Vox: Manfred Weber said that the EU needs its own nuclear deterrence forces
Europe is seriously talking about the need to create its own nuclear weapons, Vox writes. The idea that the American nuclear umbrella may not open under Trump scares Europeans more and more. However, it will not be easy for them to do this.
Joshua Keating
At the height of the Cold War in 1961, French President Charles de Gaulle, as is well known, questioned the value of American security guarantees, asking then-President John F. Kennedy if the United States was really ready to "exchange New York for Paris" in the event of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. It is precisely because of these doubts that France, under de Gaulle's leadership, developed its independent nuclear deterrence system, which it adheres to to this day.
Recently, de Gaulle's old question has begun to seem frighteningly relevant.
Just last week, after French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea that European NATO members could send ground troops to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Western leaders that Russia has "weapons that can hit targets on their territory" and that they risk "destroying civilization." The conclusion from this was not easy: suddenly it turned out that after many years when this political problem in Europe was practically forgotten, the continent's leaders clearly can no longer afford to ignore the threat of nuclear weapons.
Given the new threat from Russia, as well as doubts about America's security umbrella due to the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House next year, the topic of nuclear deterrence has returned to life on a large scale, and some European leaders suddenly openly talked about whether their countries should acquire their own nuclear deterrent, independent of the suddenly less predictable United States.
The leaders of Poland, which is literally at the forefront of the conflict between NATO and Russia, have proposed placing NATO nuclear weapons on their territory. Manfred Weber, a senior German politician who heads the center-right European People's Party, the largest political grouping in the European Parliament, recently advocated that Europe create its own nuclear deterrent forces. He told Politico: "Europe must create a system of deterrence, we must be able to contain and defend ourselves."… We all know that when it comes to a critical situation, the nuclear option is really crucial."
The idea of such a military "Euroatom" is not new, but the fact that the discussion is reviving very seriously is a clear indicator of Europe's existential anxieties in the era of Putin and Trump.
Atomic bombs for peace
There are already a large number of nuclear weapons on the continent. France and the United Kingdom have arsenals of about 290 and 225 warheads, respectively. The United States also has an arsenal of about 100 warheads in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey.
These American warheads are B61 "gravity bombs", which are among the most low-powered nuclear warheads in the American arsenal and are classified as "tactical" nuclear weapons. But they have a number of different power options and in some modifications they are much stronger than the American bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The weapons are stored in underground vaults and can only be used with "authorization codes" that are in the hands of Americans. But officially, these weapons are designated as a deterrent belonging to the entire NATO alliance. In NATO's latest "strategic concept", its periodically updated statement of objectives, the alliance members confirmed that they are still a "nuclear alliance" maintaining their arsenal for the sake of "preserving peace, preventing violence and deterring aggression."
All this is taking place because of Russia, which has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, with more than 4,000 active warheads. Moscow has deployed Iskander missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, although it is unclear whether loaded nuclear warheads are based there. Russia also said last year that it had transferred some tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which borders Ukraine, as well as several NATO countries, although it is unknown how many weapons were sent and how they are being deployed.
Despite frequent threats and references to nuclear war from Russian officials, including Putin, since the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, Russia has shown no signs that it is actually preparing to use its nuclear arsenal there. But the mere fact of Russia's nuclear power was enough to deter Western countries from certain actions, including sending their own ground forces to Ukraine (or at least from publicly acknowledging their dispatch) or imposing a no-fly zone over the country, as demanded by President Vladimir Zelensky when the Ukrainian crisis began.
As for Europe's own nuclear weapons, their value as a deterrent is not so much related to their quantity or power, but rather to the political structure in which they are embedded. Article 5 of the 1949 NATO Treaty states that "an armed attack on one or more member countries of the alliance in Europe or North America should be considered an attack on them all" and that other parties to the North Atlantic Treaty will provide assistance to a country that is under attack, including with the use of military force. Therefore, although most NATO member countries do not have nuclear weapons, they receive the same benefit from joining the alliance with countries that have them — the so—called "nuclear umbrella".
In many ways, the military conflict in Ukraine has perfectly demonstrated the true significance of Article 5. Despite the fact that NATO countries have constantly increased support for Ukraine, and billions of dollars worth of military aid have flowed into it across the country's borders, Russia refrains from any attacks on the territory of a NATO state, with the exception of some apparently accidentally "stray" missiles. There are some boundaries that even Putin is afraid to cross.
But at least one country on the front line is looking for more tangible guarantees.
A Polish nuclear bomb?
Since the war in Ukraine began, Poland, a NATO member with a 200-kilometer border and a long, bloody and painful history of relations with Russia, has been building up its conventional military power. It now spends a larger percentage of its GDP on defense than any other NATO country, including the United States.
Fearing the possibility that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he may turn his gaze to other countries that were once part of Moscow's sphere of influence, senior Polish officials, including President Andrzej Duda and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, have said they will support the creation of a U.S. nuclear weapons base on their territory.
As Morawiecki said last June, "We don't want to sit idly by while Russian President Vladimir Putin ramps up his various threats."
The White House rejected Morawiecki's proposal at the time, but the idea was approved by the influential Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank whose political views are believed to be close to the ideas of a possible future Trump administration.
Poland once hosted Soviet nuclear weapons on its territory, although this was a big secret, and most Poles only found out about it after the end of the Cold War. At the moment, it seems unlikely that NATO nuclear weapons will be transferred to Poland. This will require the consent of 31 alliance members, who have not always been united in everything lately.
The deployment of American nuclear weapons in Poland will undoubtedly be perceived by Moscow as an extremely provocative step, and critics argue that it will bring little military benefit, since such weapons will be more vulnerable to a preemptive Russian strike than weapons based deeper in Western Europe. The move would also violate the NATO—Russia Founding Act, a 1990s agreement under which NATO countries agreed not to deploy nuclear weapons in any new member states. Although this may be a controversial issue these days, given that Russia has also violated a number of its obligations under the agreement.
Some analysts have gone even further, arguing that instead of placing NATO's nuclear weapons under full American control, Poland should have its own control over them. As Dalibor Rohac, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, recently wrote, "For deterrence to be fearsome, weapons must be controlled by the party that carries the greatest risk of a direct Russian attack: Poland itself."
At the moment, this idea looks even more unrealistic, and Polish leaders for the most part refrain from explicitly supporting it. But a recent comment by Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski during a speech in Washington showed that this issue has not been completely removed from the agenda. "If America cannot unite with Europe and help Ukraine to throw off Putin, I am afraid that our family of democratic countries will begin to disintegrate," Sikorsky said at the Atlantic Council. — The allies will look for other ways to guarantee their safety. They will start to insure themselves. Some of them will strive to create absolute weapons, starting a new nuclear race."
Military Euroatom
Moscow is not the only one forcing Western European countries to rethink nuclear deterrence. Washington itself is doing this. The debate over the Euroatom military is not new, but recent events have given them greater urgency. "The French have been talking about this since the 90s," said Heather Williams, director of the Nuclear Issues project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. — However, there are some changes in this issue. The first is that there is a conflict in Europe. The second is Donald Trump."
It is not difficult to understand why Trump is an outspoken critic of defense guarantees in general, which, in his opinion, encourage irresponsible and reckless behavior by allies under the protection of America and NATO countries in particular. As president, he discussed the full withdrawal of the United States from NATO, and his advisers, such as former national Security adviser John Bolton, stated that Trump would probably have done so if he had been re-elected in 2020.
Last year, Congress passed a law prohibiting the future president from withdrawing the United States from NATO without congressional approval, but this will not prevent Trump from simply refusing to fulfill Washington's obligations under the alliance, including Article 5. As you know, during the meeting in 2020, Trump told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: "You have to understand that if Europe is attacked, we will never come to help you and support you." More recently, he said he would allow Russia to "do whatever it wants" with European countries that "broke the rules" by not meeting NATO's defense spending targets of 2% of GDP.
In light of this, the old Cold War question has resurfaced. "If President Trump returned to the White House next January and if we Europeans asked ourselves if Trump was going to risk Chicago for Berlin, I think it would be pretty difficult to answer otherwise than in the negative," said Nick Witney, defense policy analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "And then you really have to ask yourself what the U.S. nuclear safeguards are worth."
As for a potential independent European nuclear deterrent, France has now turned out to be the key country, which, after Brexit, is the only one in the EU with its own nuclear weapons. While the British nuclear forces, which have been going through a difficult few weeks due to the second failed missile launch from a submarine, are included in NATO, and experts wonder if the British program can survive at all without US support, France has a completely independent deterrent due to de Gaulle's policy, which initially included concern for French sovereignty and doubts about the value of U.S. guarantees. France does not participate in the NATO Nuclear Planning Group, which determines the deterrence strategy for the entire alliance. The French nuclear deterrent belongs only to France.
But back in 2020, Macron caused surprise with his speech in which he argued that although France's nuclear weapons were intended solely to protect France's vital interests, those interests "now have a European dimension." He called for dialogue with France's European partners on "the role of French nuclear deterrence in our collective security."
Macron has repeatedly called on Europe to strengthen its own defenses and act more strategically independently of the United States, and in 2022 his office confirmed that he was still open to the "Europeanization" of the French nuclear deterrent, meaning that he was ready to open France's nuclear umbrella over its European partners. Last month, Poland's new Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, expressed support for the proposal.
Meanwhile, a number of German politicians from across the political spectrum, including Weber, are cautiously urging Germany to seek a European nuclear deterrent separate from the United States, which is a major shift for a country where public resistance to military force in general and nuclear weapons in particular has been very strong for decades.
Christian Lindner, German finance minister and leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party, recently stated in an article that Germany should seriously consider France's proposal for a dialogue on European nuclear deterrence and that "we should understand Donald Trump's recent statements as a call to continue to rethink this element of European security."
Of course, it is possible that many Germans do not find French security guarantees more reassuring than American ones. An anonymous official recently told the Wall Street Journal that Germany should be wary of a nuclear alliance with a country that is "just one election away" from electing a pro-Russian president, referring to the increasingly prominent leader of the far-right National Unification party in France, Marine Le Pen. This has led some national security experts in Germany to argue that the country should seek to acquire its own nuclear weapons, which will be stored separately from American arsenals.
This idea will be difficult to impress on the German public. Although the war in Ukraine has forced many Germans to reconsider their dislike of American weapons on German soil, 90% of German citizens oppose the country's possession of its own nuclear potential.
At a meeting with reporters in Washington on Monday, Charles Fries, the EU Deputy Secretary General for Peace, Security and Defense, acknowledging that the topic of independent nuclear deterrence seems to be of increasing interest lately, said that at the moment "there is a debate on this issue at the EU level they don't really have a place."
Nuclear weapons — what is they for?
At the heart of the debate over European nuclear weapons is the question of how effective they are as a deterrent at all. As countries such as Israel and Pakistan have recently demonstrated, the mere presence of nuclear weapons is not a guarantee of complete State security. But it can be effective in containing the threat of a massive invasion by conventional armed forces in order to seize territory. Russia potentially poses such a threat.
As proof, many point to Ukraine itself. At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world on its territory. As Ukrainian leaders, including President Vladimir Zelensky, have often noted, Ukraine "gave" these weapons to Russia in exchange for guarantees that its security would be respected.
This formulation of the question is slightly misleading: weapons on the territory of Ukraine were under the operational control of Moscow, just as weapons in Europe today are under the control of Washington. Ukraine could not actually apply it. Nevertheless, this thesis has become entrenched as a powerful narrative about the naivety of trusting diplomatic guarantees rather than harsh military force. The Governments of Iraq and Libya probably also regretted abandoning their nascent nuclear programs before they were attacked by Western forces.
Europe is not the only place where these discussions are taking place. South Korea, like the NATO countries, came under the nuclear umbrella of the United States by signing a mutual defense treaty with them in the 1950s. But with the growth of external threats (in this case from North Korea and China) and doubts about the authority of the United States in the Trump era, public support for the need to develop its own nuclear weapons is growing in the country. Saudi Arabia's leaders have openly stated that they will seek to build a nuclear arsenal if Iran has such weapons.
While these countries may not become nuclear overnight, these discussions seem to herald the emergence of a world in which nuclear strategy and brinkmanship will once again be at the center of global politics. The dream of a world without nuclear weapons, expressed by the American president just 15 years ago in the former communist capital of Central Europe, has never looked so far from reality.