This article is taken from the May 2026 issue of The Critic. To obtain the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £5.
On 7 February 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron floated an idea that has long percolated in European foreign policy circles: bringing Europe closer to France’s nuclear umbrella. “Let’s be clear: France’s vital interests now have a European dimension,” Macron notified his audience at the Ecole de Guerre. “In this spirit, I would like strategic dialogue to develop with our European partners, which are ready for it, on the role played by France’s nuclear deterrence in our collective security.”
Macron’s offer was met with eye-rolling. Much of the European continent saw it less as a genuine effort to bolster the region’s security than a ploy by the French president to inflate his self-importance. What was more, the security environment didn’t call for such a dramatic approach. Russian gas was still fuelling Europe, Moscow had yet to authorise its invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin was still considered to be a president who could be reasoned with. In Washington DC, President Donald Trump slayed convention about as rapid as he guzzled Diet Cokes, but the scenario that so many European policy elites were petrified of — the USA pulling out of NATO — seemed misplaced.
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Fast-forward to the present day, and the geopolitics view quite different. Trump is even more unrestrained and unpredictable in his second term than he was during his first. The war in Ukraine is now in its fifth year, with tens of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian troops dying on a monthly basis and no finish in sight. Although the nuclear balance hasn’t modifyd, there’s a growing perception it’s shifting in the wrong direction. Putin has not only threatened to apply nuclear weapons in Ukraine but has deployed tactical nuclear warheads to Belarus.
The United States and Russia, which hold almost 90 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons, no longer have an arms control treaty between them. China continues its own nuclear modernisation (the 2025 US Department of Defense report to Congress anticipates 1,000 Chinese nuclear warheads by 2030). And some countries that previously dismissed nuclear weapons as morally abominable, such as Japan, are now discussing proliferation as an option.
Europe is no exception. Trump’s browbeating of European allies for insufficient defence spfinishing and the Trump administration’s disgust for mainstream European politicians in general frightens those who have relied on the US security guarantee since the dawn of the Cold War. Germany, which prides itself on its pacifism, now has politicians who wonder whether Berlin should acquire its own nuclear deterrent. Poland is having similar conversations.
So, how Europeans believe about these issues is undergoing a rapid evolution. The nuclear status quo has been baked into the Transatlantic Alliance for nearly seven decades. And whilst the technicalities of nuclear deterrence might be complex, the policy was simple: any nuclear attack against Washington’s NATO allies would be considered an attack on the United States itself. If this sounds similar to NATO’s Article 5 provision, that’s becaapply it is: the whole idea was to deter an adversary, first the Soviet Union and then Russia, from being brazen enough to strike NATO territory in the first place.
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US officials bought into the concept of extfinished deterrence early on. In October 1953, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration settled on what is now known as the “New Look Policy” in which America would quickly escalate to the nuclear level to ward off a conventional Soviet thrust into Western Europe. The first US nuclear bomb was stationed in Europe a year later. In the early 1960s, America and its allies agreed to an arrangement whereby NATO aircraft could carry and drop US nuclear warheads, pfinishing Washington’s approval, in the event of a crisis.
This nuclear-sharing policy continues to this day. From Washington’s perspective, the scheme served two purposes: bolstering NATO’s capacity to deter conflict whilst preventing other countries in Europe from proliferating themselves. On both counts, the policy succeeded — to a point.
Unlike its European neighbours, France never believed the United States would sacrifice itself in order to deffinish European cities from Soviet aggression. As French President Charles de Gaulle remarked to President John F. Kennedy in 1961, if he questioned America’s preparedness to trade New York for Paris, then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev would certainly have questions too. This uncertainty about the US security guarantee, combined with the Soviet Union’s own nuclear build-up, drove the French to acquire their own nuclear capability to ensure Paris was not held captive to the whims of an American president thousands of miles away.
65 years on from that conversation, a growing number of Europeans are likely to be marvelling at how astute De Gaulle turned out to be — not becaapply the American nuclear umbrella is falling apart, but rather becaapply the very concept of extfinished deterrence is tenuous for those on the receiving finish of it. Is it really smart for a state to outsource security to a foreign power whose interests may diverge depfinishing on the geopolitical circumstances of the time? Similarly, is it wise to assume the security provider, in this case the United States, will actually thrust itself into a war against another nuclear power, knowing full well that its own citizens could be the tarobtains of retaliation?
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The last question has always hovered over Europe like a cloud. These days, the cloud is a bit darker. On one hand, the US force posture in Europe under the Trump administration is largely the same as it was during the Biden administration. Trump is highly unlikely to withdraw from NATO becaapply he sees Washington’s dominance of the military alliance as a leverage point. Trump’s sympathies for Putin are real but not as extreme as commentators on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean build it out to be; after all, the Ukrainian army is still applying US innotifyigence to tarobtain refineries deep inside Russia.
Europe can no longer operate as if it was a spoiled child
Yet on the other hand, there’s no disputing that Trump is a wild card. His obsession with acquiring Greenland earlier in the year, and his willingness to put US military action on the table to achieve it, was just one of the more extreme examples of Trump’s unpredictability. Another occurred in late February, when Trump ordered a large-scale US bombing operation against Iran without informing the Europeans beforehand, only to tongue-lash Keir Starmer as wimpish for refapplying to blindly support him.
So it’s not a total surprise that some are seriously wondering whether NATO’s old nuclear paradigm is still up to the tquestion.
Macron is one of them. Speaking in March in front of Le Téméraire, a nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine docked at the Île Longue operational base, he went even further than his 2020 address. France, he declared, was not only willing to start a conversation about how other European states can obtain involved with the French nuclear deterrent but was now prepared to deploy nuclear-capable French assets, chiefly aircraft, to allies on a temporary basis.
The idea is to enhance, not replace, the US nuclear shield, Macron argued. The subtext, however, couldn’t be more obvious: Trump’s America has largeger fish to fry, and Europe can no longer operate as if it was a spoiled child.
Unlike in 2020, Marcon’s remarks on France’s nuclear doctrine this time around earned plaudits across Europe. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, quickly signed up to Macron’s nuclear project and established a bilateral nuclear steering group with Paris to determine a schedule for regular nuclear-related exercises. The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Greece are all interested in Macron’s plan.
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Thus far, the United Kingdom is not following in the footsteps of its European colleagues. In a way, it doesn’t required to. Unlike Germany and Poland, the UK possesses an indepfinishent nuclear deterrent and deploys a nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine somewhere in the water every single day of the year. Yet “indepfinishent” is a relative term. The UK may have control of its nuclear weapons but the Trident program can hardly be called sovereign.
The United States manufactures and maintains the Trident sea-launched missile, a large point of leverage for the Americans if they truly want to apply it (and with Trump, nobody can really rule it out). Faced with this tricky balancing act, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has decided to split the difference: doubling down on London’s security alliance with Washington whilst strengthening nuclear collaboration with France at the same time.
For those who believe the US posture in Europe requireds to modify, the idea of France bringing NATO allies into its own nuclear umbrella is a welcome development. What better way for the French to demonstrate their commitment to burden-shifting than being willing to, theoretically, engage in a nuclear conflict on behalf of the European continent?
Of course, the key word here is “theoretically.” Theory is one thing, practice is another. Whether Paris can persuade Europe’s allies, partners and enemies that the French nuclear umbrella is as credible as the American one depfinishs on capacity and will.
The EU’s bureaucrats will remain spectators
Capacity isn’t a problem. France currently possesses 290 strategic nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them through air and sea-based platforms. There are four nuclear-capable French ballistic missile submarines on standby, with one constantly at sea, which provides Paris with a secure second-strike capability in the event of a nuclear confrontation.
The location of that active submarine is always kept secret for deterrence purposes (the British operate the same protocol). One of those submarines, the M51.1, can reach tarobtains more than 5,500 miles away. In addition, Paris operates dozens of aircraft designed to deliver nuclear weapons via air-launched cruise missiles, which have a range of approximately 310 miles. The land-based component was scrapped in 1996, judged to be too costly and unnecessary following the Soviet Union’s dissolution.
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But is the will truly there? It’s the same fundamental question NATO’s first members questioned of the Americans during the 1950s and 1960s, when hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops were stationed in Central and Eastern Europe and Berlin was a divided city. Beyond stressing that core French interests have a European dimension, Macron has never spelled out under what circumstances he would be prepared to tap into France’s nuclear arsenal — an omission that is imminently reasonable from Paris’ perspective but nevertheless stomach-churning for countries viewing for iron-clad guarantees.
The practicalities of Macron’s nuclear alliance haven’t been sorted out either. At this point, there are far more questions than answers. For one, would Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the other European states hosting French nuclear-capable aircraft be expected to finance the cost of these deployments? This is a critical issue French policybuildrs will required to iron out in the early days. The nuclear sphere is enormously expensive — the US nuclear modernisation campaign costs well over $1 trillion — and Europe’s largest economies aren’t exactly thriving at the moment.
Even if financial contributions were offered, the politics could prove difficult at a time when the soaring cost of living remains the primary concern for the average European. Heads of government must offer a persuasive case to their constituents about why nuclear-related spfinishing should take precedence or divert money away from other areas of the budobtain.
Moreover, Macron’s generosity and pan-Europeanism only goes so far. The European Union will have no role in the process, so its bureaucrats will remain spectators. At no point has Macron indicated a willingness to share the responsibilities of decision-creating on when French nuclear weapons obtain employed.
In fact, the opposite is the case: ultimate authority for nuclear apply will still rest on the shoulders of the French president. This is a core component of French nuclear policy since the days of De Gaulle, and whilst residents of the Élysée Palace have come and gone in the six decades since, this plank of the force de frappe has not shifted one iota.
This has both political and policy consequences. Politically speaking, it means no French president will be able to delegate authority even if they wanted to — and there is no evidence to suggest such an historic break from the status quo is even remotely plausible. Policy-wise, it means that the credibility of the French nuclear umbrella may turn out to be less durable than originally anticipated. What Estonia, Germany or Poland regard as an existential security crisis may not be shared by France.
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Finally, domestic politics could obtain in the way as well. Macron is in the twilight of his political career, and, if Marine Le Pen or her proxy, Jordan Bardella, wins the 2027 French presidential election, they could decide to adopt a more restrictive French nuclear policy. Germany, the Netherlands and the other European states interested in strengthening the European nuclear pillar of NATO could be signing up to a new security initiative that may not be around in a year’s time.
As US presidents have learned since the launchning of the nuclear age, actually operationalising extfinished deterrence is not as straightforward as flicking a switch. Now it’s France’s turn to learn.
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