Developing a common shield would be politically explosive for Keir Starmer. But it’s an idea whose time has come.
By The Guardian
The surprising disregard for heightened European security concerns displayed by Donald Trump and his associates has brought back to light an old and debated question: should Britain and France pool their nuclear capabilities and create a defensive shield for the whole of Europe to repel Vladimir Putin’s Russia if the US reduces or withdraws its support?
Trump has not yet directly threatened to cut U.S. nuclear forces stationed in Europe. But last week the president said he wanted to cut U.S. defense spending in half, especially on nuclear weapons. Trump often disparages NATO, the cornerstone of European security. Last year, he encouraged Russia to “do whatever it wants” with member states that he says spend too little on defense. Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, warned NATO defense ministers in Brussels that defending Europe was no longer a strategic priority and raised the possibility of withdrawing U.S. troops. In a scathing speech at the Munich Security Conference, he downplayed the threat posed by Russia. Americans will no longer be the Europeans’ “fools,” he said.
These unprecedented attacks on US-European ties have raised real fears of a damaging and perhaps permanent rupture with Washington. It is against this volatile backdrop that French President Emmanuel Macron has called an emergency summit in Paris with European leaders, including Keir Starmer. The meeting is expected to focus on Ukraine, its future defense, and Europe’s anticipated exclusion from US “peace talks” with Russia, due next week.
But an even bigger issue looms over the summit: how best to organize Europe’s collective defense in the face of reduced, uncertain, or nonexistent U.S. support and open nuclear threats from Russia. Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, has predicted that Putin could attack at least one NATO country within the next five years. Poland and the Baltic republics share similar fears. NATO chief Mark Rutte has called on all 32 member states to increase defense spending. Many, including Britain, appear willing to do so. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, frustrated by what many in Kiev see as a betrayal by the U.S., told the Munich conference that it was time to create a “European army.” That echoes ideas Macron has long promoted for a more integrated, expanded, and independent European defense.
Macron is leading the debate on a pan-European nuclear shield. He gave the idea new weight in a 2020 speech at the École de Guerre in Paris, when he suggested a “strategic dialogue with our European partners … on the role that French nuclear deterrence plays in our collective security.” He repeated the offer in 2022 and last year.
Macron’s proposal raises complex questions. Who could order the actual use of “Europeanized” nuclear weapons? Who would pay for such a force, especially if it had to be modernized and expanded? Would it make the situation worse, accelerating the US withdrawal? But, as defense analyst Joseph de Weck argues in the Internationale Politik Quarterly, governments must find solutions to the deepening crisis of European security. “Perhaps Europeans no longer have time for gradualism in security integration,” he wrote. Extending French and British nuclear guarantees to all of Europe, including Ukraine, is an idea whose time has come.
