While a significant part of the German population may be relieved, the removal of US nuclear weapons from Germany is unlikely to happen, according to the likely next German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz. The British Telegraph reported that Merz said last Friday that Paris and London should discuss whether their nuclear shield could be extended to include Germany and on Sunday he warned that the US under Trump would be indifferent to the fate of Europe.
A French government official was quoted as saying that the relocation of fighter jets would send a message to Putin and Berlin diplomats stated that this would put British Prime Minister Keir Starmer under pressure to do the same. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was also mentioned, with the phrase that it was a “moral question” for Ukraine to have its own nuclear weapons as the threat from Russia increases.
France has approximately 300 nuclear weapons that can be launched from the sea and the air, but they are technologically older than the US Trident missiles. The British nuclear arsenal consists of four submarines, each capable of carrying up to 16 nuclear warheads. Since the time of de Gaulle, French nuclear weapons have not been part of NATO planning, in contrast to the British.
The Telegraph also quoted the Berlin diplomat as saying, “In my understanding, the thinking on the CDU side is that we need a nuclear shield, we want to be able to participate, we should be ready to discuss it and we are ready to pay for it.”
From a French perspective, such offers are understandable, as they offer a chance to modernize the arsenal without having to finance it alone. According to a report by Bild, CSU politician Manfred Weber, who leads the conservative faction in the European Parliament, reacted enthusiastically, saying, “The new geopolitical situation requires us to grasp Macron’s outstretched hand. The federal government must discuss this with France and all other European partners.”
Currently, US nuclear weapons are stationed in Europe, primarily in Germany, a situation that has not changed since the Cold War. Last summer, the Biden administration announced plans to deploy new nuclear missiles on German soil. In official German politics, no critical voices were heard, although it has been clear for decades that these weapons mark Germany as a possible nuclear battlefield; the decisive reason why a similar US decision sparked one of the strongest political movements in post-war Germany nearly four decades ago.
More or less concrete considerations of replacing US nuclear weapons with French or British ones are, however, not yet the extreme of this slowly unfolding debate. In mid-February, former Austrian military officer Gustav Gressel even went a step further in an interview, citing a possible withdrawal of the United States from Europe and saying, “If we all join a common European or, in the extreme, a German nuclear weapons program, we’ll also get to Trump’s demand of five percent.”
The German nuclear weapons program proposed by Gressel, however, would violate the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the Nuremberg Principles, as well as the Article 3 of the Two-plus-Four Treaty, which states, “The governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic confirm their renunciation of the production and possession of and control over atomic, biological and chemical weapons. They declare that the united Germany will also adhere to these obligations.