Europeanising France’s Nuclear Deterrent? by Prof Tom Sauer
Recent developments in relations between the United States and Europe have prompted the President of France to offer to make France’s nuclear forces available for the defence of Europe. What follows is a critique of that offer by a Belgian member of Pugwash, Tom Sauer, who is a professor at the University of Antwerp. This critique was first published by the Anadolu news agency.
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The Trump administration’s recent isolationist statements, amid the talk of war in Europe, have revived discussion on Europeanising French nuclear weapons. After 75 years of NATO, concerns about US abandonment are increasingly shaping European foreign policy discussions. In the past, the French idea of a concerted deterrence was mostly met with silence, especially in Germany. This time around the conservative leader Friedrich Merz seems in favour of it, despite the fact that NATO is still alive and the US still has 100,000 soldiers and 100 tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. These weapons are stationed in Turkey, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. If the soldiers or the tactical nuclear weapons are withdrawn, the possibility is that the Europeanisation of French nuclear weapons in one way or another may indeed become a reality.
There are different scenarios imaginable.
The first step could be for France to declare that its “national interests” align with “European interests,” a principle already reflected in the Lisbon Treaty. The latter, by the way, also contains a collective defence clause similar to NATO’s Article 5. Further steps could be imagined to make these statements more credible: information exchange, consultation, joint planning, joint exercises, and co-financing. Another step could involve deploying French dual-capable aircraft in Germany or Poland. A final step would be the creation of an EU nuclear bomb in a European Defence Union (EDU). It remains, however, still to be seen how the Ukraine war will accelerate the pace towards such an EDU.
What would be the costs of Europeanisation of French nuclear weapons?
First of all, the assumption that nuclear deterrence works is uncertain. Advocates of nuclear weapons believe that it works. They forget that in history many nuclear weapon states (including Israel, India, and the UK) have been attacked by non-nuclear weapon states. In theory, it is very hard to make nuclear deterrence work as it assumes, for instance, a rational enemy. It also assumes that the possessor is really prepared to use them even though, if used on a massive scale, using them means the annihilation of the planet.
Second, extended nuclear deterrence, read “the nuclear umbrella”, is even more incredible. As early as the 1970s, Henry Kissinger cautioned Europeans against assuming that the US would employ nuclear weapons for their defence. That is the reason why France did not want to shelter under the US umbrella, and why it built its own nuclear arsenal in the 1950s. Ironically, France now offers its umbrella to its European partners.
Third, as long as there is no EDU, the question will be whose finger will be on the button. Macron is very clear: it will be his finger. The question then becomes whether German taxpayers would be interested in co-financing a strategic weapon system that they cannot control in times of war.
Fourth, Europeanising French nuclear weapons would complicate the fight against nucleasr proliferation. How sustainable is it to ask Iran not to produce nuclear weapons if the EU itself is setting up a nuclear arsenal? There must also be concerns about whether Europeanisation would be consistent with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, particularly if Germany and Poland were to develop their own nuclear capabilities. Europeanisation would also go against the spirit and the letter of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017).
Fifth, emerging and disruptive technologies (like AI) and weapon systems (like hypersonic missiles) will further undermine so-called nuclear stability. Ideally, conventional deterrence (using hypersonic missiles) could and should replace nuclear deterrence on condition that all nuclear states agree.
Sixth and last, it would be much better if the leaders of the EU spent as much time on diplomacy with Russia as on building up Europe’s defences. It is high time that the war in Ukraine ends, not only for humanitarian but also for economic reasons. A peace agreement can initiate a restructuring of the European collective security architecture that includes both Russia and Ukraine, either in a transformed NATO or an upgraded Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). If such an agreement were reached, there would be little justification for further fragmenting European defence into over 25 separate, small-scale military forces.
Nowadays European NATO member states already spend $485 billion on defence, much more than Russia ($120 billion). The primary challenge for EU defence today is not the absence of a Eurobomb but the lack of coordination in pooling, sharing, and specialisation. Instead of investing in weapons of mass destruction, making EU defence more efficient and integrating Russia into a larger collective security organization should be the priorities.