Europe considers its own nuclear deterrent
There’s growing sense drastic steps may be necessary to protect postwar order amid Trump presidency and resurgent Russia
An idea, once unthinkable, is gaining attention in European policy circles: a European Union nuclear weapons program. Under such a plan, France’s arsenal would be repurposed to protect the rest of Europe and would be put under a common European command, funding plan, defense doctrine, or some combination of the three. It would be enacted only if the Continent could no longer count on U.S. protection.
Though no new countries would join the nuclear club under this scheme, it would amount to an unprecedented escalation in Europe’s collective military power and a drastic break with U.S. leadership.
Analysts say that the talk, even if it never translates into action, demonstrates the growing sense in Europe that drastic steps may be necessary to protect the postwar order in the era of a Trump presidency, a resurgent Russia and the possibility of an alignment between the two.
Even proponents, who remain a minority, acknowledge enormous hurdles. But discussion of a so-called “Eurodeterrent” has entered the mainstream — particularly in Germany, a country that would be central to any plan but where antinuclear sentiment is widespread.
Jana Puglierin of the German Council on Foreign Relations said that a handful of senior European officials had “for sure triggered a public debate about this, taking place in newspapers and journals, radio interviews and TV documentaries.”
She added: “That in itself is remarkable. I am indeed very astonished that we discuss this at all.”
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s former prime minister and now the head of its ruling party, provided the highest-level call for a European Union nuclear program in a February interview with a German newspaper.
But the most important support has come from Roderich Kiesewetter, a lawmaker and foreign policy spokesman with Germany’s ruling party, who gave the nuclear option increased credibility by raising it shortly after President Donald Trump’s election.
In an interview in the German Bundestag, Kiesewetter, a former colonel who served in Afghanistan, calibrated his language carefully, providing just enough detail to demonstrate the option’s seriousness without offering too much and risking an outcry from German voters or encouraging the U.S. withdrawal he is hoping to avoid.
“My idea is to build on the existing weapons in Great Britain and France,” he said, but acknowledged that Britain’s decision to leave the European Union could preclude its participation.
The United States bases dozens of nuclear warheads in Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands as both a quick-reaction force and a symbol of its guarantee to protect the Continent. Kiesewetter said his plan would provide a replacement or parallel program. This would require, he said, four ingredients: a French pledge to commit its weapons to a common European defense, German financing to demonstrate the program’s collective nature, a joint command and a plan to place French warheads in other European countries.
The number of warheads in Europe would not increase under this plan, and could even decrease if the United States withdraws.
“It’s not a question of numbers,” Kiesewetter said. “The reassurance and deterrence comes from the existence of the weapons and their deployability.”
Mostly, Kiesewetter said he hoped to spur Trump to end doubts over U.S. security commitments to Europe, rendering unnecessary the nuclear “Plan B.”
For now, Kiesewetter’s intention is merely to “trigger a debate” over addressing “this silent, gigantic problem.”
It has worked. A small but growing contingent of German analysts and commentators have endorsed versions of a European nuclear program.
Kiesewetter said he had heard interest from officials in the Polish and Hungarian governments, at NATO headquarters in Brussels and within relevant German ministries, though he would not say which.
But any European nuclear program would face enormous hurdles. “The public is totally opposed,” Puglierin said, referring to German anti-nuclear sentiment, which has at times culminated in nationwide protests against the weapons.
In practical terms, the plan would change the flag on Europe’s nuclear deterrent from that of the United States to that of France. But this would risk making a U.S. exit from Europe more permanent.
Oliver Thranert, a German analyst with the Switzerland-based Center for Security Studies, warned in a white paper that any plan “would not only be expensive, but also a political minefield full of undesirable potential political consequences.”
The biggest challenge may be who controls the French arsenal and where it is based.