European NATO members are increasingly calling for a new nuclear strategy amid a military buildup frenzy under the pretext of the alleged “Russian threat.” The bloc’s members claim that spreading nuclear arms across the continent would somehow make it safer, while Moscow warns this approach could lead to catastrophic escalation.
A dozen NATO members, including those bordering Russia, have expressed a desire to either host nuclear arms on their territory or participate in nuclear-sharing initiatives to varying degrees over the past months.
France has put forward a so-called “forward deterrence initiative” that would allow it to deploy its nuclear weapons to other European nations. Washington is also reportedly considering placing its nuclear arms in more NATO countries, going beyond the bloc’s controversial “nuclear sharing” program.
Multiple European officials, including from nations already hosting American nuclear weapons or willing to host them, claim that a direct confrontation between Moscow and the bloc is possible within several years, leaving an open question about where this new “deterrence” strategy could lead.
Back in March, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested a new nuclear-sharing framework focused on the European NATO members, calling it a “forward nuclear deterrence strategy.”
The scheme would allow “circumstantial deployments” of French nuclear weapons to other European states, including as part of joint exercises or short-term missions.
The president also announced that Paris would no longer disclose the size of its arsenal to make sure its adversaries would be afraid of its potential while infamously claiming that “to be free, we have to be feared.” He also stated that France plans to increase its nuclear arsenal, which currently amounts to just under 300 warheads, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Macron’s vision of security included the idea that “if we had to use our arsenal, no state, however powerful, could shield itself from it, and no state, however vast, would recover from it.”
The French president has seen no shortage of volunteers willing to join that vision, with a total of nine NATO nations signing up for the initiative, according to Reuters.
Norway was the latest to join the group in May, as Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere cited “Russia’s massive rearmament” and the ongoing Ukraine conflict as the reason. The list also included Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK.
Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK are already hosting US nuclear weapons on their territory, alongside Italy and Turkiye, as part of the NATO nuclear sharing program. The scheme, which the bloc claims is fully compliant with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), allows non-nuclear NATO states to operate so-called dual-capable aircraft.
In a conflict, those aircraft could carry out nuclear strikes using American weapons upon authorization from Washington or London, even though the NPT explicitly forbids nuclear powers to transfer “control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly” to any non-nuclear state.
Warsaw has also long been seeking to join the club. Former President Andrzej Duda reportedly asked Washington to deploy some of its nuclear arsenal on Polish soil as early as 2022. Last year, he made a similar request to the administration of President Donald Trump. Polish President Karol Nawrocki suggested in February that Warsaw should simply develop its own nuclear weapons program.
Other NATO nations, including Estonia, Sweden and Denmark, also expressed a desire to host nuclear weapons over the past months – all in the name of “deterring” Moscow. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stated earlier this year that Stockholm was already discussing “nuclear deterrence” with London and Paris.
Finland and Lithuania went as far as changing their legislation to make such deployments possible.
Berlin has, meanwhile, been vying for a leading role in what it described as an EU-level nuclear weapons system. Last year, Jens Spahn, a senior lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union party, stated that Germany should gain access to French and British nuclear weapons and kickstart the process of their modernization.
Russia has repeatedly warned that the Western nations’ military buildup would only “lead to an escalation of tensions on the European continent.” Moscow maintains that it does not pose a threat to any NATO nation, nor does it have any plans to attack the bloc or any of its members unless attacked first, according to the Kremlin.
Russian officials have stated that the European NATO members’ new deterrence strategy could backfire, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov saying that false slogans about strengthening security are leading to exactly the opposite result.
Nations that host French nuclear weapons on their territory would come “under closer scrutiny of our military responsible for strategic deterrence,” Ryabkov stated, adding that “the general security level of those nations would… not increase.” Moscow “cannot ignore an obvious buildup of the nuclear component of NATO’s joint potential,” the deputy foreign minister added.
Russia is “too big and too responsible” to trigger a third world war through nuclear escalation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche last month. He still said that “there are lots of crazy things in the heads of European politicians.”
President Vladimir Putin also said in June that, although the Western nations no longer hide their preparations for war with Russia, they are still reluctant to attack it directly because “they understand that there will be retaliation.”
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