hindustantimes.com

Trump’s Embrace of Putin Has Germany Thinking of Nuclear Weapons

wsj-logo

WSJ

Mar 07, 2025 11:35 AM IST

Europeans are reconsidering their security and giving currency to an idea the U.S. has long sought to avoid: a nuclear-armed Germany.

BERLIN—President Trump’s embrace of Russia is causing Europeans to rethink their security and giving currency to an idea the U.S. has long sought to avoid: a nuclear-armed Germany.

Trump’s Embrace of Putin Has Germany Thinking of Nuclear Weapons PREMIUM

Trump’s Embrace of Putin Has Germany Thinking of Nuclear Weapons

Friedrich Merz, who is poised to become Germany’s next chancellor, said Berlin should start talks about expanding the French and British nuclear deterrents to cover Europe, according to an interview the conservative politician did with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung weekly.

Asked if Germany should pursue its own arsenal, Merz didn’t rule it out, saying there “there is no need for this today.”

The remarks broke with a longstanding taboo, showing how violently the foundations of Germany’s and Europe’s security are being shaken. Merz is still negotiating to form a government and has yet to be elected chancellor, but a German leader had not called for an alternative to the U.S. nuclear deterrent in Europe since the end of the Cold War.

After World War II, the Federal Republic of Germany was welcomed into the Western alliance as a bulwark against the Soviet bloc. Yet unlike France and the U.K., it renounced pursuing its own nuclear weapons and was welcomed instead under the American nuclear umbrella.

President Trump previously tried to pull U.S. troops out of Europe.

U.S. tactical nuclear weapons are now stored at the Büchel Air Base in western Germany, ready to be deployed by the German Air Force should the U.S. president give the order.

The U.S. hasn’t said that it wants to pull troops out of Europe. Yet Trump tried to do so in his first term. He is now seeking a detente with Russia’s autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin, which some analysts say might have irreparably damaged the credibility of the U.S. deterrent in Europe.

“Why should Putin think in case of an escalation in Europe that Trump would use a nuclear response? Every step Trump has taken suggests otherwise,” said Maximilian Terhalle, a political scientist and visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Nowhere in Europe is the sense of abandonment more palpable than in Germany, where the U.S. maintains its second largest overseas military presence.

To fill the security gap, Germany would have four options, said Christian Mölling, director of the Europe’s Future program at the Bertelsmann Foundation, a think tank: “The Americans maintain their nuclear deterrent; the Europeans take it on; a mix of the two; or you try to compensate conventionally…All of these are risky,” he said, referring to nonnuclear, military forces.

On the conventional side, Merz and his future coalition partners said this week they would exempt military spending from the country’s tough fiscal rules, de facto removing any limit on spending and allowing Germany to rapidly accelerate its rearmament.

On the nuclear side, researchers and some politicians say Berlin’s fastest route to rebuilding a deterrent could be to replicate its arrangement with the U.S. This could see French nuclear bombers stationed in Germany with the mandate to protect the country or German pilots flying German planes armed with French nuclear weapons, with Paris holding the key to their use.

A U.S. jet fighter mirrored in the glasses of a pilot during military exercises in northern Germany in 2023.

“Russia has threatened us with nuclear strikes,” said Thomas Silberhorn, a German conservative lawmaker and foreign policy expert. “We Europeans have to take this nuclear threat seriously and face it with a nuclear deterrent. So far, that’s been provided by the U.S., and we are now discussing whether we could organize it at a European level, with France and Great Britain.”

Reacting to “the historical appeal of the future German chancellor,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address this week that he would start a “strategic debate” about extending Paris’s nuclear deterrent to European allies. Macron had offered such talks in the past, only to be ignored by Berlin.

The French arsenal was developed under President Charles de Gaulle to reduce reliance on the U.S. Unlike Britain’s, it is independent from NATO. Still, with warheads in the low hundreds, neither the British nor the French arsenals are a match for Russia’s nearly 6,000 warheads.

“France and the U.K. already have a minimal credible nuclear deterrent but they’ve always worked with a U.S. backstop,” said Alexander Bollfrass, head of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, or IISS.

For Germany, subcontracting its security to France and the U.K. could make it hostage to political shifts in Paris and London, much as it is now subject to Trump’s whims.

Macron stressed that the decision to strike “had always been and would always be in the hands of the [French] president.” Marine Le Pen, the nationalist politician polls suggest could succeed Macron, said this week of the French deterrent that “we shouldn’t share it, let alone delegate it.”

A U.S. flag near the Ramstein Air Base in western Germany.

Terhalle has been urging German leaders for months to pursue a national arsenal, suggesting last year that Berlin should offer to purchase some 1,000 currently nonactive strategic nuclear warheads from the U.S.

Germany is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which bans it from developing nuclear weapons and prevents other signatories from helping it do so. It also renounced the weapons in the treaty that paved the way for German reunification.

If Berlin chose to develop an arsenal, it would have to do so clandestinely, not just because it would violate its obligations, but also because the effort would make it a target for enemies.

“A mature industrialized country like Germany should be able to develop a warhead more rapidly than other potential proliferators,” said Fabian Hinz at IISS. But it would face legal and technical obstacles and it would struggle to conceal its program.

Germany has a small stockpile of weapons-grade uranium for use in a civilian research nuclear reactor operated by the Technical University of Munich. It is generally thought to have the scientific and industrial base required for weapons development. Yet it would probably still need outside help to procure enough nuclear material and weapon designs.

“No one has ever managed to produce enough material for a bomb without being detected. And now it’s much more difficult to do so because intelligence and surveillance technologies are much more sophisticated,” said Bollfrass.

Even if it developed a warhead, Berlin might not be able to test it, which is hard to do safely in a densely populated region such as Europe and almost impossible to conceal given seismic, satellite and radiation monitoring by nations and international organizations.

Some experts say this might not be a problem. One avenue, they say, would be for Germany to develop a small batch of untested weapons, trusting they would suffice to deter aggressors. South Africa pursued such an option and built a small number of untested warheads before renouncing its nuclear weapons program.

Another route would be what experts call nuclear edging, a form of brinkmanship whereby a country comes close to developing its own weapons and advertises its readiness to cross the threshold if threatened.

“Still, for Germany to have such self-confidence, to so radically pursue its self-interest and break so many norms,” said Bollfrass. “That’s pretty hard to imagine.”

Write to Bertrand Benoit at bertrand.benoit@wsj.com

Trump’s Embrace of Putin Has Germany Thinking of Nuclear Weapons

rec-icon Recommended Topics

Share this article

Us News

Read breaking news, latest updates from US, UK, Pakistan and other countries across the world on topics related to politics,crime, and national affairs.

Read breaking news, latest updates from US, UK, Pakistan and other countries across the world on topics related to politics,crime, and national affairs.