Germany’s Nuclear Intentions, 1955-1966: A Well-Understood Known Unknown

In this presentation, Andreas Lutsch joins the King's Intelligence and Security Group (KISG) to discuss intelligence analysis, uncertainty, and nuclear intentions in world politics. Using recently declassified U.S. National Intelligence Estimates, he reviews key intelligence judgments about West Germany's nuclear thinking during the Cold War, and offers thoughts about how to wrestle with the difficulty of gauging the “nuclear intentions” of states which are perceived, or misperceived, to harbor nuclear weapons ambitions.