European Nuclear Sharing Daily

Europe is building up its defense and can defend itself

Chivvis, 7-23, 25, CHRISTOPHER S. CHIVVIS is Director of the American Statecraft Program and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace., Foreign Affairs, How U.S. Forces Should Leave Europe, And Why Trump Should Start the Process Now, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-us-forces-should-leave-europe

For decades, collective European self-defense was merely an aspiration. Today, the time to realize this goal is finally at hand. Momentum in Europe is building: years of marginal steps to bolster European defenses gave way to meaningful action after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and these efforts have accelerated in the six months since U.S. President Donald Trump came into office. European leaders promised a sharp increase in defense and defense-related spending at the NATO summit in June, raising members’ overall budget commitments from two percent to five percent of GDP. To make good on those crucial new pledges, Europe is introducing new financial mechanisms and breaking down barriers to cooperation in its defense industry. The danger now is that Europe will lose its momentum—and that the United States, by delaying an expected drawdown of forces from the continent, will let it. Both sides have good reason to see Europe’s defense buildup succeed. The United States would be able to free up forces now stationed in Europe for other missions, or simply make cuts and pocket the savings. A more capable Europe would become the kind of partner that Washington wants and needs, and it would gain the freedom to set its own strategy as a global power. To ensure that this necessary rebalancing proceeds, the Trump administration must withdraw substantial numbers of U.S. forces from Europe, starting now, and truly shift the burden of the region’s conventional defense onto the continent. Hesitating would undermine Europe’s progress and risk locking in a suboptimal security structure for years to come. To encourage Europe to follow through on its own promises, Washington must lay out a realistic, targeted, and phased plan that cuts U.S. troop levels in Europe roughly in half over the next four years while keeping in place forces vital to U.S. security interests or forces that Europe cannot reasonably replace in that time. If a drawdown is executed well, there is little reason to fear that it would end the transatlantic partnership or leave either side less safe. THE OPPORTUNITY The best window for Europe to take on a greater share of the burden for its defense is now—not in five or ten years when political will may have faded or an emergency elsewhere forces a sudden U.S. withdrawal. The reasons for making the change are not going away. Competition with China and the emergence of other global powers have altered the United States’ strategic reality. Washington can no longer maintain the global military primacy it enjoyed after the end of the Cold War. To avoid overstretching, the United States must allocate its assets prudently—which means withdrawing from or downsizing in some parts of the world. Not to do so would drain the country’s resources, worsening a domestic fiscal crisis and killing any hope of retaining the global military lead that the United States still enjoys. Every U.S. administration since President Barack Obama’s has recognized this imperative—in theory, if rarely in practice—and future administrations are very unlikely to think differently. The reality is that U.S. troop deployments in Europe are larger than necessary to defend core U.S. interests on the continent, so they will remain near the top of the list of cuts. This is not because Europe is unimportant to the United States but because many U.S. forces in Europe are unneeded given the current threat level and becoming redundant as Europe’s military might grows. Subscribe to Foreign Affairs This Week Our editors’ top picks, delivered free to your inbox every Friday. Enter your email here. Sign Up * Note that when you provide your email address, the Foreign Affairs Privacy Policy and Terms of Use will apply to your newsletter subscription. Russia, of course, is a serious threat to Europe and the United States. President Vladimir Putin despises both. He has sophisticated nuclear weapons, well-developed hybrid warfare and intelligence capabilities, and a large conventional force hardened by years of war against Ukraine. But not all of these capabilities directly threaten the United States. Russia’s long-range nuclear weapons and advanced cyber-capabilities put the United States at risk, as do Russian covert agents who spy, disrupt civil society, and have assassinated private citizens. Russian tanks and artillery, however, do not. Concentrating U.S. resources on nuclear, cyber, and gray-zone defense while leaving land defense largely to European allies will be a more sustainable division of responsibilities as Washington pares down its commitments.

Russia tied down in the Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is often cited as a reason to keep U.S. forces at current levels—if Putin is willing to invade Ukraine, the logic goes, he may be willing to invade other European countries, and U.S. troops provide a valuable deterrent against this. But with the Russian army dug in in Ukraine, the Kremlin cannot seriously contemplate a conventional attack on a NATO country for at least the next few years. This creates an opening for both the United States and Europe. If the United States can transfer more responsibilities for European security to Europe now, any gaps can be closed by the time Russia extricates itself from Ukraine and rebuilds its strength.

Future US presidents won’t defend Europe

Europe has never had a more auspicious moment to take the lead in continental defense. Russia’s attack on Ukraine showed European publics the harsh reality of the threat from Moscow and softened their resistance to increases in military spending. Their leaders, meanwhile, have watched U.S. attention diverted to East Asia and the Middle East. Joe Biden will be the last U.S. president who can be counted among the true transatlanticists of the Cold War generation; future presidents will not be drawn to Europe in the same way. European leaders are recognizing the real risk that the United States might not come to the defense of their continent. It is their moral and political responsibility to ensure they can protect their populations by strengthening their own defenses. And this is their opportunity to build a more self-reliant, more confident, and more capable Europe—as well as ensure a stronger and more sustainable NATO.

Some US forces are still needed in Europe to defend the US; withdrawing all its forces would be a nightmare

THE COMPLICATIONS

The strategic rationale for a substantial U.S. withdrawal is strong, but, as always, the devil is in the details. Some U.S. forces in Europe are essential to protect the East Coast of the United States from a Russian sea-based attack from the North Atlantic, particularly through the ocean gaps between Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom. Other U.S. conventional weapons stationed on the continent, such as the Rivet Joint, Global Hawk, and P-8 reconnaissance aircraft, collect crucial intelligence. To remove such capabilities would be unwise.

In some cases, the fact that large U.S. weapons in Europe serve multiple purposes precludes a dramatic drawdown. U.S. warships, for example, are badly needed in the Indo-Pacific, and Europe has strong naval capabilities already. But many American ships will need to stay where they are. U.S. naval forces in Europe offer a suite of weapons used for different tasks, some of which they must continue to perform in Europe for the foreseeable future. Take the Arleigh Burke–class destroyer, the U.S. Navy’s workhorse. One cannot remove a destroyer’s Tomahawk missiles, whose land-attack function Europe can be expected to replace, without removing its Aegis radars, which are a cornerstone of Europe’s missile defense network. Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarines, a key component of the U.S. nuclear triad, require access to certain naval bases in Europe. Maintaining a presence in Europe—particularly the use of the base in Rota, Spain—is also important for the U.S. Navy’s logistics network and power projection to other regions of the world.

If a U.S. drawdown is executed well, there is little reason to fear it.

The United States clearly should not withdraw all its forces from Europe. Nor should it remove assets too quickly and in too many areas at once, taking away capabilities that Europe’s own militaries cannot satisfactorily replace in the next few years. As Washington plans its withdrawal, it must factor in ambitious but realistic expectations of what Europe’s financial resources, bureaucracies, and defense industrial base can accomplish. Washington must also accept that creating gaps as it draws down will bring some risk—otherwise, the drawdown might never proceed—but it should not recklessly expose Europe to Russian attack.

Radical/fast troop withdrawal is bad

That said, it would be easy to overstate the risks created by U.S. withdrawals and understate Europe’s capability to satisfactorily fill them in. Responsibly managing a drawdown while keeping many essential capabilities in position is not abandoning Europe. But actors with vested interests on both sides of the Atlantic may depict a U.S. withdrawal as such. European leaders who face obstacles in ramping up defense spending and production could cry foul, for example. Supporters of the U.S. Army will also likely argue that because the army is not needed in Asia, it might as well remain in Europe, but this makes no strategic sense when European armies can do the work themselves. To rebut exaggerated claims and resist the pressure to allow unnecessary redundancies, U.S. policymakers must carefully tailor their rhetoric. The way they talk about and carry out U.S. withdrawals must preserve the trust, norms, and processes that give strength to the United States’ relations with Europe. U.S. policymakers, and above all the president, must continue to make clear statements of U.S. support for NATO, clarifying that Washington aims to reform and update the alliance, not to end it.

The drawdown itself should be predictable and focused, proceeding in phases and targeting primarily land power and, to a lesser extent, air power. In the first phase, Washington should withdraw the U.S. forces it surged to Europe in response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Early in the war, U.S. force levels peaked above 100,000—a huge increase from the approximately 60,000 troops stationed on the continent before 2022. These have since been reduced to around 80,000. (The exact numbers change constantly as forces rotate in and out of Europe.) The initial deployment after Russia’s invasion was prudent, given the uncertainty about Russia’s intentions beyond Ukraine, but three years later, it’s clear the threat of an imminent Russian attack is minimal. The Trump administration should therefore announce plans to begin an immediate withdrawal of these forces, to be completed by the end of 2026. In addition to these ground forces, the squadron of U.S. F-35s that is expected to begin operations this fall should join the first round of removals—Europe already has plenty of fighter aircraft of its own and is expecting substantial deliveries of more over the next few years.

Quickly beginning this phase of modest withdrawals will keep the momentum going for Europe to build up its conventional defenses without leaving gaps that are too big for Europe to realistically fill. If Washington were to stop here, however, it would not be doing enough to truly shift the defense burden to Europe’s shoulders. Together, with this first round of cuts, the Trump administration should therefore lay out a broader drawdown of U.S. conventional forces with a deadline of January 2029. This will provide the maximum amount of time for Europe to adjust without the deadline becoming so abstract that momentum dissipates.

Chivvis advocates keeping half of the troops

U.S. troop deployments in Europe are larger than necessary.

This second phase should complete (for now) the restructuring of U.S. forces in Europe, cutting them to roughly half of today’s levels and rebalancing them to include primarily naval forces, a smaller proportion of air power, and a limited number of ground forces. To achieve this force mix, the United States should remove the armored brigade combat team that has been rotating through eastern Europe since 2017, the European combat aviation brigade and artillery capabilities that have been deployed since 2018, and most short-range air defense units. The main purpose of these forces has been to reassure European allies and deter Russia. They have done an excellent job of reassurance—perhaps too good a job. European armies can take over the deterrent function if properly trained and equipped. As U.S. forces are reduced, staff at U.S. headquarters across Europe can also be downsized. Two of the six Arleigh Burke destroyers that the U.S. Navy has sent to Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine should be redeployed to the Indo-Pacific, where the need is greater. Most U.S. fighter aircraft, such as F-35s and F-16s, currently in Europe for deterrent purposes can be removed as well, given Europe’s large and growing stock of high-end aircraft.

The Trump administration should also discuss with France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom, Europe’s strongest military powers, the possibility of naming a European official as Supreme Allied Commander Europe—NATO’s top command post. This high-visibility position has traditionally been held by the commander of U.S. forces in Europe, but giving a European general this responsibility would accelerate the transition to European leadership of European defense. A senior U.S. officer could serve as deputy. For a short period, rotating American officers into the top position at regular intervals could also ease the handoff.

A drawdown would leave a meaningful backstop of U.S. forces in Europe, including two army brigades, support aircraft, and most naval forces. U.S. command and control, special forces, space forces, theater ballistic missile defense, and other elements that only the U.S. military can provide would stay in place. To avoid unnecessarily irking allies, the United States should also continue to contribute a small, low-cost deployment to NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence, a force that helps deter a Russian attack on NATO’s eastern flank. Remaining forces would preserve vital U.S. interests: protecting the U.S. East Coast, maintaining nuclear deterrence, and supporting the country’s world-class collection of intelligence.

Russia’s threat is exaggerated; Europe can defend itself

This risk, however, is ultimately very low. Europe’s current military weaknesses are easily exaggerated, as is Russia’s current conventional threat to NATO. Some European armies do have low readiness levels, but the continent has lots of troops—the members of the European Union alone already have 1.3 million soldiers under arms, roughly the same number as the United States has and slightly more than Russia’s 1.1 million. European combat airpower is highly advanced and could badly weaken Russian forces attempting to invade a Baltic country or Finland. European NATO allies already deploy large units to the Baltics, including German soldiers permanently stationed in Lithuania—something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. And because European forces would be fighting defense should Russia attack, they would not need as many forces as the aggressor to maintain an advantage. Russia, meanwhile, has proved less capable than once feared. For years, frontline countries worried that a lightning-fast Russian operation might topple their governments before allies could come to their aid. In 2022, they all saw that gambit fall apart in Ukraine.

A strong Europe is a more credible deterrent than the US

In the end, a serious, well-equipped European self-defense will be a more credible deterrent to a Russian attack than a relatively weak Europe perpetually reliant on the United States. The continent, after all, will always have a greater interest in fighting a war over its own territory than Washington has in fighting an ocean away. The era in which the United States enjoyed wide latitude to project military power all over the world is long over, and Washington cannot delay making adjustments to avoid a cycle of overspending and relative decline. Downsizing U.S. forces in Europe is a crucial piece of this rebalancing. With a clearly planned and focused drawdown, the United States can allay European fears of U.S. abandonment and retain influence with its allies. The United States needs bold action now to sustain the momentum already underway to realize a credible European self-defense, for its own sake and for Europe’s.

US-NATO ties strong, our evidence post dates

Julian Borger, Pjotr Sauer, and Luke Harding, 7-15, 25, Trump does deal with Nato allies to arm Ukraine and warns Russia of severe sanctions, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/14/trump-does-deal-with-nato-allies-to-arm-ukraine-and-warns-russia-of-severe-sanctions

Trump does deal with Nato allies to arm Ukraine and warns Russia of severe sanctions US president says he will supply Kyiv with billions of dollars of military equipment paid for by European allies Kyiv hails US weapons deal as Moscow dismisses Trump’s sanctions threat Julian Borger, Pjotr Sauer, and Luke Harding in Kyiv Tue 15 Jul 2025 11.51 EDT Share Donald Trump said he has sealed an agreement with Nato allies that will lead to large-scale arms deliveries to Ukraine, including Patriot missiles, and warned Russia that it will face severe sanctions if Moscow does not make peace within 50 days. After a meeting with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, Trump said they had agreed “a very big deal”, in which “billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment is going to be purchased from the United States, going to Nato … And that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.” Speaking in the White House alongside a clearly delighted Rutte, the US president said the arms deliveries would be comprehensive and would include the Patriot missile batteries that Ukraine desperately needs for its air defences against a daily Russian aerial onslaught. “It’s everything: it’s Patriots. It’s all of them. It’s a full complement, with the batteries,” Trump said. He did not go into any more detail, but made clear the weapons would be entirely paid for by Washington’s European allies, and that initial missile deliveries would come “within days” from European stocks, on the understanding they would be replenished with US supplies. At a White House lunch with religious leaders later in the day, Trump said the deal was “fully approved, fully done”. “We’ll send them a lot of weapons of all kinds and they’re going to deliver those weapons immediately … and they’re going to pay,” he said. At his meeting with Trump, Rutte said there was a significant number of Nato allies – including Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada – ready to rearm Ukraine as part of the deal. “They all want to be part of this. And this is only the first wave. There will be more,” he said. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said last week that Berlin was ready to acquire additional Patriot systems. Trump claimed there was one country, which he did not name, but which had “17 Patriots getting ready to be shipped”. Monday’s deal would include that stockpile, or “a big portion of the 17”, he said. Such an arms delivery would represent a significant reinforcement of Ukraine’s air defences. Kyiv is currently thought to have only six Patriot batteries, at a time when it is coming under frequent and intense Russian drone and missile bombardments. At the same time, Trump expressed increased frustration with Vladimir Putin, whom he accused of giving the impression of pursuing peace while intensifying attacks on Ukrainian cities. He gave the Russian president a new deadline of 50 days to end the fighting or face 100% tariffs on Russian goods, and more importantly, sweeping “secondary tariffs”, suggesting trade sanctions would be imposed on countries who continue to pay for Russian oil and other commodities. “The secondary tariffs are very, very powerful,” the president said. The announcement marked a dramatic change for the administration, both in substance and tone. The Trump White House had not only made clear it would continue its predecessor’s policy of continuing to supply Ukraine out of US stocks, but the president and his top officials have been derisive about Kyiv’s chances of prevailing. Trump’s hazy Ukraine arms announcement marks a tonal U-turn Read more On Monday, Trump delivered his most admiring language on Ukraine and its European backers to date, with Rutte on one side and the US vice-president, JD Vance, the administration’s biggest sceptic on US involvement in Europe, on the other. “They fought with tremendous courage, and they continue to fight with tremendous courage,” Trump said of the Ukrainians. “Europe has a lot of spirit for this war,” he said, suggesting he had been taken by surprise by the level of commitment shown by European allies at the Nato summit in The Hague last month. “The level of esprit de corps spirit that they have is amazing,” he said. “They really think it’s very, very important. “Having a strong Europe is a very good thing. It’s a very good thing. So I’m okay with it,” he said. Trump described his deepening disillusion with Putin, and suggested his wife, Melania, may have played a role in pointing out the Russian leader’s duplicity in talks over a peace deal. Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special representative to Ukraine, in Kyiv. Kyiv hails US weapons deal as Moscow dismisses Trump’s sanctions threat Read more “My conversations with him are always very pleasant. I say, isn’t that a very lovely conversation? And then the missiles go off that night,” Trump said. “I go home, I tell the first lady: I spoke with Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation. She said: Really? Another city was just hit.” Ukrainian regional officials reported at least six civilians killed and 30 injured by Russian bombing in the past 24 hours. The country’s air force said Moscow had attacked with 136 drones and four S-300 or S-400 missiles. “Look, I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy. It’s been proven over the years. He’s fooled a lot of people,” Trump said, listing his predecessors in the White House. “He didn’t fool me. But what I do say is that at a certain point, ultimately talk doesn’t talk. It’s got to be action,” he said. Quick Guide Contact us about this story Show Russian officials and pro-war bloggers on Monday largely shrugged off Trump’s announcement, declaring it to be less significant than anticipated.

NATO nuclear credibility collapsing, Europe needs a unified nuclear deterrent to prevent Russian coercion

Nino Lomidze, July 7, 2025, Russia’s Nuclear Strategy Post-Ukraine and Future of European Warfare, https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/07/07/russias-nuclear-strategy-post-ukraine-and-future-of-european-warfare/ Russia has transformed its nuclear strategy following the 2022 Ukraine invasion, which integrates nuclear signaling into conventional conflict through calculated ambiguity and graduated escalation. This article reveals how Russia employs nuclear gestures not primarily to deter nuclear attacks but to discourage Western proactiveness. This strategic shift presents unique challenges for European security architecture, requiring fundamental reassessment of deterrence frameworks across five dimensions: capability, institutional, normative, perceptual, and alliance. As traditional boundaries between war and peace fade, European nations must develop new cooperative approaches to nuclear policy while maintaining credible deterrence in an era of strategic uncertainty. In the post-Cold War era, the assumption that nuclear deterrence had reached a stable equilibrium guided much of international security thinking. However, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine marked a pivotal moment that fundamentally altered this paradigm. Analysis of Russia’s deliberate integration of nuclear signaling into conventional conflict illuminates the emerging contours of future warfare—characterized not by clear lines between nuclear and conventional domains, but by calculated ambiguity, psychological manipulation, and graduated escalation. As traditional boundaries between war and peace become increasingly blurred, Europe faces the task of developing new strategic approaches that can effectively respond to these evolving threats while maintaining regional stability. Russia has significantly altered its nuclear strategy since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Prior to this, in 2020, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the presidential executive order “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence,” which outlined a broadened deterrence strategy. This framework defined nuclear deterrence not solely as a military-technical measure but as a comprehensive approach incorporating economic, informational, and political instruments targeted at both nuclear and non-nuclear states. The main goal of this strategy is not to deter a nuclear or ballistic missile attack but to discourage Western powers from intervening in the war—especially through military aid. This approach challenges long-standing nuclear deterrence concepts, which were originally developed during the Cold War to prevent direct nuclear confrontation between superpowers. Russia has now unilaterally incorporated nuclear saber-rattling and brinkmanship into the realm of conventional and regional conflicts, marking a significant shift in the character and scope of nuclear strategy. Russia’s new nuclear strategy includes nuclear gestures, threatening public declarations, information operations, and military tests and drills involving dual-capable weapons. Scholars of the Russian nuclear strategy argue that Russia tries to expand its “rungs of the nuclear escalation ladder.” Deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, the use of nuclear-capable Oreshnik ICBMs in Ukraine, and Russian officials’ rhetoric about not-unthinkable possible nuclear escalation represent Russia’s accelerated and demanding nuclear posture towards not only Ukraine but NATO too. These “rungs” give Russia the capacityto coerce other states and have influence on decision-makers in the West. The Kremlin views nuclear saber-rattling as a multi-step strategy. While it may not lead to the actual use of non-tactical nuclear weapons, its strength lies in shaping the perceptions of adversaries. The current period represents great turbulence for European security architecture, with Russia’s aggressive nuclear strategy introducing additional complications. One of the most significant and unusual challenges facing European states is the absence of a coherent framework for common security and defense policy—particularly regarding nuclear issues. Crucially, the current nuclear challenge diverges sharply from the structured, bipolar tensions of the 20th century. Today’s nuclear landscape is broader, more diffuse, and strategically complex. Russia’s evolving doctrine extends beyond traditional deterrence, targeting not only regional adversaries but also aiming to obstruct Western military support to Ukraine. The diverse nature of these threats suggests that future conflict in Europe will revolve less around direct military confrontation and more around the manipulation of psychological thresholds, often avoiding clear and decisive military escalation. Regardless of how the war in Ukraine ultimately concludes, Europe and the West cannot evade addressing fundamental security and defense issues, which must necessarily include nuclear considerations related to Russia. In the EU, security and defense remain domains primarily under national jurisdiction, and concurrently, the credibility of US extended nuclear deterrence has been undermined following the Trump administration’s inauguration and subsequent turbulence in transatlantic relations. Russia’s sophisticated nuclear maneuvering presents significant countering difficulties because individual nuclear gestures often fall below thresholds that would incite direct response—they are neither sufficiently aggressive nor substantial enough to warrant comprehensive counter-strategy implementation, but they do exist as an elephant in the room. This approach resembles “salami slicing” tactics—employing various low- or medium-level hostile acts, such as threatening public statements or provocative military exercises. Such strategies create a dilemma when responding to every provocation becomes impractical, while ignoring all acts of hostility appears equally problematic. Furthermore, if this strategy demonstrates effectiveness, it will likely encourage further strategic thinking centered on micro-escalation and ambiguous thresholds. The key strategic challenge for Europe lies not only in redesigning its defense and security posture but also in reassessing the evolving nature of warfare itself—one that is unlikely to be clear-cut, decisive, or sharply defined. Russia’s bold and increasingly coercive nuclear doctrine necessitates a fundamental redefinition of the established concept of hybrid warfare. This reimagined framework must incorporate elements such as nuclear ambiguity, graduated escalation, blurred boundaries between political and military domains, and sustained brinkmanship as core features of future conflict. Europe possesses two nuclear powers—the United Kingdom and France—each with very distinct national nuclear strategies emerging from country-specific historical contexts and strategic visions. With the resurgence of security and defense discourse, the need for integration of nuclear issues alongside other conventional and unconventional warfare considerations is apparent. These dynamics may catalyze recalibration of strategic thinking regarding nuclear provocations and signaling. Beyond enhancing relevant military capabilities, the European community requires a coherent vision determining how to interpret Russia’s nuclear provocations, distinguishing which actions warrant a response and which should be disregarded. Thus, the challenge that the European community faces can be divided into five parts: Capability dimension for strengthening military tools to respond to an adversary; Institutional dimension to define which organizational structure will coordinate the common policy; Normative dimension to establish shared understanding of Russia’s nuclear behavior; Perceptual dimension to manage psychological factors and risk assessment; and Alliance dimension to coordinate policies with non-European, most expectedly transatlantic partners. Russia’s use of nuclear signaling within conventional operations has created a strategic gray zone, where traditional deterrence is no longer sufficient. The future of Eurasian geopolitics will likely be characterized by broad nuclear gestures and blurry boundaries between a real threat and a bluff. But success will depend on multi-dimensional resilience—the ability to interpret ambiguous signals, maintain a strategic perspective, and respond proportionately. By addressing these five dimensions holistically, Europe can develop the strategic autonomy necessary to navigate this complex landscape while preserving regional stability in an era of nuclear renaissance.

NATO strong now, US committed

Pilip Timotija – 07/05/25, The Hill, NATO chief praises Trump’s commitment to alliance, https://thehill.com/policy/international/5386353-nato-mark-rutte-donald-trump/ NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte praised President Trump’s commitment to the military alliance during a recent interview and said the president deserves credit for pushing the 32-nation members to spend more of their gross domestic product on defense. Rutte, in an interview with The New York Times released Saturday, said he is “confident of the fact that Trump very much realizes that for the U.S. to stay strong and safe, there is this embeddedness with European security and working together to keep the Indo-Pacific safe.” Rutte, who invoked the word “daddy” when celebrating Trump’s f-bomb when discussing Israel and Iran’s ceasefire on live television, argued the president’s leadership helped NATO allies commit to spending five percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2035. “I think when somebody deserves praise, that praise should be given. And President Trump deserves all the praise, because without his leadership, without him being re-elected president of the United States, the 2 percent this year and the 5 percent in 2035 — we would never, ever, ever have been able to achieve agreement on this,” Rutte told the newspaper. Trump has been pushing NATO allies to spend more on their military and better share the burden of collective defense, arguing European nations have not chipped in enough. Up Next – The Hill’s Headlines – July 4, 2025 While members have committed to spending more on defense, some NATO nations have not yet surpassed the 2 percent threshold set for 2014. The president shared a private message from Rutte in June where the NATO chief congratulated Trump on greenlighting U.S. strikes on Iran’s three crucial nuclear sites. In the message, Rutte said Trump’s decision “makes us all safer.” In the message, Rutte, the former prime minister of the Netherlands, said Trump was “flying into another big success in The Hague … It was not easy, but we’ve got them all signed onto 5 percent.” When asked if he minded that Trump made the text public ahead of this summer’s NATO summit, Rutte told The Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro, “not at all, because what was in the text message is exactly as I see it.” “One, that he did an excellent job on Iran with the bombing of the nuclear facility,” the NATO head added. “And as I said in that text message, you are now flying into another big success, which is a NATO summit, which will commit to 5 percent defense spending, and this is transformational.”

The NPT is already dead

Jess Daly, 7-1, 25, Who Holds Nuclear Weapons Today and How Russia is Undermining the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Who Holds Nuclear Weapons Today and How Russia is Undermining the Non-Proliferation Treaty, https://united24media.com/world/who-holds-nuclear-weapons-today-and-how-russia-is-undermining-the-non-proliferation-treaty-9442 Does the Non-Proliferation Treaty still work? The NPT has been partially successful in curbing nuclear weapons proliferation; countries such as France and the UK abide strictly by its obligations and use nuclear weapons only as a safeguard. However, several countries have been accused or confirmed to have violated the NPT, either by conducting undeclared nuclear activities, pursuing weapons programmes, or breaching their obligations. Russia is developing new nuclear ‘warfighting’ systems and has demonstrated irresponsible nuclear signalling designed to deter NATO support during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China is rapidly expanding and modernising its nuclear arsenal; the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is continuing with its destabilising nuclear weapons programme; and Iran’s escalating nuclear activity continues to pose risks. UK Ministry of Defense For more than a decade, the US government has had concerns about China’s proliferation of nuclear missile-related technology to other countries. While the US says that China has ended its direct involvement, Chinese-based companies and individuals continue to export relevant goods, specifically to Iran and North Korea, US Congress reported in April 2025. The US launched an attack on June 22 on Iran’s nuclear sites due to its expanding uranium enrichment program, reportedly leading the nation dangerously close to nuclear weapon capabilities, which Tehran denies. Iran is an NNWS, and says that it has a legitimate right to use nuclear energy peacefully. In recent years, positioned as civilian aid, Russia has accelerated Iran’s nuclear capabilities, technically bringing it closer to a weapons-grade threshold, against its obligation as part of the NPT. Read more After Pummelling Ukrainian Cities, Russia Condemns Israeli Strikes on Iran, Forgetting “to Look in the Mirror” Author Photo of Vlad Litnarovych Vlad Litnarovych Category Latest news After Pummelling Ukrainian Cities, Russia Condemns Israeli Strikes on Iran, Forgetting “to Look in the Mirror” Jun 13, 2025 14:21 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stresses that Iran has nuclear weapons, which began tensions and conflict in the region. However, Israel also has nuclear weapons and is not an NWS, nor has it signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and has since tested nuclear weapons. Libya reportedly engaged in covert nuclear activities by acquiring blueprints for nuclear weapons through a black market, with a network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Libya was then able to process uranium through a series of deals involving North Korea and Pakistan. Recent US–Iran negotiations have prompted analysts and policymakers to invoke the so-called “Libya model”—a reference to Libya’s voluntary dismantling of its nuclear program in exchange for diplomatic and economic benefits. How Russia undermines the Non-Proliferation Treaty Nuclear blackmail Russia is widely seen as the key underminer of the treaty’s credibility. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has repeatedly resorted to nuclear threats to intimidate the West and deter support for Ukraine. Russia’s threats have delayed response from the West, such as prividing Kyiv with Germany’s Taurus missile, amid fears of escalating tensions. Russia’s “nuclear blackmail” is widely seen as a violation of the NPT, which calls for states to pursue disarmament. The NPT’s restriction on Ukraine maintaining nuclear weapons has left Kyiv without a nuclear deterrent in the face of Russia’s escalating aggression since 2014. A Timeline of Russia’s Nuclear Threats Against the West Read more Category War in Ukraine A Timeline of Russia’s Nuclear Threats Against the West Jun 27, 2024 16:48 Removing itself from arms treaties Russia has withdrawn from several arms control measures: In February 2023, Moscow suspended its participation in the New START Treaty, the final remaining bilateral treaty with the United States limiting strategic nuclear arsenals. While not officially withdrawn, the suspension effectively eliminated inspection rights and data sharing, both core treaty obligations. In October 2023, Russia revoked its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), continuing to adopt an aggressive nuclear stance throughout its war in Ukraine. In 2019, Russia withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which aimed to eliminate ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500km (300 to 3,400miles) Read more 48 Nations Demand Russia Withdraw from Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant in IAEA Joint Statement Author Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko Dariia Mykhailenko Category Latest news 48 Nations Demand Russia Withdraw from Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant in IAEA Joint Statement Jun 13, 2025 10:56 Accelerating Iran and North Korea’s nuclear capabilities Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, military cooperation with Iran and North Korea has accelerated, including directly supporting their nuclear weapons programs. Russia has “abandoned” its role in the NPT, “instead fostering nuclear proliferation to further its military objectives”, the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) says. Russia provides Iran with nuclear scientific support, engaging in covert meetings to further Iran’s expertise. Iranian scientists have visited Russian nuclear laboratories, and Russian scientists have directly contributed by developing a detonator and high explosive for its nuclear program. More than one million people gathered on Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, January 2003, to hail North Korea’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) (Source: Xinhau via Getty Images) More than one million people gathered on Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, January 2003, to hail North Korea’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) (Source: Xinhau via Getty Images) Russia’s deepening relationship with North Korea is particularly alarming, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says. Russia has notably enhanced North Korea’s KN-23 ballistic missiles, also known as Hwasong-11, improving their effectiveness in striking civilian targets in Ukraine. These missiles are dual-capable, designed to carry both conventional and nuclear warheads. In exchange for nuclear support, Iran and North Korea have provided Russia with drones, missiles, and other arms. North Korea has also sent troops to aid Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with more expected in July 2025. Moscow’s abandonment of non-proliferation principles could signal to other countries that there are fewer consequences for pursuing nuclear weapons, encouraging proliferation around the globe. Center for Strategic and International Studies Together, these actions have weakened the core norms of non-proliferation, signaling Russia’s willingness to use nuclear threats as a tool of coercion. Russia’s actions continue to violate the treaty and risk further destabilizing the already fragile global nuclear order.

US security guarantees to Europe no longer credible

Kori Schake, July/August 2025, Dispensable Nation: America in a Post-American World, KORI SCHAKE is a Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Safe Passage: The Transition From British to American Hegemony. She served on the National Security Council and in the U.S. State Department during the George W. Bush administration, Dispensable Nation America in a Post-American Worldhttps://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/dispensable-nation-schake In the years to come, a Russian encroachment onto the territory of a Baltic member of NATO, coupled with threats to use nuclear weapons if NATO resisted, could fracture the West. The Trump administration might be unwilling to trade New York for Tallinn—and France, Germany, and the United Kingdom might fold, too. A Europe consumed with such insecurity wouldn’t be particularly keen to help Washington deal with Chinese military and commercial aggression or to help constrain the Iranian nuclear program. Trump routinely calls into question the reliability of U.S. security guarantees by demonstrating his indifference to the security of treaty allies that do not spend what he considers to be the proper amount on defense. And the shameful way that he equates Russia’s aggression against Ukraine with that country’s heroic defense of its sovereignty has eroded the sense of basic American morality—imperfect and inconsistent though it might be—that attracts cooperation from like-minded countries. If U.S. policies are overtly amoral and thus indistinguishable from those of China and Russia, other countries might opt to side with those powers, betting that at least their behavior will be more predictable. A BAD BET The Trump administration may be relying on the antipathy that U.S. allies feel toward the ideologies that guide American rivals such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. In this view, even if U.S. partners don’t like certain things Washington does, they’re ultimately going to stick with the United States out of a sense of democratic solidarity. But U.S. allies easily overcame whatever ideological objections they may have had and continued trading with Russia after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine, and with China despite its repression of Uyghurs and its crackdown in Hong Kong in recent years. Besides, the Trump administration itself hardly considers ideological differences to be an obstacle to cooperation. A mismatch between American and Russian values has not prevented Trump from taking Moscow’s side in the Ukraine war. Under his administration, Washington won’t be “giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs,” Trump assured a gathering of investors and Saudi leaders in May. If Washington doesn’t act as if ideology matters, it shouldn’t expect that others will. Trump and his team may also believe that the convergence of Chinese, Iranian, North Korean, and Russian power is of such magnitude that European resistance would prove futile without American heft. Better, in this view, to revive the nineteenth-century practice of the great powers dividing up the world. Doing so, however, would concede Europe to Russia and Asia to China, which would constitute a colossal loss. Moreover, there is no reason to assume that such concessions would slake Chinese and Russian ambitions: consider, for example, what Beijing’s massive investments in Latin America and attempts to corrupt the Canadian political system suggest about Chinese intentions. Another potential explanation for the Trump administration’s approach is that it sees most forms of alliance management as at best a distraction from and generally an impediment to winning the contest with China. Trump administration officials would hate the comparison, but that position is a continuation of the Biden administration’s argument that the most important thing for the United States is to strengthen itself at home: to have the best economy, the most innovative technology, and the strongest military. According to this logic, winning in those dimensions will draw global support because people like to be on the side of a winner. But that won’t be the case if others don’t have access to the American market or if they consider American technology dangerous to them or believe the U.S. military offers them no genuine protection. The United States should, of course, strengthen itself. But when it does so without benefiting others, they will try to shield themselves and limit their exposure to American power. And if Trump is truly aiming to make the country stronger abroad by making it stronger at home, he is doing so in a curious way. The administration’s ill-conceived tariffs are increasing market volatility and making business planning practically impossible. Republican legislation advocated by Trump is likely to explode the deficit and increase inflation. The association of U.S. technology titans with the administration’s assault on government agencies and the rule of law is damaging their brands and imperiling their market values and adoption rates. And according to the defense analyst Todd Harrison, the budget proposal Trump has championed would result in a $31.5 billion reduction in defense spending in 2026 compared with what the Biden administration had projected for that year, which was itself inadequate to the security challenges the country faces. This is an agenda for weakness, not strength. NEITHER FEARED NOR LOVED Trump and his team are destroying everything that makes the United States an attractive partner because they fail to imagine just how bad an order antagonistic to American interests would be. The United States’ indispensability was not inevitable. In the post–Cold War world, the country became indispensable by taking responsibility for the security and prosperity of countries that agreed to play by rules that Washington established and enforced. If the United States itself abandons those rules and the system they created, it will become wholly expendable. The self-destruction of American power in the Trump years is likely to puzzle future historians. During the post–Cold War era, the United States achieved unprecedented dominance, and maintaining it was relatively easy and inexpensive. All of Trump’s predecessors in that period made errors, some of which significantly reduced U.S. influence, aided the country’s adversaries, and limited Washington’s ability to induce cooperation or compliance on the part of other countries. But none of those predecessors intended such outcomes. Trump, on the other hand, wants a world in which the United States, although still rich and powerful, no longer actively shapes the global order to its advantage. He would prefer to lead a country that is feared rather than loved. But his approach is unlikely to foster either emotion. If it stays on the path Trump has started down, the United States risks becoming too brutal to love but too irrelevant to fear.

A European nuclear deterrent is more credible and reduces escalation risks

Anton Meier, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, July 3, 2025, “Paris for Berlin” Is Better: A Case for Strengthening Europe’s Nuclear Deterrence, https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/paris-for-berlin-is-better-a-case-for-strengthening-europes-nuclear-deterrence/ In a recent opinion piece here on the Geopolitical Monitor, it has been argued that solely European nuclear deterrence cannot resolve the so-called “New York-for-Paris Dilemma.” However, this argument fails to appreciate European geography and identity, as well as the slow but steady development of strategic thinking among European states. While there will likely never be a ‘big red button’ controlled by Brussels, this does not mean that Europe should not, or cannot, pursue a more integrated and credible nuclear deterrent posture to reduce its dependence on the United States. Here, I argue that “Paris for Berlin” is a better answer to the credible commitment problem of extended deterrence than “New York for Paris.” Political Will, Not Just Military Capabilities Nuclear weapons in Europe are, and will remain, the sovereign responsibility of two individual states, France and the United Kingdom. It is common knowledge that the United Kingdom contributes to NATO’s deterrence and defence as a member of the Nuclear Planning Group, while France does not. Nevertheless, various European nuclear projects have been proposed by France since the 1950s. The most prominent example is President Macron’s speech in January 2024 at the Swedish Defence University, where he stated that “French vital interests have a European dimension.” However, as early as 1995, President Chirac put forward the concept of “concerted deterrence.” Similar to Macron, Chirac invited European allies to cooperate on European deterrence. It is true that France’s absence from NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group is an institutional limitation, but it is hardly insurmountable. France has already demonstrated a willingness to adapt its NATO engagement in the past by rejoining NATO’s integrated military command structure in 2009. If the need arises, it is a credible possibility that they will join the NPG, especially if it is no longer under US leadership. Furthermore, the structure of a European deterrent does not need to be identical to NATO’s existing model or even within a NATO framework. It is imaginable that European allies develop a novel consultation mechanism similar to NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group either as its own format or under the European Union’s umbrella. Nevertheless, NATO expertise, procedures, and infrastructure would be invaluable for any future arrangement and offer credibility based on path dependency. It is often argued that American commitment is misjudged and that, in reality, the bipartisan support for NATO and extended nuclear deterrence is steadfast. This might be the case, or it might not. But certainty is equally essential for nuclear deterrence as credibility and capabilities are. Due to the unpredictability of the current US administration, the resolve of the United States is as ambiguous as French doctrine. Domestic political instability is a valid concern for extended deterrence, be it by France or the United States. Political will is never guaranteed. But doctrines can evolve as well. The point is not to build a flawless system, but a credible and adaptive one. While there is no unified European nuclear arsenal, this does not preclude the development of a more formalised collective nuclear deterrence posture. Currently, France and the United Kingdom do not offer extended deterrence like the United States does. But this can change. A framework in which France and the UK explicitly extend their nuclear umbrellas to European allies, through doctrine, joint exercises, and nuclear sharing arrangements, would not only strengthen deterrence itself but also provide an urgently needed political signal of European resolve. Of course, the fundamental commitment issue of extended deterrence remains: would a state really sacrifice one of its own cities for the sake of an ally? The answer becomes less abstract when the trade-off is “Paris-for-Berlin” or “London-for-Warsaw,” rather than “New York-for-Paris.” The psychological and political calculus shifts dramatically when nuclear escalation unfolds on one’s own continent. The proximity of European capitals geographically, but also politically and socially, means that any nuclear aggression would inevitably affect all of Europe, regardless of initial targets. Therefore, extended deterrence offered by a European state will inherently be more credible than anything the United States can offer. The Curse of Geography As President Macron rightly noted, it is unimaginable that a threat to one European ally would not also be a threat to France, or the United Kingdom. This is not a rhetorical figure but a geographic reality. Unlike the United States, Europe is compact and densely interconnected. A nuclear strike anywhere in Europe would have political, environmental, and humanitarian consequences across borders. In this context, European extended deterrence should be considered significantly more credible than what the United States offers. Additionally, the close proximity makes lower-yield or “tactical” nuclear war not merely undesirable, but strategically suicidal. Europe cannot afford to fight a nuclear war on its own soil. This makes the development of a distinctly European nuclear doctrine essential. While such a doctrine does not yet exist, the debate must begin. It should be shaped by a clear rejection of nuclear warfighting and guided by the need for credible deterrence through the threat of unacceptable retaliation. The shared geography, history, and increasing sense of political identity among Europeans, despite all internal disagreements, provide a basis for this doctrine that is stronger than outside observers often assume. Capabilities and Credibility The often-invoked distinction between tactical and strategic weapons also obscures more than it reveals. A weapon’s impact depends on its use and context, not just its range or yield. It is questionable whether Russia is likely to escalate less merely because a lower-yield device is used to target a strategic vulnerability. Once a nuclear threshold is crossed, the dynamics of escalation become dangerously unpredictable. In such a scenario, a French “warning shot” could in fact be a more credible tool for signalling resolve and managing escalation than the existing US lower-yield nuclear weapons forward deployed in Europe. Furthermore, even after the recent completion of their Life Extension Program, systems such as the outdated B-61s have little to no real utility today, especially in warfighting. As General Cartwright already noted in 2012: “[the B61 nuclear bombs] military utility is practically nil. They do not have assigned missions as part of any war plan and remain deployed today only for political reasons within the NATO alliance.” For this reason, and the previously established argument that Europe should have no interest in nuclear warfighting, the argument that only the United States’ lower-yield nuclear weapons can guarantee a proportionate response should be rejected.

A small number of nukes can deter

Sceptics rightly point to the UK’s technical dependence on the United States and the absence of a full nuclear triad in either British or French forces. These are undoubtedly important limitations. But nuclear deterrence is not a numbers game. No one questions North Korea’s resolve because of its smaller arsenal. And China, despite possessing far fewer warheads, raises serious strategic concerns in Washington. Credibility is not about symmetry; it is about the assured ability and political will to impose unacceptable costs. Whether hundreds or thousands of nuclear weapons are necessary to achieve more deterrent value is not really the central question. Russia has relatively few population and military centres of strategic value, and the combined existing European arsenals have more than sufficient capabilities to threaten them numerically. That said, modernisation and expansion, particularly in the form of mobile land-based missiles and nuclear submarines, would significantly bolster deterrence. In the face of the limited number of European nuclear weapons, an assured second-strike capability is crucial. Investments in survivability are imperative. The United Kingdom’s decision to procure F-35As capable of carrying nuclear weapons is a step in the right direction. It improves capabilities and shows resolve. Most importantly, it reflects the acknowledgement of a new threat environment and highlights that European states are willing to adapt their capabilities, policies, and doctrines. Conventional deterrence must be prioritized Anton Meier, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, July 3, 2025, “Paris for Berlin” Is Better: A Case for Strengthening Europe’s Nuclear Deterrence, https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/paris-for-berlin-is-better-a-case-for-strengthening-europes-nuclear-deterrence/ Conventional Deterrence Still Comes First To be clear, nuclear deterrence is only part of the equation. Europe’s first and most immediate defence priority must be a stronger conventional posture, particularly deep strike capabilities which can have strategic effects comparable to nuclear weapons in degrading adversary capabilities and deterrence. Conventional deterrence and defence capability are crucial for preventing conflict reaching the nuclear threshold. Furthermore, strong conventional deep strike capabilities could be used for flexible and tailored response options as an alternative to lower-yield nuclear weapons. The most likely Russian strategy in a confrontation will be to achieve a fait accompli in the Baltic, followed by nuclear blackmail to break NATO allies’ resolve and disunite the alliance, possibly accompanied by conventional long-range strikes. In this scenario, the use of lower-yield nuclear weapons by a NATO ally is highly unlikely.

A European deterrent works

The paradox of nuclear deterrence is that it aims to prevent the very war it prepares for. In Europe’s case, the path to preventing nuclear war may lie in taking greater responsibility for its own nuclear deterrence. This does not mean duplicating the United States arsenal or decoupling from NATO. Every effort should be undertaken to prevent nuclear war, and all Europeans should hope that the United States remains a close partner. Nevertheless, to take on greater responsibility means building a more European framework that is credible, connected, and resilient. The “New York-for-Paris Dilemma” remains, but can be mitigated by a “Paris-for-Berlin” approach, which is more credible due to geographic proximity and a shared European identity. Deterrence, after all, is socially constructed both in the mind of the derring and the deterred. Its success depends as much on political will and strategic signalling as on technical capabilities. Europe must not talk itself out of deterring. With the right vision and cooperation, a stronger European deterrent posture is not only necessary but also feasible.

France transferring nuclear know-how violates the NPT

Tsvetana Paraskova – Jul 02, 2025, Can Europe Build Its Own Atomic Arsenal?, https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Can-Europe-Build-Its-Own-Atomic-Arsenal.html

Yet, there are challenges. The UK and France, the only two nuclear powers in Europe, are signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Article 1 of said Treaty states that “Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices.”

Under the NPT, France cannot engage in nuclear sharing

Europe creating a Eurobomb would destroy nonproliferation globally

Kevin Holden Platt, July 1, 2025, Forbes, Could Europe Create An Independent Nuclear Arsenal To Fend Off Russia?, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinholdenplatt/2025/06/30/could-europe-create-an-independent-nuclear-arsenal-to-fend-off-russia/ Physicists outside of Britain and France are likely to head any Euro-project to build a bomb, and would likely rely on sophisticated next-generation simulation software—run on supercomputers—to test each advance made in this quest. Any nation joining this campaign that is also a signatory to the NPT would have to withdraw from that treaty, Bollfrass says. As a series of European nations begins quitting the NPT, he adds, Europe as a whole would be rapidly transformed from one of the world’s strongest proponents of nuclear disarmament into a new symbol of hard nuclear power. As they progress in the building of an atomic stockpile, allies in this nuclear confederation would also have to agree on a collective nuclear doctrine spelling out the essential preconditions for the use of these weapons, and form a command-and-control center that could issue lightning-speed decisions on launching a retaliatory strike on a first-use attacker. The emergence of an ascendant atomic power, and the mass abandonment of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, he predicts, might spark a new nuclear ams race that ricochets around the world.

No Eurobomb now, Trump nuclear assurances are strong

Germany developing its own nuclear deterrent

Nette Nöstlinger, German conservative leader calls for European nuclear deterrent ‘independent’ from US, https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-conservative-jens-spahn-european-nuclear-deterrent-independent-us/ BERLIN — A leading politician in Germany’s governing Christian Democratic Union said the country should take part in a European nuclear umbrella or face becoming a “pawn” on the world stage. “We should have a debate about an independent European nuclear umbrella, and that will only work with German leadership,” Jens Spahn, the conservatives’ parliamentary group leader told German newspaper Welt. “If you can’t provide a nuclear deterrent, you become a pawn in world politics.” Spahn’s comments show that, despite conservative German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent professions of faith in the durability of NATO and the U.S.’s role in the alliance, his conservatives are considering contingency plans to protect Germany and Europe. “Europe must become a deterrent,” said Spahn in the interview with Welt, which is owned by POLITICO parent company Axel Springer. “American nuclear bombs are also stationed in Germany for this purpose. But that is not enough in the long term. We need to talk about German or European participation in the nuclear arsenal of France and the U.K., possibly also about our own participation with other European states. That will cost a lot of money. But if you want protection, you have to finance it.” Merz raised the issue of a homegrown nuclear deterrent in February while he was still a candidate for chancellor. “We need to have discussions with both the British and the French — the two European nuclear powers — about whether nuclear sharing, or at least nuclear security … could also apply to us,” Merz said at the time.

Germany will not develop its own nuclear weapons

Oliver Towfigh Nia, June 30, 2025, Germany says no imminent plans to obtain nuclear weapons, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/germany-says-no-imminent-plans-to-obtain-nuclear-weapons/3617764 Germany said on Monday that it has no immediate plans to acquire nuclear weapons, following a call from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s close political ally for his country to have access to the UK and France’s nuclear arsenals. “Germany is not on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons,” government spokesman Stefan Merz told reporters in Berlin. He reiterated that his government “does not seek nuclear weapons,” just a day after Jens Spahn, head of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, urged his country to join the nuclear weapons umbrella of Great Britain and France. “Europe must become capable of deterrence. For this purpose, American atomic bombs are stationed in Germany. But this is not enough in the long term. We must talk about German or European participation in the nuclear arsenal of France and Great Britain,” Spahn said in an interview with the daily Welt newspaper over the weekend. As a result of its aggressor role in World War II, Germany has committed to non-nuclear defense in international treaties, which prohibit it from acquiring nuclear weapons while also cooperating in NATO weapons-sharing agreements. On March 9, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that he hoped the US nuclear umbrella would remain in place and that a European shield should be viewed as a “complement” to it.

France will not give Germany access to its nuclear weapons

RBC Ukraine, June 28, 2025, https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/germany-backs-european-nuclear-umbrella-here-1751130697.html, Germany backs European ‘nuclear umbrella’: Here’s what Berlin proposes, https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/germany-backs-european-nuclear-umbrella-here-1751130697.html Germany may gain access to France’s and the United Kingdom’s nuclear warheads as part of creating a pan-European “nuclear umbrella.” Or it may take a leading role in developing new European nuclear weapons, Welt reports, citing the Head of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Jens Spahn.”Europe must become capable of deterrence. For this purpose, among other things, American atomic bombs are stationed in Germany. But this is not enough in the long term,” Spahn told journalists.In his opinion, there are obstacles on the path to joint use of nuclear weapons. For example, France is unlikely to agree to give Germany access to its nuclear weapons.

France could put nuclear fighter jets in other countries

RBC Ukraine, February 25, 2025, France may deploy nuclear fighter jets in Germany – The Telegraph, https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/france-may-deploy-nuclear-fighter-jets-in-1740469710.html France is ready to use its nuclear deterrent to help defend Europe. Nuclear-capable fighter jets could be deployed to Germany, according to The Telegraph. The option of deploying French nuclear fighter jets in Germany has been considered amid US statements about the withdrawal of its troops from the continent. A French official told The Telegraph that the deployment of the fighter jets would send a signal to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. And it should also force British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to do the same as France. “Posting a few French nuclear jet fighters in Germany should not be difficult and would send a strong message,” the source said. The United States has long guaranteed the security of Europe with about 100 nuclear missiles in its arsenal, many of which are deployed at the American military base in Germany. France’s nuclear deterrent is currently independent of NATO, while the UK’s deterrent is a key part of the alliance’s defense strategy.

Iran strikes and new spending commitments prove NATO is strong

Cimbala & Korb, 6-28, 25, Stephen Cimbala is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State Brandywine and the author of numerous books and articles on international security issues. Lawrence Korb is a retired Navy captain and has held national security positions at several think tanks and served in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration, What the US Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Program Means for NATO, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-the-us-strikes-on-irans-nuclear-program-means-for-nato The United States’ show of force on June 22, 2025, in destroying much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure also sends a message to NATO, and also to our other American great power adversaries in Beijing and Moscow. The message pertains to the distinction between transactional deterrence and existential deterrence. NATO leaders, including US President Donald Trump, are now committed to an expansion of their defense spending to support Ukraine against continuing Russian aggression. The United States and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called for all members of the alliance to commit themselves to increased defense spending of five percent of each state’s gross domestic product (GDP). How Will NATO Spend 5 Percent of Every Nation’s GDP? Three and one-half percent of that increase was to be devoted to “hard” military purchases, such as weapons systems and urgently needed defense-related infrastructure. Further, an additional one and a half percent would be more flexible in its allocation of funds, but presumably still defense-related. Despite some grumbling from some members (ie. Spain), the alliance set a target date of 2032 for these fiscal commitments to be honored by all, although no one will be surprised if the date is extended to 2035. Increases in NATO budgets for defense are certainly welcome. They should help to send a message of reassurance to Ukraine as it continues to fight for its survival, despite enormous losses of life among its armed forces and civilian population. On the other hand, allocating more funds to Ukraine and increasing NATO’s budgets do not necessarily enhance the quality of deterrence. This is because there is a difference between transactional and existential deterrence. Transactional deterrence refers to providing the military and political means for preparing for war, to avoid war, especially on unfavorable terms. But transactional deterrence can fall short of fulfilling the more ambitious requirements for existential deterrence, instilling fear in one’s enemies. They should not only be impressed by your military potential for resistance to coercion or attack. Your prospective opponents should also fear that going to war with you will result in unacceptable losses to their military establishments and perhaps also to their regimes. In the case of enemies who are autocracies, their worst fears are of humiliation in a one-sided war that ends in a military coup or other national uprising against the regime. The US Airstrike on Iran Was Meant to Be Deterrence Existential deterrence of Iran was the objective of the US air campaign against the vitals of Iran’s nuclear program. Doubtless, some of its nuclear infrastructure and fissile material survived the strikes from American B-2 bombers and submarine-launched Tomahawk land attack missiles. But the inability of Iranian air defenses and reconnaissance to interdict any of the attacking bombs and missiles, as well as the overwhelming surprise provided by US operational security in planning and executing Operation Midnight Hammer, called into question the basic competency of the Iranian political and military leadership and, in all likelihood, will eventually lead to shakeups in the Iranian armed forces and security services. In addition to its impact on Iran itself, the reaction of the Islamic Republic’s bedfellows in Moscow and Beijing was not reassuring to Tehran. A few diplomatic niceties were uttered for public consumption, but neither Russia nor China was prepared to put big military chips on the table for the ayatollahs. Russia is sufficiently consumed with the war in Ukraine, and Russia’s profile in the Middle East has already taken a hit in the aftermath of Assad’s regime fall in Syria. China is primarily focused on its global economic ambitions and security interests in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly regarding Taiwan. Iran, under the duress of a war with Israel and an American “no nukes” enforcement policy, has no committed allies. Time will tell, but the shake and bake of the Iranian regime and its nuclear program may involve spillover from transactional to improved existential deterrence concerning Russia and China. It should not be taken for granted that Russia and China will march to the same drumbeats on every critical issue; each has its interests to protect, and these are not necessarily identical. Smart diplomacy and information operations by the United States and others should keep Moscow and Beijing wary of their mutual vulnerabilities. Can NATO move beyond an alliance that achieves transactional deterrence concerning Russia to one that also provides existential deterrence, thereby putting more pressure on Russia to negotiate a ceasefire and an enduring peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine? The possibility exists, but as noted below, NATO members must commit to instruments of influence beyond simply larger defense budgets. If it does these four things, NATO can increase its chances of crossing the strategy bridge from transactional to existential deterrence. National Review Editors, 6-27, 25, https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/06/trumps-nato-win/, Trump’s NATO Win The essence of deterrence is credibility. The best way to stop Russia from attacking even a small NATO country — one of the Baltic states, say — is for Vladimir Putin to be convinced that the risk of major retaliation is too great to take. This is why President Trump’s reaction to the commitment by NATO members at their recent summit to more than double their defense-spending target is welcome, even if a partial opt-out for Spain is not. NATO, said Trump, was not a “rip-off,” high praise from this president. NATO’s European members “really love their countries . . . and we’re here to help them.” Critically, Trump emphasized that the U.S. still regarded itself as bound by Article 5 of the NATO treaty, the mutual-defense provision: “I stand with it, that’s why I’m here. If I didn’t stand with it, I wouldn’t be here.” Those were welcome words. While no small part of the decision by NATO’s other members to boost their spending can be put down to relentless pressure from Trump, some of the warnings he used to get his way risked creating grave doubts about the extent to which the U.S. stood behind NATO’s mutual-defense guarantees. Such doubts could only embolden Putin and, moreover, encourage NATO members to hedge their bets with Russia, as one or two have already been doing. Only a few years ago, with many NATO members struggling, or not even bothering to struggle, to reach an earlier target of 2 percent, such a commitment would have been unthinkable. In 2021, just six NATO members out of 32 had hit that target; by 2024, that total had risen to 23. Fierce pressure from Trump 45 had persuaded them that America’s willingness to commit to the defense of an alliance in which most members were not pulling their weight could no longer be taken for granted, whoever was president. And Russia’s war on Ukraine and increasingly menacing behavior toward the broader West had made it obvious this was not the time to chance losing that American support. Last week’s U.S. bombing of three Iranian facilities only underlined that fact. The new spending target of 5 percent (of which 1.5 percent can comprise defense-related infrastructure spending, a conveniently elastic concept in this case) does not have to be hit until 2035. However, some countries, painfully conscious of geography and history, are racing ahead. Poland is set to spend 4.7 percent of its GDP this year, while Estonia has locked in a program that will mean it should spend 5.4 percent in 2029. No less significant is that Germany — for years one of the worst of the deadbeats, given its economic strength — appears, at last, to give the long-term threat posed by Russia the seriousness it deserves. Berlin will take its spending to 3.5 percent by the end of the decade. Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has declared that the Bundeswehr must “become the strongest conventional army in Europe.” Merz has also stressed that this spending is not to “do the United States a favor — but because Russia actively threatens the freedom of the entire Euro-Atlantic area,” language designed to rebut any suggestion that the Bundeskanzler is being bullied by Trump. And it makes a more substantive point: A strong NATO is in the interests of the U.S. as well as of Europe, even more so now that the U.S. has to contend with a rising would-be hegemon in the Pacific. That said, NATO would not have come to this point without U.S. pressure. While, as alluded to above, we have been nervous about some of the tactics Trump has used to this end, there can be no doubt that he (with a major assist from the Kremlin) has done more than any president in decades to persuade the Europeans to accept a much fairer share of responsibility for their own defense. That is a considerable achievement. If the Europeans can deliver on their commitments, the result will be a much safer world. Even if embattled Ukraine saw little direct benefit from the summit, the rebuilding of a stronger NATO will benefit Kyiv as well as the alliance’s members. Now it is up to Europe to keep those promises. Doubtless, there will be some backsliding — Spain has already been permitted as much, for now. It will be up to this administration and its successors to keep up the pressure on the Europeans to stick to what they have agreed. But they should endeavor to do so in a way that does not undermine the perception — when it comes to deterrence, perception is crucial — of the reliability of the American guarantee, lest they let Putin believe that he has an opportunity to divide and conquer. These are already dangerous times. There is no sense in making them more dangerous still.

Russia sees the EU as a threat

Reuters, June 25, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-calls-eu-an-enemy-says-ukrainian-membership-would-be-dangerous-2025-06-25/, Russia’s Medvedev calls EU an enemy, says Ukrainian membership would be dangerous

MOSCOW, June 25 (Reuters) – Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday that the European Union had evolved into an enemy of Russia that posed a direct threat to its security, and Moscow was now opposed to Ukraine joining the bloc. Russia has long been opposed to Ukraine joining the NATO Western military alliance – one of the reasons it gives for its decision to launch a full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. But it has in the past been more relaxed about the prospect of Kyiv becoming a member of the EU. President Vladimir Putin said in June 2022 that Russia had “nothing against” that, and the Kremlin said as recently as February that joining the bloc was Ukraine’s sovereign right. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Report This Ad However, Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that the EU had shifted from being an economic bloc dedicated to preventing war into what he called a politicised anti-Russian organisation that was slowly turning into a military bloc.

French nuclear sharing leads to war with Russia

Gaub & Mair, June 24, 2025, FLORENCE GAUB is Director of the Research Division at the NATO Defense College. The views expressed here are her own; STEFAN MAIR is Director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Europe’s Bad Nuclear OptionsAnd Why They May Be the Only Path to Security, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/europes-bad-nuclear-options-gaub-mair To mitigate that risk, France and the United Kingdom could “lend out” some of their nuclear weapons on a temporary basis. The incentive for Paris and London to go along with this plan and support the nuclear ambitions of their allies would be to achieve strength in numbers: even without joint control, multiple European nuclear powers could establish a greater level of deterrence than France and the United Kingdom can establish for themselves today. The United States, for its part, would at long last be relieved of the burden of protecting Europe, freeing resources for alternative uses. But if the benefits are of historic proportions, so, too, are the potential costs—especially the raised risk of provoking a conflict with Russia.

Abandoning Europe

-Threatens the US economy

-Makes it hard to contain China

-Makes it difficult to support US leadership

-Causes war in Europe

-Triggers Arms races and proliferation

Brands, 6-24, 25, Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Bloomberg, NATO Has Dodged Collapse Before. It’s Never Been This Close.. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/features/2025-06-24/will-trump-push-nato-toward-collapse-at-summit Asia Firsters in Washington might think European weakness doesn’t matter, so long as the US is strong in the Western Pacific. They ought to think again. Europe and the UK account for about 20% of world gross domestic product: It’s hard to believe that cutting the continent loose will somehow make America more competitive, economically and technologically, against Beijing. And if the US does turn its back on Europe, it may struggle to remain a successful global power. Europe still represents America’s entry point into Western Eurasia, the supercontinent where so much of the action happens, and its staging point for Africa and the Middle East — where Trump has now become embroiled in exactly the sort of war he pledged to avoid. With a European foothold, the US is positioned for influence across several important regions. Without it, America risks being locked into the Western Hemisphere — on one side, at least — and locked out of the struggle for wide swaths of the world. Then there’s the possibility that a post-American Europe could return — not immediately, but eventually — to the darker patterns of its past. Peace isn’t Europe’s natural condition: America’s presence transformed a tortured continent. American absence could rip the crucial safeguards away. After a US departure, political and economic rivalries might take on menacing undertones. The illiberalism and hypernationalism of earlier eras, never fully buried, could force their way to the surface. Border disputes and revisionist grievances might intensify. As arms races resume and nuclear proliferation becomes more common, a conflict-prone Europe could again export instability and violence to the world. The fact that this scenario seems unthinkable today only reveals how dramatically Europe changed under US leadership. It could change dramatically, for the worse, in a post-American age. Allies Are Paying Their Dues So is NATO’s long run finally over? Or can the alliance be renewed once more? The answer has epic global implications, and it will hinge heavily on the leadership of Donald Trump. It’s easy to envision a scenario in which Trump cripples the alliance, because we may already be living through it. In this scenario, Trump continues to pervert NATO by threatening the territorial integrity of its members. Unresolved trade wars create a poisonous transatlantic climate. Trump withdraws large contingents of US troops, to punish European countries or shift focus to Asia. He worsens Europe’s crisis of security by abandoning Ukraine and palling around with Putin. A new, illiberal alliance emerges as Trump elevates right-wing figures — like Hungary’s Viktor Orban or the AfD in Germany — with more sympathy for Russia than for NATO’s core ideals. In this scenario, Trump wouldn’t have to formally withdraw from NATO. He would make the alliance a dead letter by destroying its strategic cohesion and trust. Trump may not be the sole source of NATO’s crisis, but he certainly has the power to make it fatal. Fortunately, there’s a more constructive scenario, which isn’t out of the question yet. In this scenario, Trump eventually shuts up about annexing Greenland and Canada; he settles for greater cooperation on Arctic security and his missile shield, Golden Dome, instead. A trade truce soothes the US-EU relationship. An administration consumed by Middle Eastern crises comes to see the value of the military access and diplomatic support the European allies provide. NATO’s Biggest European Spenders Germany overtakes UK with largest European defense budget Source: IISS 2025 Military Balance report Note: 2024 defense spending in US dollars Most fundamentally, Trump takes yes for an answer on burden-sharing: The alliance is coalescing, albeit haltingly and with plenty of caveats, around agreement on a major jump in military spending (3.5% of GDP on defense, 1.5% on infrastructure and related investments). Those outlays will help NATO adjust to an era in which its strength must be focused on defending its most vulnerable borders. European states will bear more of that burden, even as Washington anchors the European defense with its unique capabilities — dominant airpower, lift and logistics, command and control, and a powerful nuclear deterrent — along with enough of a frontline presence to demonstrate it will be in any fight from the start. The result of this scenario would be a stronger, if somewhat scarred, Europe that bolsters the free world while retaining the vital transatlantic tie. The opening months of Trump’s second presidency might be remembered as an ugly moment that contributed to the latest, needed renegotiation of the transatlantic compact. Whether Trump can deliver this second scenario is deeply uncertain. His approach to NATO has become less combative in recent months. The danger of a total American sellout of Ukraine has, for the moment, faded. Get the Morning & Evening Briefing Americas newsletters. Start every morning with what you need to know followed by context and analysis on news of the day each evening. Plus, the Weekend Edition. Enter your email By continuing, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Yet suspicion of NATO is core to Trump’s worldview. A president who can’t resist tormenting perceived opponents may find it hard to shift from disruption to the reassurance that is required to make a new transatlantic bargain stick. Our era is rife with crisis. But the most critical question of the coming years may be whether Trump finally accepts the argument that persuaded his predecessors — that NATO, for all its burdens and frustrations, really is indispensable for the world, and for America, too.

Russia nuclear threat high

Juraj Majcin, Policy Analyst, June 23, 2025, From umbrella to arsenal: boosting Europe’s nuclear deterrence, https://epc.eu/publication/from-umbrella-to-arsenal-boosting-europes-nuclear-deterrence/

Europe faces a threat that goes beyond Russia’s sprawling war machine, which—though not the most technologically advanced—relies on a wartime economy capable of producing weapons and ammunition at a large scale.2 Recent history, especially the war in Ukraine, has shown that Moscow is unafraid to use nuclear sabre-rattling to exert pressure on NATO allies. Although Moscow’s nuclear threats did not prevent Ukraine’s Western allies from eventually delivering main battle tanks, fighter jets, and long-range strike systems, they significantly delayed decision-making, particularly in Washington and Berlin, where the governments adopted a cautious approach. Russia’s posture stands in contrast to nuclear powers like the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, which treat their nuclear arsenals as weapons of last resort and refrain from issuing nuclear threats, even to achieve their geostrategic objectives. However, it must be acknowledged that NATO’s deterrence posture, underpinned by the US nuclear arsenal, has successfully prevented Russia from “moving on one single inch of NATO territory”, as US President Joe Biden stated in his speech in Warsaw in March 2022.3 Departing from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty—which prohibited the United States and the Soviet Union from developing or possessing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres—Russia has moved to develop4 the 9M729 cruise missile and the Oreshnik ballistic missile, both of which violate the treaty’s range restrictions and are capable of carrying either conventional or nuclear warheads. In November 2024, Russia revised its nuclear doctrine to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in retaliation against any non-nuclear state acting with the “participation or support of a nuclear state.”5 This change can be interpreted as a strategic warning aimed at deterring continued Western military support for Ukraine, particularly the provision of long-range weapons capable of striking Russian territory.6 To reinforce this message, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly issued nuclear threats against Ukraine’s backers, underscoring Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal and warning of a possible nuclear conflict.7 These threats have not remained solely rhetorical. In a show of force following Ukraine’s first US-authorized ATACMS strikes on targets inside Russia, Moscow launched an Oreshnik ballistic missile armed with a conventional warhead at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, signalling its readiness to escalate.8 Continuing its strategy of nuclear intimidation, Russia announced it would deploy the Oreshnik missile system in Belarus by the end of 2025, complementing the already-deployed dual-capable Iskander-M missile in Kaliningrad.9 The move followed a request from Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, who cited security concerns over NATO military activities in neighbouring Poland and Lithuania in December 2024.10 With Oreshnik missiles in Belarus and Iskander systems in Kaliningrad, Russia could hold at risk a broad arc of European capitals, from Berlin, Warsaw, and Stockholm to Vienna, Brussels, and potentially even Paris. This forward posture significantly enhances Moscow’s ability to intimidate NATO allies through long-range strike capabilities capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear payloads (in addition to its strategic nuclear forces).

France could simply cover Europe

Cournoyer & Messmer, April 2025, Dr Marion Messmer Senior Research Fellow, International Security Programme, Julia Cournoyer, Research Associate, International Security Programme; Associate Editor, Journal of Cyber Policy, France should join NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements to strengthen European deterrence, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/03/france-should-join-natos-nuclear-sharing-arrangements-strengthen-european-deterrence By contrast, fellow NATO member France has always reserved its nuclear weapons for national protection. Its nuclear enterprise is also completely independent from the US, producing all components required domestically. If France wanted to signal its commitment to extending nuclear deterrence to Europe, the simplest step would be to change its nuclear posture to explicitly include Europe – something French officials claim has been the case since the 1970s anyway – and to join the NPG.

Europe lacks the big arsenals needed to make extended deterrence work

NATO nuclear credibility collapsing, Europe needs a unified nuclear deterrent to prevent Russian coercion

Russia has transformed its nuclear strategy following the 2022 Ukraine invasion, which integrates nuclear signaling into conventional conflict through calculated ambiguity and graduated escalation. This article reveals how Russia employs nuclear gestures not primarily to deter nuclear attacks but to discourage Western proactiveness. This strategic shift presents unique challenges for European security architecture, requiring fundamental reassessment of deterrence frameworks across five dimensions: capability, institutional, normative, perceptual, and alliance. As traditional boundaries between war and peace fade, European nations must develop new cooperative approaches to nuclear policy while maintaining credible deterrence in an era of strategic uncertainty. In the post-Cold War era, the assumption that nuclear deterrence had reached a stable equilibrium guided much of international security thinking. However, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine marked a pivotal moment that fundamentally altered this paradigm. Analysis of Russia’s deliberate integration of nuclear signaling into conventional conflict illuminates the emerging contours of future warfare—characterized not by clear lines between nuclear and conventional domains, but by calculated ambiguity, psychological manipulation, and graduated escalation. As traditional boundaries between war and peace become increasingly blurred, Europe faces the task of developing new strategic approaches that can effectively respond to these evolving threats while maintaining regional stability. Russia has significantly altered its nuclear strategy since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Prior to this, in 2020, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the presidential executive order “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence,” which outlined a broadened deterrence strategy. This framework defined nuclear deterrence not solely as a military-technical measure but as a comprehensive approach incorporating economic, informational, and political instruments targeted at both nuclear and non-nuclear states. The main goal of this strategy is not to deter a nuclear or ballistic missile attack but to discourage Western powers from intervening in the war—especially through military aid. This approach challenges long-standing nuclear deterrence concepts, which were originally developed during the Cold War to prevent direct nuclear confrontation between superpowers. Russia has now unilaterally incorporated nuclear saber-rattling and brinkmanship into the realm of conventional and regional conflicts, marking a significant shift in the character and scope of nuclear strategy. Russia’s new nuclear strategy includes nuclear gestures, threatening public declarations, information operations, and military tests and drills involving dual-capable weapons. Scholars of the Russian nuclear strategy argue that Russia tries to expand its “rungs of the nuclear escalation ladder.” Deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, the use of nuclear-capable Oreshnik ICBMs in Ukraine, and Russian officials’ rhetoric about not-unthinkable possible nuclear escalation represent Russia’s accelerated and demanding nuclear posture towards not only Ukraine but NATO too. These “rungs” give Russia the capacityto coerce other states and have influence on decision-makers in the West. The Kremlin views nuclear saber-rattling as a multi-step strategy. While it may not lead to the actual use of non-tactical nuclear weapons, its strength lies in shaping the perceptions of adversaries. The current period represents great turbulence for European security architecture, with Russia’s aggressive nuclear strategy introducing additional complications. One of the most significant and unusual challenges facing European states is the absence of a coherent framework for common security and defense policy—particularly regarding nuclear issues. Crucially, the current nuclear challenge diverges sharply from the structured, bipolar tensions of the 20th century. Today’s nuclear landscape is broader, more diffuse, and strategically complex. Russia’s evolving doctrine extends beyond traditional deterrence, targeting not only regional adversaries but also aiming to obstruct Western military support to Ukraine. The diverse nature of these threats suggests that future conflict in Europe will revolve less around direct military confrontation and more around the manipulation of psychological thresholds, often avoiding clear and decisive military escalation. Regardless of how the war in Ukraine ultimately concludes, Europe and the West cannot evade addressing fundamental security and defense issues, which must necessarily include nuclear considerations related to Russia. In the EU, security and defense remain domains primarily under national jurisdiction, and concurrently, the credibility of US extended nuclear deterrence has been undermined following the Trump administration’s inauguration and subsequent turbulence in transatlantic relations. Russia’s sophisticated nuclear maneuvering presents significant countering difficulties because individual nuclear gestures often fall below thresholds that would incite direct response—they are neither sufficiently aggressive nor substantial enough to warrant comprehensive counter-strategy implementation, but they do exist as an elephant in the room. This approach resembles “salami slicing” tactics—employing various low- or medium-level hostile acts, such as threatening public statements or provocative military exercises. Such strategies create a dilemma when responding to every provocation becomes impractical, while ignoring all acts of hostility appears equally problematic. Furthermore, if this strategy demonstrates effectiveness, it will likely encourage further strategic thinking centered on micro-escalation and ambiguous thresholds. The key strategic challenge for Europe lies not only in redesigning its defense and security posture but also in reassessing the evolving nature of warfare itself—one that is unlikely to be clear-cut, decisive, or sharply defined. Russia’s bold and increasingly coercive nuclear doctrine necessitates a fundamental redefinition of the established concept of hybrid warfare. This reimagined framework must incorporate elements such as nuclear ambiguity, graduated escalation, blurred boundaries between political and military domains, and sustained brinkmanship as core features of future conflict. Europe possesses two nuclear powers—the United Kingdom and France—each with very distinct national nuclear strategies emerging from country-specific historical contexts and strategic visions. With the resurgence of security and defense discourse, the need for integration of nuclear issues alongside other conventional and unconventional warfare considerations is apparent. These dynamics may catalyze recalibration of strategic thinking regarding nuclear provocations and signaling. Beyond enhancing relevant military capabilities, the European community requires a coherent vision determining how to interpret Russia’s nuclear provocations, distinguishing which actions warrant a response and which should be disregarded. Thus, the challenge that the European community faces can be divided into five parts: Capability dimension for strengthening military tools to respond to an adversary; Institutional dimension to define which organizational structure will coordinate the common policy; Normative dimension to establish shared understanding of Russia’s nuclear behavior; Perceptual dimension to manage psychological factors and risk assessment; and Alliance dimension to coordinate policies with non-European, most expectedly transatlantic partners. Russia’s use of nuclear signaling within conventional operations has created a strategic gray zone, where traditional deterrence is no longer sufficient. The future of Eurasian geopolitics will likely be characterized by broad nuclear gestures and blurry boundaries between a real threat and a bluff. But success will depend on multi-dimensional resilience—the ability to interpret ambiguous signals, maintain a strategic perspective, and respond proportionately. By addressing these five dimensions holistically, Europe can develop the strategic autonomy necessary to navigate this complex landscape while preserving regional stability in an era of nuclear renaissance.

NATO strong now, US committed

Pilip Timotija – 07/05/25, The Hill, NATO chief praises Trump’s commitment to alliance, https://thehill.com/policy/international/5386353-nato-mark-rutte-donald-trump/

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte praised President Trump’s commitment to the military alliance during a recent interview and said the president deserves credit for pushing the 32-nation members to spend more of their gross domestic product on defense. Rutte, in an interview with The New York Times released Saturday, said he is “confident of the fact that Trump very much realizes that for the U.S. to stay strong and safe, there is this embeddedness with European security and working together to keep the Indo-Pacific safe.” Rutte, who invoked the word “daddy” when celebrating Trump’s f-bomb when discussing Israel and Iran’s ceasefire on live television, argued the president’s leadership helped NATO allies commit to spending five percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2035. “I think when somebody deserves praise, that praise should be given. And President Trump deserves all the praise, because without his leadership, without him being re-elected president of the United States, the 2 percent this year and the 5 percent in 2035 — we would never, ever, ever have been able to achieve agreement on this,” Rutte told the newspaper. Trump has been pushing NATO allies to spend more on their military and better share the burden of collective defense, arguing European nations have not chipped in enough. Up Next – The Hill’s Headlines – July 4, 2025 While members have committed to spending more on defense, some NATO nations have not yet surpassed the 2 percent threshold set for 2014. The president shared a private message from Rutte in June where the NATO chief congratulated Trump on greenlighting U.S. strikes on Iran’s three crucial nuclear sites. In the message, Rutte said Trump’s decision “makes us all safer.” In the message, Rutte, the former prime minister of the Netherlands, said Trump was “flying into another big success in The Hague … It was not easy, but we’ve got them all signed onto 5 percent.” When asked if he minded that Trump made the text public ahead of this summer’s NATO summit, Rutte told The Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro, “not at all, because what was in the text message is exactly as I see it.” “One, that he did an excellent job on Iran with the bombing of the nuclear facility,” the NATO head added. “And as I said in that text message, you are now flying into another big success, which is a NATO summit, which will commit to 5 percent defense spending, and this is transformational.”

A European nuclear deterrent is more credible and reduces escalation risks

In a recent opinion piece here on the Geopolitical Monitor, it has been argued that solely European nuclear deterrence cannot resolve the so-called “New York-for-Paris Dilemma.” However, this argument fails to appreciate European geography and identity, as well as the slow but steady development of strategic thinking among European states. While there will likely never be a ‘big red button’ controlled by Brussels, this does not mean that Europe should not, or cannot, pursue a more integrated and credible nuclear deterrent posture to reduce its dependence on the United States. Here, I argue that “Paris for Berlin” is a better answer to the credible commitment problem of extended deterrence than “New York for Paris.” Political Will, Not Just Military Capabilities Nuclear weapons in Europe are, and will remain, the sovereign responsibility of two individual states, France and the United Kingdom. It is common knowledge that the United Kingdom contributes to NATO’s deterrence and defence as a member of the Nuclear Planning Group, while France does not. Nevertheless, various European nuclear projects have been proposed by France since the 1950s. The most prominent example is President Macron’s speech in January 2024 at the Swedish Defence University, where he stated that “French vital interests have a European dimension.” However, as early as 1995, President Chirac put forward the concept of “concerted deterrence.” Similar to Macron, Chirac invited European allies to cooperate on European deterrence. It is true that France’s absence from NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group is an institutional limitation, but it is hardly insurmountable. France has already demonstrated a willingness to adapt its NATO engagement in the past by rejoining NATO’s integrated military command structure in 2009. If the need arises, it is a credible possibility that they will join the NPG, especially if it is no longer under US leadership. Furthermore, the structure of a European deterrent does not need to be identical to NATO’s existing model or even within a NATO framework. It is imaginable that European allies develop a novel consultation mechanism similar to NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group either as its own format or under the European Union’s umbrella. Nevertheless, NATO expertise, procedures, and infrastructure would be invaluable for any future arrangement and offer credibility based on path dependency. It is often argued that American commitment is misjudged and that, in reality, the bipartisan support for NATO and extended nuclear deterrence is steadfast. This might be the case, or it might not. But certainty is equally essential for nuclear deterrence as credibility and capabilities are. Due to the unpredictability of the current US administration, the resolve of the United States is as ambiguous as French doctrine. Domestic political instability is a valid concern for extended deterrence, be it by France or the United States. Political will is never guaranteed. But doctrines can evolve as well. The point is not to build a flawless system, but a credible and adaptive one. While there is no unified European nuclear arsenal, this does not preclude the development of a more formalised collective nuclear deterrence posture. Currently, France and the United Kingdom do not offer extended deterrence like the United States does. But this can change. A framework in which France and the UK explicitly extend their nuclear umbrellas to European allies, through doctrine, joint exercises, and nuclear sharing arrangements, would not only strengthen deterrence itself but also provide an urgently needed political signal of European resolve. Of course, the fundamental commitment issue of extended deterrence remains: would a state really sacrifice one of its own cities for the sake of an ally? The answer becomes less abstract when the trade-off is “Paris-for-Berlin” or “London-for-Warsaw,” rather than “New York-for-Paris.” The psychological and political calculus shifts dramatically when nuclear escalation unfolds on one’s own continent. The proximity of European capitals geographically, but also politically and socially, means that any nuclear aggression would inevitably affect all of Europe, regardless of initial targets. Therefore, extended deterrence offered by a European state will inherently be more credible than anything the United States can offer. The Curse of Geography As President Macron rightly noted, it is unimaginable that a threat to one European ally would not also be a threat to France, or the United Kingdom. This is not a rhetorical figure but a geographic reality. Unlike the United States, Europe is compact and densely interconnected. A nuclear strike anywhere in Europe would have political, environmental, and humanitarian consequences across borders. In this context, European extended deterrence should be considered significantly more credible than what the United States offers. Additionally, the close proximity makes lower-yield or “tactical” nuclear war not merely undesirable, but strategically suicidal. Europe cannot afford to fight a nuclear war on its own soil. This makes the development of a distinctly European nuclear doctrine essential. While such a doctrine does not yet exist, the debate must begin. It should be shaped by a clear rejection of nuclear warfighting and guided by the need for credible deterrence through the threat of unacceptable retaliation. The shared geography, history, and increasing sense of political identity among Europeans, despite all internal disagreements, provide a basis for this doctrine that is stronger than outside observers often assume. Capabilities and Credibility The often-invoked distinction between tactical and strategic weapons also obscures more than it reveals. A weapon’s impact depends on its use and context, not just its range or yield. It is questionable whether Russia is likely to escalate less merely because a lower-yield device is used to target a strategic vulnerability. Once a nuclear threshold is crossed, the dynamics of escalation become dangerously unpredictable. In such a scenario, a French “warning shot” could in fact be a more credible tool for signalling resolve and managing escalation than the existing US lower-yield nuclear weapons forward deployed in Europe. Furthermore, even after the recent completion of their Life Extension Program, systems such as the outdated B-61s have little to no real utility today, especially in warfighting. As General Cartwright already noted in 2012: “[the B61 nuclear bombs] military utility is practically nil. They do not have assigned missions as part of any war plan and remain deployed today only for political reasons within the NATO alliance.” For this reason, and the previously established argument that Europe should have no interest in nuclear warfighting, the argument that only the United States’ lower-yield nuclear weapons can guarantee a proportionate response should be rejected.

A small number of nukes can deter

Conventional deterrence must be prioritized

Conventional Deterrence Still Comes First

To be clear, nuclear deterrence is only part of the equation. Europe’s first and most immediate defence priority must be a stronger conventional posture, particularly deep strike capabilities which can have strategic effects comparable to nuclear weapons in degrading adversary capabilities and deterrence. Conventional deterrence and defence capability are crucial for preventing conflict reaching the nuclear threshold. Furthermore, strong conventional deep strike capabilities could be used for flexible and tailored response options as an alternative to lower-yield nuclear weapons. The most likely Russian strategy in a confrontation will be to achieve a fait accompli in the Baltic, followed by nuclear blackmail to break NATO allies’ resolve and disunite the alliance, possibly accompanied by conventional long-range strikes. In this scenario, the use of lower-yield nuclear weapons by a NATO ally is highly unlikely.

A European deterrent works

France transferring nuclear know-how violates the NPT

Tsvetana Paraskova – Jul 02, 2025, Can Europe Build Its Own Atomic Arsenal?, https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Can-Europe-Build-Its-Own-Atomic-Arsenal.html

Under the NPT, France cannot engage in nuclear sharing

Both London and Paris “remain signatories to the NPT [the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty], whose first article says: ‘Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.’” Parties to the treaty likewise pledge, he adds, “not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”

Europe creating a Eurobomb would destroy nonproliferation globally

Physicists outside of Britain and France are likely to head any Euro-project to build a bomb, and would likely rely on sophisticated next-generation simulation software—run on supercomputers—to test each advance made in this quest. Any nation joining this campaign that is also a signatory to the NPT would have to withdraw from that treaty, Bollfrass says. As a series of European nations begins quitting the NPT, he adds, Europe as a whole would be rapidly transformed from one of the world’s strongest proponents of nuclear disarmament into a new symbol of hard nuclear power. As they progress in the building of an atomic stockpile, allies in this nuclear confederation would also have to agree on a collective nuclear doctrine spelling out the essential preconditions for the use of these weapons, and form a command-and-control center that could issue lightning-speed decisions on launching a retaliatory strike on a first-use attacker. The emergence of an ascendant atomic power, and the mass abandonment of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, he predicts, might spark a new nuclear ams race that ricochets around the world.

No Eurobomb now, Trump nuclear assurances are strong

Yet how likely is it that Bollfrass’s war game—on creating a Euro-bomb—could actually be played out in today’s Europe? Would the ultimate decision depend in part on any American moves to pull back from NATO, and from extending its nuclear defenses to cover its allies across Europe? Bollfrass, who as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University designed war games involving Russia, predicts:“The possibility of a new nuclear arsenal in Europe is remote at the moment.” “For all of its criticism of Europe,” he adds, so far “the Trump administration has not called its nuclear guarantee to its allies into question.”

France developing its own nuclear deterrent

Nette Nöstlinger, 6-30, 25, German conservative leader calls for European nuclear deterrent ‘independent’ from US, https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-conservative-jens-spahn-european-nuclear-deterrent-independent-us/

BERLIN — A leading politician in Germany’s governing Christian Democratic Union said the country should take part in a European nuclear umbrella or face becoming a “pawn” on the world stage. “We should have a debate about an independent European nuclear umbrella, and that will only work with German leadership,” Jens Spahn, the conservatives’ parliamentary group leader told German newspaper Welt. “If you can’t provide a nuclear deterrent, you become a pawn in world politics.” Spahn’s comments show that, despite conservative German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent professions of faith in the durability of NATO and the U.S.’s role in the alliance, his conservatives are considering contingency plans to protect Germany and Europe. “Europe must become a deterrent,” said Spahn in the interview with Welt, which is owned by POLITICO parent company Axel Springer. “American nuclear bombs are also stationed in Germany for this purpose. But that is not enough in the long term. We need to talk about German or European participation in the nuclear arsenal of France and the U.K., possibly also about our own participation with other European states. That will cost a lot of money. But if you want protection, you have to finance it.” Merz raised the issue of a homegrown nuclear deterrent in February while he was still a candidate for chancellor. “We need to have discussions with both the British and the French — the two European nuclear powers — about whether nuclear sharing, or at least nuclear security … could also apply to us,” Merz said at the time.

Germany will not develop its own nuclear weapons

Oliver Towfigh Nia, June 30, 2025, Germany says no imminent plans to obtain nuclear weapons, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/germany-says-no-imminent-plans-to-obtain-nuclear-weapons/3617764

Germany said on Monday that it has no immediate plans to acquire nuclear weapons, following a call from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s close political ally for his country to have access to the UK and France’s nuclear arsenals. “Germany is not on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons,” government spokesman Stefan Merz told reporters in Berlin. He reiterated that his government “does not seek nuclear weapons,” just a day after Jens Spahn, head of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, urged his country to join the nuclear weapons umbrella of Great Britain and France. “Europe must become capable of deterrence. For this purpose, American atomic bombs are stationed in Germany. But this is not enough in the long term. We must talk about German or European participation in the nuclear arsenal of France and Great Britain,” Spahn said in an interview with the daily Welt newspaper over the weekend. As a result of its aggressor role in World War II, Germany has committed to non-nuclear defense in international treaties, which prohibit it from acquiring nuclear weapons while also cooperating in NATO weapons-sharing agreements. On March 9, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that he hoped the US nuclear umbrella would remain in place and that a European shield should be viewed as a “complement” to it.

Their evidence is old – Trump is behind NATO and it’s strong

National Review Editors, 6-27, 25, https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/06/trumps-nato-win/, Trump’s NATO Win

The essence of deterrence is credibility. The best way to stop Russia from attacking even a small NATO country — one of the Baltic states, say — is for Vladimir Putin to be convinced that the risk of major retaliation is too great to take. This is why President Trump’s reaction to the commitment by NATO members at their recent summit to more than double their defense-spending target is welcome, even if a partial opt-out for Spain is not. NATO, said Trump, was not a “rip-off,” high praise from this president. NATO’s European members “really love their countries . . . and we’re here to help them.” Critically, Trump emphasized that the U.S. still regarded itself as bound by Article 5 of the NATO treaty, the mutual-defense provision: “I stand with it, that’s why I’m here. If I didn’t stand with it, I wouldn’t be here.” Those were welcome words. While no small part of the decision by NATO’s other members to boost their spending can be put down to relentless pressure from Trump, some of the warnings he used to get his way risked creating grave doubts about the extent to which the U.S. stood behind NATO’s mutual-defense guarantees. Such doubts could only embolden Putin and, moreover, encourage NATO members to hedge their bets with Russia, as one or two have already been doing. Only a few years ago, with many NATO members struggling, or not even bothering to struggle, to reach an earlier target of 2 percent, such a commitment would have been unthinkable. In 2021, just six NATO members out of 32 had hit that target; by 2024, that total had risen to 23. Fierce pressure from Trump 45 had persuaded them that America’s willingness to commit to the defense of an alliance in which most members were not pulling their weight could no longer be taken for granted, whoever was president. And Russia’s war on Ukraine and increasingly menacing behavior toward the broader West had made it obvious this was not the time to chance losing that American support. Last week’s U.S. bombing of three Iranian facilities only underlined that fact. The new spending target of 5 percent (of which 1.5 percent can comprise defense-related infrastructure spending, a conveniently elastic concept in this case) does not have to be hit until 2035. However, some countries, painfully conscious of geography and history, are racing ahead. Poland is set to spend 4.7 percent of its GDP this year, while Estonia has locked in a program that will mean it should spend 5.4 percent in 2029. No less significant is that Germany — for years one of the worst of the deadbeats, given its economic strength — appears, at last, to give the long-term threat posed by Russia the seriousness it deserves. Berlin will take its spending to 3.5 percent by the end of the decade. Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has declared that the Bundeswehr must “become the strongest conventional army in Europe.” Merz has also stressed that this spending is not to “do the United States a favor — but because Russia actively threatens the freedom of the entire Euro-Atlantic area,” language designed to rebut any suggestion that the Bundeskanzler is being bullied by Trump. And it makes a more substantive point: A strong NATO is in the interests of the U.S. as well as of Europe, even more so now that the U.S. has to contend with a rising would-be hegemon in the Pacific. That said, NATO would not have come to this point without U.S. pressure. While, as alluded to above, we have been nervous about some of the tactics Trump has used to this end, there can be no doubt that he (with a major assist from the Kremlin) has done more than any president in decades to persuade the Europeans to accept a much fairer share of responsibility for their own defense. That is a considerable achievement. If the Europeans can deliver on their commitments, the result will be a much safer world. Even if embattled Ukraine saw little direct benefit from the summit, the rebuilding of a stronger NATO will benefit Kyiv as well as the alliance’s members. Now it is up to Europe to keep those promises. Doubtless, there will be some backsliding — Spain has already been permitted as much, for now. It will be up to this administration and its successors to keep up the pressure on the Europeans to stick to what they have agreed. But they should endeavor to do so in a way that does not undermine the perception — when it comes to deterrence, perception is crucial — of the reliability of the American guarantee, lest they let Putin believe that he has an opportunity to divide and conquer. These are already dangerous times. There is no sense in making them more dangerous still.

France will not give Germany access to its nuclear weapons

Germany may gain access to France’s and the United Kingdom’s nuclear warheads as part of creating a pan-European “nuclear umbrella.” Or it may take a leading role in developing new European nuclear weapons, Welt reports, citing the Head of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Jens Spahn.”Europe must become capable of deterrence. For this purpose, among other things, American atomic bombs are stationed in Germany. But this is not enough in the long term,” Spahn told journalists.In his opinion, there are obstacles on the path to joint use of nuclear weapons. For example, France is unlikely to agree to give Germany access to its nuclear weapons.

Their evidence is old – Trump is behind NATO and it’s strong

National Review Editors, 6-27, 25, https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/06/trumps-nato-win/, Trump’s NATO Win

Russia sees the EU as a threat

Reuters, June 25, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-calls-eu-an-enemy-says-ukrainian-membership-would-be-dangerous-2025-06-25/, Russia’s Medvedev calls EU an enemy, says Ukrainian membership would be dangerous

Europe independently lacks the big arsenals needed to make extended nuclear deterrence work

In the near term, a transatlantic split would rip the guts out of NATO. It would leave European countries, even ones now arming themselves with urgency, struggling to project power to the edge of the continent and counter the Russian threat. It would deprive Europe of the patron whose support produces firmness against autocratic pressure — and whose leadership helps reconcile divergent interests into a coherent transatlantic agenda. The result, most likely, would be a weaker, more fractured continent that becomes a source of debility for the democratic world. Indeed, there’s a reason that strategic autonomy — the idea that Europe can do without the US — is taken more seriously in the sheltered western part of the continent than in Poland, Finland and other countries in the imperiled north and east. The European defense industrial base is feeble and splintered. The continent can’t quickly replace NATO’s American-led command structures. Nor can the French or British take over America’s nuclear responsibilities: They lack the big, flexible arsenals, the extensive forward troop deployments, and the damage-limitation capabilities that have typically been required to make extended deterrence work.

Abandoning Europe

-Threatens the US economy-
Makes it hard to contain China
-Makes it difficult to support US leadership
-Causes war in Europe
-Triggers Arms races and proliferation

Asia Firsters in Washington might think European weakness doesn’t matter, so long as the US is strong in the Western Pacific. They ought to think again. Europe and the UK account for about 20% of world gross domestic product: It’s hard to believe that cutting the continent loose will somehow make America more competitive, economically and technologically, against Beijing. And if the US does turn its back on Europe, it may struggle to remain a successful global power. Europe still represents America’s entry point into Western Eurasia, the supercontinent where so much of the action happens, and its staging point for Africa and the Middle East — where Trump has now become embroiled in exactly the sort of war he pledged to avoid. With a European foothold, the US is positioned for influence across several important regions. Without it, America risks being locked into the Western Hemisphere — on one side, at least — and locked out of the struggle for wide swaths of the world. Then there’s the possibility that a post-American Europe could return — not immediately, but eventually — to the darker patterns of its past. Peace isn’t Europe’s natural condition: America’s presence transformed a tortured continent. American absence could rip the crucial safeguards away. After a US departure, political and economic rivalries might take on menacing undertones. The illiberalism and hypernationalism of earlier eras, never fully buried, could force their way to the surface. Border disputes and revisionist grievances might intensify. As arms races resume and nuclear proliferation becomes more common, a conflict-prone Europe could again export instability and violence to the world. The fact that this scenario seems unthinkable today only reveals how dramatically Europe changed under US leadership. It could change dramatically, for the worse, in a post-American age. Allies Are Paying Their Dues So is NATO’s long run finally over? Or can the alliance be renewed once more? The answer has epic global implications, and it will hinge heavily on the leadership of Donald Trump. It’s easy to envision a scenario in which Trump cripples the alliance, because we may already be living through it. In this scenario, Trump continues to pervert NATO by threatening the territorial integrity of its members. Unresolved trade wars create a poisonous transatlantic climate. Trump withdraws large contingents of US troops, to punish European countries or shift focus to Asia. He worsens Europe’s crisis of security by abandoning Ukraine and palling around with Putin. A new, illiberal alliance emerges as Trump elevates right-wing figures — like Hungary’s Viktor Orban or the AfD in Germany — with more sympathy for Russia than for NATO’s core ideals. In this scenario, Trump wouldn’t have to formally withdraw from NATO. He would make the alliance a dead letter by destroying its strategic cohesion and trust. Trump may not be the sole source of NATO’s crisis, but he certainly has the power to make it fatal. Fortunately, there’s a more constructive scenario, which isn’t out of the question yet. In this scenario, Trump eventually shuts up about annexing Greenland and Canada; he settles for greater cooperation on Arctic security and his missile shield, Golden Dome, instead. A trade truce soothes the US-EU relationship. An administration consumed by Middle Eastern crises comes to see the value of the military access and diplomatic support the European allies provide. NATO’s Biggest European Spenders Germany overtakes UK with largest European defense budget Source: IISS 2025 Military Balance report Note: 2024 defense spending in US dollars Most fundamentally, Trump takes yes for an answer on burden-sharing: The alliance is coalescing, albeit haltingly and with plenty of caveats, around agreement on a major jump in military spending (3.5% of GDP on defense, 1.5% on infrastructure and related investments). Those outlays will help NATO adjust to an era in which its strength must be focused on defending its most vulnerable borders. European states will bear more of that burden, even as Washington anchors the European defense with its unique capabilities — dominant airpower, lift and logistics, command and control, and a powerful nuclear deterrent — along with enough of a frontline presence to demonstrate it will be in any fight from the start. The result of this scenario would be a stronger, if somewhat scarred, Europe that bolsters the free world while retaining the vital transatlantic tie. The opening months of Trump’s second presidency might be remembered as an ugly moment that contributed to the latest, needed renegotiation of the transatlantic compact. Whether Trump can deliver this second scenario is deeply uncertain. His approach to NATO has become less combative in recent months. The danger of a total American sellout of Ukraine has, for the moment, faded. Get the Morning & Evening Briefing Americas newsletters. Start every morning with what you need to know followed by context and analysis on news of the day each evening. Plus, the Weekend Edition. Enter your email By continuing, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Yet suspicion of NATO is core to Trump’s worldview. A president who can’t resist tormenting perceived opponents may find it hard to shift from disruption to the reassurance that is required to make a new transatlantic bargain stick. Our era is rife with crisis. But the most critical question of the coming years may be whether Trump finally accepts the argument that persuaded his predecessors — that NATO, for all its burdens and frustrations, really is indispensable for the world, and for America, too.

No NATO collapse now

Why is the globe’s greatest military alliance so often in crisis? President Donald Trump’s reelection last November, and Vice President JD Vance’s deliberately insulting speech in Munich in February, cast the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into grave anxiety. But it’s hardly the first time the alliance has been at risk of falling apart. NATO remade Europe, and the world, in the decades after its founding in 1949, by bringing peace and security to a continent that had repeatedly touched off global wars. Yet from the beginning, NATO has been a contentious coalition: Its members have been at each other’s throats even as they have also locked arms. Yes, Trump sometimes seems downright hostile to NATO, but previous US leaders threatened to leave the alliance or simply looked forward to the day when Europe could take care of itself. NATO’s history is an odd combination of epic, history-changing achievements and existential crises. Transatlantic angst is currently surging, as Trump travels to The Hague for a NATO summit this week. He almost withdrew from NATO in his first term; his second has raised serious questions about its survival. But NATO’s current crisis isn’t solely Trump’s doing. And if his presidency stands a real chance of rupturing the alliance, it could, ironically, still renew it instead. For decades, the flip side of crisis has been resilience. NATO will need every bit of that resilience to meet its current challenge — and avoid a breakup that could be disastrous for Europe, America and the wider world. NATO is America’s gold-standard alliance, but it wasn’t America’s idea. The US had no tradition of peacetime security commitments in Europe before World War II. It had no intention of making them after that war ended. But Washington ultimately stayed, and led this enduring alliance, because there was no other solution to the strategic problem of anarchy in the Old World. Europe had destroyed itself twice in a generation. Both conflicts sprawled across oceans and ensnared the US. After World War II, old antagonisms lingered and new radicalisms threatened. The French feared German resurgence; the Soviet Union dominated Eastern Europe with ample opportunities to expand to the west. Only the US had the power to secure Western Europe against external threats, while also smothering the internal animosities that might again set things alight. So the Truman administration agreed to join an alliance proposed by its weaker members — whose goal, NATO’s first secretary general quipped, was to keep the Americans in, the Germans down and the Soviets out. NATO succeeded outlandishly in that mission. It helped the transatlantic community contain and outcompete the Soviet Union. It provided the security in which old enemies could become allies and Europe’s killing fields could become a democratic zone of peace. NATO became the core of America’s free-world coalition and a pillar of the expanding liberal order. The alliance performed so brilliantly that it endured after the Cold War ended: NATO took in new members from across the old Iron Curtain to expand the geography of Europe’s peace. NATO is truly the most successful standing alliance in history. But it has been tested, repeatedly and severely, along the way. 75 Years of Bickering The alliance’s founding document, the North Atlantic Treaty, was signed on April 4, 1949. The internal fights — over military strategy, trade and nearly everything else — started soon thereafter. NATO seemed like it might fracture during the painful debate over West German rearmament in the 1950s, or the bitter disputes about Iraq in 2003. The Suez affair of 1956 — in which Washington refused to back a Franco-British bid to seize the Suez Canal — brought the alliance to the breaking point. The financial and monetary fights of the 1960s and 1970s, the arguments over arms races and arms control in the 1980s, all shook NATO to its core. France quit the NATO military command in 1966 and insisted that all US troops leave its territory. “Does that include the dead Americans in military cemeteries?” Secretary of State Dean Rusk acidly replied. He wasn’t the only US leader to wonder if the alliance was worth the headaches involved. Most NATO Members to Meet 2% Spending Goal Defense expenditures as a share of GDP, 2024 estimates Source: North Atlantic Treaty Organization Note: US (3.38%) and Canada (1.37%) not on map Dwight Eisenhower asked when Western Europe could get its act together so America could “sit back and relax somewhat.” During intra-alliance brawls in the 1950s and 1960s, US officials threatened, albeit implicitly, to bring the troops home. Some things never change: In 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that freeloading friends might eventually be on their own. Trump is ruder and crasser about these issues. But he’s not the first to question whether NATO is a good deal for the US. NATO is frequently seized by crisis; Americans have long been seized with ambivalence about that pact. So why is the alliance so troubled, and why has it endured? Outrageous Ambition NATO’s fractiousness might as well be written into its charter. The organization spans an ocean and two continents; it stretches from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. Its members — 12 initially, 32 today — have tremendously diverse interests, histories, geographies and levels of power. NATO includes a superpower and microstates, prosperous and comparatively poor societies, countries with tremendous physical security and states that have repeatedly been invaded. At its start, it featured both dictatorships and democracies. Its members included fading colonial empires as well a leader that styled itself an opponent of colonialism despite building a mostly informal empire of its own. Add in the inevitable personality clashes — between French President Charles de Gaulle and US President Lyndon Johnson, between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and other toxic twosomes — and it’s no wonder that internal fights are frequent affairs. Those quarrels also flow from NATO’s outrageous ambition. From the outset, the alliance required the US to defend countries thousands of miles from its borders. That, in turn, required massive overseas troop deployments backed by threats of nuclear escalation. The US built an ocean-bridging complex of power and commitment to defend Western Europe. But the European allies were never fully convinced that a far-away superpower would risk national suicide to defend them — and US leaders were never persuaded the allies were bearing their share of the load. Despite all this, NATO persisted because it always had enemies — the Soviet Union, Islamic radicals, Vladimir Putin’s Russia — noxious enough to keep its members together. The democratic values shared by most of those states provided ideological cohesion and a shared commitment to making a world where liberalism could thrive. NATO also survived because it fostered deep, institutionalized ties between militaries, governments and societies. And over time, NATO’s longevity enhanced its resilience: The longer it existed, the less its members could imagine doing without it. These attributes gave NATO a remarkable ability for adaptation, even reinvention. The alliance made the transition from the US nuclear monopoly of the 1940s to the era of mutual assured destruction; from American economic dominance to a world in which European countries became Washington’s commercial competitors. It navigated periods of higher and lower Cold War tensions. Once the Cold War ended, it went from policing to bridging to East-West divide. NATO’s real superpower is its ability to thrive amid changing circumstances, an ability it must summon amid the crisis now underway. Four Big Threats That crisis isn’t wholly about Trump, despite his inimitable ability to make nearly everything about himself. NATO is currently being tested by four convergent crises that run deeper than Trump’s disruptive effects. First, a crisis of security, created by Russia’s serial aggression in the East. Since 2022, NATO has responded by supporting Ukraine’s fight for survival; the alliance expanded to include Finland and Sweden, and its members ramped up spending on defense. But European defense chiefs fear that if Moscow wins in Ukraine, it might test NATO militarily, perhaps in Baltic states that are half-ringed by Russian power. Even if it doesn’t, NATO will face an angry, hyper-militarized adversary, one that is already waging hybrid warfare — subversion, sabotage, political meddling — from one end of the continent to the other. Second, a crisis of preparation. After the Cold War, NATO grew more geographically ambitious: It intervened “out of area,” in locales from the Balkans to Afghanistan. But it became less militarily capable, thanks to a quarter-century peace dividend. By the mid-2010s, German troops were, ridiculously, exercising with broomsticks in place of guns. Weakness was a testament to success: NATO had created a cocoon of security that allowed European states to disarm. But that weakness intensified accusations of free riding by Washington and left the alliance ill-prepared to confront a resurgent Russian threat. Russia Fuels Its War Machine While Europe Lags European defense spending continues to be eclipsed by Moscow Source: IISS Military Balance 2024 Note: Data takes the average of Europe’s regional defense spending Third, a crisis of shifting priorities. Europe was Washington’s top priority in the Cold War because it was the crucial swing region, economically and militarily, in the Soviet American contest. Since then, however, the world’s center of economic gravity has moved to the east. The primary military danger zone is not the Fulda Gap but the Taiwan Strait. American attention is shifting, fitfully but inevitably, to the Pacific. “Asia Firsters” are asking whether the US should still underwrite European stability in an Indo-Pacific age. Finally, there is the crisis of credibility. Europeans have always wondered whether the US will be there when it matters. How could those fears not be turbocharged in the age of Trump? Trump isn’t original in questioning the value of NATO. But Europe never had to deal with a US president who threatened to violently seize territory from allies, or so gleefully threatened to abandon those allies if they are attacked. Economic disputes are normal, but no American president has so wantonly jeopardized global prosperity — or seemed so much happier in the company of aggressive autocrats than longtime democratic friends. What’s more, Trump did temporarily sever US support for Ukraine, leaving European countries wondering who might be next. His subordinates sometimes talk (or text) like they’d prefer the Europeans just drop dead. So Trump is now magnifying NATO’s other crises, and leading analysts, on both sides of the Atlantic, to wonder if the alliance might crumble after all. The US Still Needs Europe For some NATO skeptics, that outcome wouldn’t be so bad: They hope that a US departure might force Europe to get its act together and become an equal partner in defense of the democratic world. In reality, a Europe that no longer enjoys US protection wouldn’t be as accommodating of US interests, on issues from dollar dominance to the security of the Western Pacific. And the reason that US officials never walked away from the alliance, is that doing so could be disastrous for everyone involved.

Russia nuclear threat high

Juraj Majcin, Policy Analyst, June 23, 2025, From umbrella to arsenal: boosting Europe’s nuclear deterrence, https://epc.eu/publication/from-umbrella-to-arsenal-boosting-europes-nuclear-deterrence/

France could simply cover Europe

By contrast, fellow NATO member France has always reserved its nuclear weapons for national protection. Its nuclear enterprise is also completely independent from the US, producing all components required domestically. If France wanted to signal its commitment to extending nuclear deterrence to Europe, the simplest step would be to change its nuclear posture to explicitly include Europe – something French officials claim has been the case since the 1970s anyway – and to join the NPG.

European Nuclear Sharing Daily

Europe is building up its defense and can defend itself

Russia tied down in the Ukraine

Future US presidents won’t defend Europe

Some US forces are still needed in Europe to defend the US; withdrawing all its forces would be a nightmare

Radical/fast troop withdrawal is bad

Chivvis advocates keeping half of the troops

Russia’s threat is exaggerated; Europe can defend itself

A strong Europe is a more credible deterrent than the US

US-NATO ties strong, our evidence post dates

NATO nuclear credibility collapsing, Europe needs a unified nuclear deterrent to prevent Russian coercion

NATO strong now, US committed

The NPT is already dead

US security guarantees to Europe no longer credible

A European nuclear deterrent is more credible and reduces escalation risks

A small number of nukes can deter

A European deterrent works

France transferring nuclear know-how violates the NPT

Under the NPT, France cannot engage in nuclear sharing

Europe creating a Eurobomb would destroy nonproliferation globally

No Eurobomb now, Trump nuclear assurances are strong

Germany developing its own nuclear deterrent

Germany will not develop its own nuclear weapons

France will not give Germany access to its nuclear weapons

France could put nuclear fighter jets in other countries

Iran strikes and new spending commitments prove NATO is strong

Russia sees the EU as a threat

French nuclear sharing leads to war with Russia

Abandoning Europe

-Threatens the US economy

-Makes it hard to contain China

-Makes it difficult to support US leadership

-Causes war in Europe

-Triggers Arms races and proliferation

Russia nuclear threat high

France could simply cover Europe

Europe lacks the big arsenals needed to make extended deterrence work

NATO nuclear credibility collapsing, Europe needs a unified nuclear deterrent to prevent Russian coercion

NATO strong now, US committed

A European nuclear deterrent is more credible and reduces escalation risks

A small number of nukes can deter

A European deterrent works

France transferring nuclear know-how violates the NPT

Under the NPT, France cannot engage in nuclear sharing

Europe creating a Eurobomb would destroy nonproliferation globally

No Eurobomb now, Trump nuclear assurances are strong

France developing its own nuclear deterrent

Germany will not develop its own nuclear weapons

Their evidence is old – Trump is behind NATO and it’s strong

France will not give Germany access to its nuclear weapons

Their evidence is old – Trump is behind NATO and it’s strong

Russia sees the EU as a threat

Reuters, June 25, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-calls-eu-an-enemy-says-ukrainian-membership-would-be-dangerous-2025-06-25/, Russia’s Medvedev calls EU an enemy, says Ukrainian membership would be dangerous

Europe independently lacks the big arsenals needed to make extended nuclear deterrence work

Abandoning Europe

-Threatens the US economy- Makes it hard to contain China -Makes it difficult to support US leadership -Causes war in Europe -Triggers Arms races and proliferation

No NATO collapse now

Russia nuclear threat high

Juraj Majcin, Policy Analyst, June 23, 2025, From umbrella to arsenal: boosting Europe’s nuclear deterrence, https://epc.eu/publication/from-umbrella-to-arsenal-boosting-europes-nuclear-deterrence/

France could simply cover Europe

Europe lacks the big arsenals needed to make extended deterrence work

Recent Posts

-Threatens the US economy-
Makes it hard to contain China
-Makes it difficult to support US leadership
-Causes war in Europe
-Triggers Arms races and proliferation