European nations wanting “insurance” against Russia are looking to France and Britain to share their nuclear deterrents.
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 don’t think people understand how completely different French nuclear weapons and doctrine is compared to the UK and NATO.
The French have a nuke first strike policy "dissuasion du faible au fort”, deterring a stronger power by threatening unacceptable damage.
Their policy, is to use a Rafale to, from a Carrier, fire a ASMP-A nuclear tipped cruise missile across the bows of anyone dumb enough to antagonise them.
Conversely the British have no tactical nuclear weapons like the French. All they operate are the Trident II D5s from their ballistic missile subs, even then they only carry 5 MIRV (est) warheads per missile.
And no first strike policy either.
Don’t get me wrong. I very much favour a European military alliance that pushes Europe off the US teat. But the idea of the UK and France changing their doctrine (and a host of other elements) without non nuclear states contributing a significant amount of money is pretty unlikely.