Cruising Together: How the Europeans Tipped the Scales for the Ground‐Launched Cruise Missile

In the 1970s, the United States adopted the ground‐launched cruise missile (GLCM) despite opposition from the military and the lack of an established military requirement. The case is, thus, at odds with common models of military innovation that rely on military utility and organizational interests for their explanatory power. Drawing on the literature on alliance politics and symbols and rhetoric in international relations, this article develops a novel approach that highlights the role of allies in military innovations of the patron. On the basis of archival sources, it illustrates how, by recasting the GLCM from a strictly military issue into a symbol of alliance cohesion, European NATO states, and especially West Germany, facilitated the introduction of new arguments to the US‐internal debate. The alliance‐political symbolism resonated with key US actors and constrained President Carter, who eventually endorsed the weapon. Finally, the article charts avenues for further research on the role of allies in military innovations of the alliance leader and on the infusion of symbolic meaning into military technology.