European countries that spent decades sheltering under America’s nuclear umbrella are now openly discussing a new form of protective alliance against Russia built around French and possibly British atomic weapons.
It’s a direct response to Donald Trump eroding confidence in NATO’s Article 5 common defense pledge by trashing allies, questioning U.S. commitments and turbocharging doubts with threats to seize Greenland.
Leaders in Sweden, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands — some of Europe’s most pro-American countries — have publicly confirmed in recent days that they’re holding conversations about a European nuclear deterrent to complement the American version.
“I think there will be a discussion among Europeans — and should be a discussion — about the nuclear deterrent, that it has to be European,” Norwegian Prime Minster Jonas Gahr Støre said this week.
There is added urgency thanks to this week’s expiry of the New START nuclear weapons treaty between the U.S. and Russia, at a time when Russia and China are expanding their strategic arsenals and the Kremlin has threatened to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine.
European countries insist American nuclear protection remains essential, but they are exploring a tighter relationship with the continent’s atomic powers, especially France, whose arsenal has always been separate from that of the U.S. and NATO. Britain’s force is independent of Washington, but still relies on U.S. technology.
“The most logical, fastest, and most cost-effective option would be to use France’s nuclear capability as the foundation for an independent European nuclear deterrent,” said Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Estonian parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
POLITICO spoke to nearly a dozen European officials and lawmakers from Western, Northern and Eastern Europe directly involved in defense policy, many of whom were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
They described a continent searching for an additional layer of “insurance” against Russia, adding the world could be in the early days of a new age of nuclear proliferation. While their governments want more clarity with Europe’s two nuclear powers, there is also some unofficial talk of non-nuclear countries eventually developing their own weapons.
“As long as dangerous countries possess nuclear weapons, sound democracies must also have access to nuclear weapons,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said last month.
Waiting for Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron is already engaging with countries such as Sweden, Poland and Germany about the role of France’s nuclear weapons.
He is expected to deliver a major speech on the country’s nuclear doctrine later this month, and European capitals are watching closely. “We’re hoping for concrete announcements,” said a Paris-based European diplomat.
Macron’s speech will mark “a turning point, a watershed moment,” according to a person close to the French president. He will describe “how France can allow others to benefit from its deterrence, while keeping the decision clearly a prerogative of the president,” the person added.
Unlike the U.S. and the U.K., France is not part of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, although French presidents have underlined that France’s vital national interests have a European dimension. As with the U.S., French weapons are only under the command of the president.
One meaningful way for France to show resolve would be to station nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets under French command in European countries, European officials said.
“If they really mean business … we should be ready to open up this topic with partners,” said Lucia Yar, a Slovak lawmaker who sits on the European Parliament’s Defense Committee.
Inside NATO there is hope the uncertainty will jolt Paris into dropping its aversion to participating in the alliance’s nuclear planning, which would give other allies visibility on how France could protect them in a conflict. Paris “should and will consider” joining, one NATO diplomat said.
In the past year France has begun explaining its doctrine and arsenal. It’s about what France “can provide” and what allies “can expect,” said a second European diplomat.
However, any effort by Paris to offer continental security will have to address its limited arsenal.
France has 290 warheads, whereas the U.S. has 3,708 and Russia 4,380, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The U.K. has 225.
Russia and the U.S. have a nuclear triad consisting of sea-, air- and land-launched weapons, but France’s arsenal is seaborne — with one nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine patrolling the seas at all times — and airborne — with Rafale fighter jet squadrons equipped with long-range missiles. The U.K.’s nuclear deterrent is only seaborne, but London is mulling reviving its airborne dimension with U.S. fighter jets.
Moreover, unlike Russia, France and Britain have no smaller tactical nuclear weapons, relying entirely on much larger strategic missiles. That could make it difficult to respond to a small-scale Russian attack as they would only have city-buster bombs at their disposal, which could escalate any exchange into a full Armageddon.
“Neither the U.K. nor the French deterrent are really fundamentally designed to … extend their deterrence,” said Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, whether or not they are stationed in other European countries.
Scaling up nuclear arsenals would also be both time-consuming and costly — and public coffers in both France and the U.K. are empty.
In a sign of closer ties, countries such as Germany are hoping to participate in Poker, France’s flagship military exercise simulating nuclear strikes. In December U.K. officials were allowed to attend for the first time, a few months after Paris and London signed a new agreement to deepen nuclear cooperation.
Officially, the U.K, is less eager to discuss changes to its nuclear posture. A British defense official dismissed the suggestion that London should participate in a shared deterrent, stressing that most EU countries are already protected by the U.K.’s nuclear weapons through NATO.
But some are now questioning that as well. “Maybe … we need to make sure that we are tightly aligned to the French,” said one Labour MP, and “have a bunch of layered responses that are supplied by the French, and we contribute to the top of it.”
Fresh start
The conversations around a European nuclear deterrent come as the world’s arms control architecture decays.
“Europeans have come to terms with the idea that nuclear arsenals may increase and that this is the way of the world,” said Héloïse Fayet, a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations.
Last Thursday, the New START Treaty, the last remaining pact between the U.S. and Russia to curb nuclear stockpiles, expired after Washington rebuffed Moscow’s offers to extend it.
The U.S. wants to rope China into any new talks, while Russia wants to include France and the U.K. But with no prospect of a new treaty in sight, worry is growing that the new geopolitics unleashed by Trump could lead to nuclear proliferation.
Non-nuclear countries like Japan have floated building their own nukes, with the unofficial debate heating up in other nations such as Canada and South Korea.
For Europe, that’s a “very dangerous” development as the U.S. steps back from NATO, said Riho Terras, an Estonian lawmaker on the European Parliament’s Defense Committee and a former head of the country’s armed forces.
“It’s fair to say that the discussion about the nuclear capabilities in Europe should not be avoided in the current circumstances,” he said, adding that Paris and London should “discuss” scaling up their warheads too.
But establishing a truly European deterrent is replete with financial, technical and political problems. It would also risk distracting from European rearmament goals, said Rose Gottemoeller, a former NATO deputy secretary-general and U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control.
“Proliferating nuclear weapons to other allies will not enhance security,” she said. “It will be an expensive long-term commitment at a time when NATO allies need to concentrate on acquiring conventional force.”
And for other nations, building a nuclear program from scratch would be a “monumental undertaking,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.
Even for nuclear-powered Sweden, creating its own deterrent could take “two decades” and cost “many tens of billions” of euros, he said, requiring investments in weapons delivery systems, testing programs, storage sites, personnel training and command and control.
Doing so would also violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
While the current debate in Europe is a reaction to Trump’s unreliability, shifting away from the U.S. nuclear umbrella means leaning more on France, and that carries its own risks.
France’s own national interests don’t always dovetail with those of other European countries. As well, although Macron has repeatedly signaled willingness to discuss with European capitals how France’s nuclear deterrent could contribute to the continent’s security, his possible successors are much more hostile to the idea.
The far-right National Rally is leading in opinion polls ahead of presidential elections in 2027, and both of its leaders, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, strongly object to Macron’s nuclear engagement with Europeans.
“Everyone is waking up, but the big question is 2027,” said a third European diplomat. “One does wonder, what is all this worth?”
Clea Caulcutt, Esther Webber, Jacopo Barigazzi, Chris Lunday and Eva Hartog contributed to this report from Paris, London, Brussels and Berlin.
