Shortly after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in November 2016, several prominent German politicians, journalists, and scholars began to discuss whether Germany ought to explore options in case of U.S. retrenchment of its security guarantees.

The U.S. government’s release of the Vulnerability Equities Process charter reversed a previous posture of secrecy, and emphasized that blanket secrecy about vulnerabilities is an antiquated approach.