly need new empirical studies to revisit the public‐elite gaps in attitudes towards nuclear weapons post‐Ukraine, the NATO and EU discourse generally points to the adoption of more hawkish rather than more dovish policies in matters of defence and security, and it does not seem plausible that views of European political elites on nuclear weapons would be immune to these trends.…”

“…The ultimate result of such an absence of public debate is a widespread doubt about the usefulness of nuclear weapons reflected in the public opinion in a number of European countries, including Germany and the Netherlands. Both academic surveys and those conducted by anti‐nuclear weapon activists demonstrated public scepticism about nuclear deterrence, and a substantial portion of the European publics (often over 50%, depending on the survey and country) were in favour of withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Europe (for an activist survey, see ICAN, 2019; for academic surveys, see Onderco et al, 2021; Onderco & Smetana, 2021; Pelopidas, 2017; Pelopidas & Egeland, 2020; Pelopidas & Fialho, 2019b; Smetana et al, 2021).…”

Arms control and its impact on sustainable European security

“…The current European security architecture embraces Cold War logic. Onderco and Smetana (2021) have determined the relevance in the nexus of the US nuclear deterrence strategy on the European continent, which is based on the premise that it deters an adversary (meaning mainly the RU) from a nuclear conventional attack against European NATO member states. The so-called European nuclear umbrella provided by the US that existed during the Cold War remains a critical element of NATO's nuclear deterrence strategy to this day.…”