At the height of the Cold War in 1961, French President Charles de Gaulle famously questioned the value of American security guarantees, asking then-President John F. Kennedy if the US would really be willing to “trade New York for Paris” in the event of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. It was because of these doubts that, under de Gaulle’s leadership, France developed its independent nuclear deterrent, which it maintains to this day.
Lately, de Gaulle’s old question has started to seem disturbingly timely.
Just last week, after French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of European NATO members sending ground troops into Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Western leaders that Russia has “weapons that can hit targets on their territory” and that they were risking the “destruction of civilization.” The takeaway was unignorable: After years in which it was a largely forgotten political issue on the continent, the continent’s leaders clearly can no longer afford to ignore the threat of nuclear weapons.
Thanks to a renewed threat from Russia as well as doubts about America’s security umbrella thanks to the potential return of Donald Trump to the White House next year, the topic of nuclear deterrence is back in a big way, and has some European leaders to talking openly about whether their countries should acquire nuclear deterrents of their own — independent from a suddenly less predictable US.
Leaders in Poland, literally on the frontline of the conflict between NATO and Russia, have proposed hosting NATO nuclear weapons on their soil. Manfred Weber, a senior German politician who leads the center-right European People’s Party, the largest grouping in the EU parliament, recently argued for Europe to develop its own nuclear deterrent. He told Politico: “Europe must build deterrence, we must be able to deter and defend ourselves …We all know that when push comes to shove, the nuclear option is the really…
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