Germany, pacifism and peace enforcement is about the transformation of Germany's security and defence policy in the time between the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 war against Iraq. The book traces and explains the reaction of Europe's biggest and potentially most powerful country to the ethnic wars of the 1990s, the emergence of large-scale terrorism, and the new US emphasis on pre-emptive strikes.
Based on an analysis of Germany's strategic culture it portrays Germany as a security actor and indicates the conditions and limits of the new German willingness to participate in international military crisis management that developed over the 1990s. It debates the implications of Germany's transformation for Germany's partners and neighbours and explains why Germany said 'yes' to the war in Afghanistan, but 'no' to the Iraq War.

Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen is Fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen

INTRODUCTION: From Iraq to Iraq: full circle?
PART I: Research design and historical background
1. Studying German strategic culture
2. A post-war history of German security culture
PART II: A military role for Germany in international crisis management?
3. From the Gulf War to Somalia: cracks in the old consensus
4. From Srebrenica to Operation Allied Force: reinterpreting the lessons of the past
5. Back to the Gulf: limits and possibilities of the new consensus
PART III: The Bundeswehr: willing and able?
6. The Bundeswehr: a force for good?
7. The Bundeswehr's projection capability
CONCLUSION: Germany, pacifism, pre-emptive strikes