"Everything is logical with explanation of the Russians, and the Americans. They will go nuclear if there is a danger to their own survival. The Western Europeans are lost. Their explanation is without any logic:
“America is committed to using its nuclear weapons to defend European allies. That includes both its “strategic” nuclear forces, those in submarines, silos and bombers, and the smaller, shorter-range “non-strategic” B61 gravity bombs stored in bases across Europe, which can be dropped by several European air forces. Those weapons have served as the ultimate guarantee against any invasion.
Yet an American president who declined to risk American troops to defend a European ally would hardly be likely to risk American cities in a nuclear exchange.
During Mr Trump’s first spell in office, that fear revived an old debate over how Europe might compensate for the loss of the American umbrella. Britain and France both possess nuclear weapons. But they have only 500 warheads between them, compared with America’s 5,000 and Russia’s nearly 6,000. For advocates of “minimum” deterrence, that makes little difference: they think a few hundred warheads, more than enough to wipe out Moscow and other cities, will dissuade anybody from any reckless adventure. Analysts of a more macabre bent think such lopsided megatonnage, and the disproportionate damage which Britain and France would suffer, give opponents an advantage.
Nuclear posturing
This is not just a numerical problem. British nuclear weapons are assigned to NATO, whose Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) shapes policy on how nuclear weapons should be used. The deterrent is operationally independent: Britain can launch as it pleases. But it depends on America for the design of future warheads and draws from a common pool of missiles, which is kept on the other side of the Atlantic. If America were to sever all co-operation, British nuclear forces “would probably have a life expectancy measured in months rather than years”, according to an assessment published ten years ago.
In contrast, France’s deterrent is entirely home-grown and more aloof from NATO: uniquely among NATO’s members, France does not participate in the NPG, though it has long said that its arsenal, “by its existence”, contributes to the alliance’s security.
Within NATO, nuclear issues were long on the “back burner”, says Admiral Bauer. That has changed in the past two years, with more and wider discussions on nuclear planning and deterrence. But NATO’s plans hinge on American forces; they do not say what should happen if America leaves. The question of how Britain and France might fill that gap is now percolating. On February 13th Christian Lindner, Germany’s finance minister and head of the pro-business Free Democratic Party, called in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German newspaper, for a “rethink” of European nuclear arrangements. “Under what political and financial conditions would Paris and London be prepared to maintain or expand their own strategic capabilities for collective security?” he asked. “And vice versa, what contribution are we willing to make?”
Such musings have a long history. In the 1960s America and Europe pondered a “multilateral” nuclear force under joint control. Today, the idea that Britain or France would “share” the decision to use nuclear weapons is a non-starter, writes Bruno Tertrais, a French expert involved in the debate for decades, in a recent paper. Nor is France likely to join the NPG or assign its air-launched nuclear forces to NATO, he says. One option would be for the two countries to affirm more forcefully that their deterrents would, or at least could, protect allies. In 2020 Mr Macron stated that France’s “vital interests”—the issues over which it would contemplate nuclear use—“now have a European dimension” and offered a “strategic dialogue” with allies on this topic, a position he reiterated last year.
The question is how this would be made credible.
In nuclear deterrence, the crucial issue is how to make adversaries (and allies) believe that a commitment is real, rather than a cheap diplomatic gesture that would be abandoned when the stakes become apocalyptic.
Mr Tertrais proposes a range of options. At the tame end, France could simply promise to consult on nuclear use with its partners, time permitting. More radically, if the American umbrella had gone entirely, France could invite European partners to participate in nuclear operations, such as providing escort aircraft for bombers, joining a task force with the eventual successor to the Charles de Gaulle aircraft-carrier, which can host nukes, or even basing a few missiles in Germany. Such options might ultimately require “a common nuclear planning mechanism”, he says.
Mr Lindner’s talk of a European deterrent was largely dismissed by German officials who spoke to The Economist in Munich. But the nuclear question, involving as it does the deepest questions of sovereignty, identity and national survival, points to the vacuum that would be left if America abandons Europe. “There will be a European nuclear doctrine, a European deterrent, only when there are vital European interests, considered as such by the Europeans, and understood as such by others,” pronounced François Mitterrand, France’s president, in 1994. “We are far away from there.” Today Europe is closer, but not close enough.
The same doubt that drove France to develop its own nuclear forces in the 1950s—would an American president sacrifice New York for Paris?—is replicated within Europe: would Mr Macron risk Toulouse for Tallinn?" [1]
So, the main question for Western Europeans is simple: Who are you? Before figuring this out and putting up money needed to support this your position, stop throwing rocks. You are living in houses with a lot of glass. If you see that nothing is coming out, that you will not sacrifice Toulouse for Tallinn, stop pretending that you are colonizers bringing civilization to savages. It has gone out of style.
1. Can Europe defend itself without America? The Economist; London Vol. 450, Iss. 9385, (Feb 24, 2024): 15, 16, 17, 18.
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