President Donald Trump has done more in the last eight weeks to shock Europe into taking its defense more seriously than the Biden administration did over its entire four-year tenure.
This isn’t meant to be some sycophantic bowing of the head to Trump and his MAGA movement, but rather a statement of fact. The evidence is all around us. In contrast to Joe Biden, Trump is not a traditional Atlanticist, views many of Washington’s security arrangements in Europe as either antiquated or unfair, and tends to scoff at the European theater writ-large as lazy teenagers who take their parent’s support for granted. He can be mean and downright nasty about it, but Trump, when combined with Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, is forcing European leaders to jettison the so-called peace dividend that dominated the continent for three decades. Germany reformed its debt break to make room for an additional €500 billion in its defense budget; France is aiming to boost its defense spending to at least 3 percent of GDP; and the European Union just released a new policy that permits members to devote more cash to their militaries without running afoul of the bloc’s deficit rules.
Europe’s renewed debate on national security, however, goes beyond conventional weapons. There is also an ongoing discussion among European leaders as to whether U.S. extended deterrence commitments are worth much anymore. In theory, Washington will defend its European allies with all elements in its military toolbox, up to the use of nuclear weapons if necessary. It’s an entirely abnormal arrangement, whereby a foreign country agrees to risk nuclear war against itself in order to protect an ally. The French in particular never bought into the concept; Charles de Gaulle, the founder of the modern-day French Republic, famously questioned in 1961 whether the Americans would actually sacrifice New York for Paris in the event of a war with the Soviet Union. His conclusion: no, they wouldn’t. Today, France possesses just short of 300 nuclear warheads.
If de Gaulle were alive today, he would be smiling earlobe to earlobe for being so astute. Trump’s perceived indifference to European security is causing nervousness in various European capitals who don’t happen to have their own nuclear weapons. And with the exception of London and Paris, none of them do.
Judging by some of the commentary out there, you might think that Russian President Vladimir Putin was actively planning to launch an attack against multiple European countries simultaneously. Germany, a country that hosts U.S. nuclear weapons on its own territory, is apparently so worried about large-scale Russian aggression that incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz recommended that Berlin enter into a discussion with French President Emmanuel Macron about France extending its nuclear deterrent over the entire European continent. Polish President Andrzej Duda said much of the same thing. Duda’s political rival, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, went even further, suggesting that Warsaw may need to get the nuclear bomb itself. That prospect would be quite provocative in Russia’s eyes, even if Moscow has rattled its own nuclear saber—not to mention deployed Russian nuclear warheads in Belarus—repeatedly since the war in Ukraine began more than three years ago.
Would France be up to the task of replacing the U.S. as Europe’s security guarantor of last resort? Macron is certainly open to it. In fact, he was the one who brought it up earlier this month. “We have a shield, they don’t,” Macron told the Le Parisien on March 1, referring to France’s European partners. “And they can no longer depend on the American nuclear deterrent. We need a strategic dialogue with those who don’t have it, and that would make France stronger.” As if to underscore the point that he was ready to lead on the issue, Macron made a show this week of visiting an air base and crowing about plans to modernize the French nuclear arsenal with a €1.5 billion injection.
A French-protected Europe, though, isn’t a magic bullet.
First, French domestic politics are notoriously fickle, and France’s foreign policy will shift depending on who is sitting in the Élysée Palace at any given time. We like to think that a state’s foreign policy is set in stone, but individual personalities matter a great deal. Macron may be a quintessential Europeanist, but Marine Le Pen, who could very well win the 2027 presidential election, is an arch nationalist who doesn’t care a lick about the European political community and is dead set against loaning France’s nuclear weapons to other countries.
Second, even if France agreed to serve as Europe’s nuclear shield, a French president would still have control over when the button is pushed. One country’s strategic calculations may differ from another’s, and threat perceptions are often different. The doubt lingering over extended deterrence guarantees—would the nuclear protector actually use these powerful weapons if doing so could result in its own destruction?—wouldn’t be eliminated. There will always be issues with credibility.
Overall, the best defense is self-defense. Only time will tell if this bleeds into the nuclear domain and results in more proliferation.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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