Suomenkielinen yhteenveto
EUROOPAN YDINSATEENVARJO – EI JOS, VAAN KUINKA JA MILLOIN
Ilman nk. ydinsateenvarjoa Euroopan on ydinasekiristyksen kohteeksi joutuessaan viime kädessä mahdotonta puolustaa itseään riippumatta siitä kuinka suuren prosentin bruttokansantuotteestaan se käyttää puolustukseen. Donald Trumpin valinta Yhdysvaltain presidentiksi ja erityisesti viime viikkojen lausunnot muuttivat Euroopan oman ydinsateenvarjon etäisestä mahdollisuudesta kiireelliseksi välttämättömyydeksi. Luottamuksen Yhdysvaltoihin pettäessä ainoa vaihtoehto on Euroopan oma ydinsateenvarjo. Saksan tuleva liittokansleri Friedrich Merz totesikin helmikuun lopuulla, että Saksan pitäisi luottaa vähemmän amerikkalaisiin sotilaallisiin turvatoimiin, ja hän esittää neuvotteluja Ranskan ja Britannian kanssa, jotta Euroopan kaksi ydinasevaltaa laajentaisivat ydinsateenvarjonsa Saksaan.
Yksittäisten maiden suojaaminen pienten ja tiheästi asuttujen maiden Euroopassa olisi kuitenkin sotilasteknisesti epäkäytännöllistä ja NATOa poliittisesti jakavaa – Eurooppa tarvitsee yhden kattavan ydinsateenvarjon.
Nopea tie eurooppalaiseen ydinsateensateenvarjoon on onneksi mahdollinen. Se edellyttää sopimusta toisaalta Ison-Britannian ja Ranskan ja toisaalta 28 muun Euroopan Nato-maan välillä. Ranska on ehdottanut tällaista järjestelyä jo ainakin vuosikymmenen ajan. Sopimus edellyttäisi epäilemättä kaikkien Euroopan NATO-maiden osallistumista Ison-Britannian ja Ranskan ydinasekustannuksiin. Merzin ehdottama vaihtoehto olisi kuitenkin määrättömästi nopeampi ja halvempi kuin uusien NATO Euroopan tai omien ydinasevoimien rakentaminen puhtaalta pöydältä.
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EUROPEAN NUCLEAR SHIELD – NOT IF, BUT HOW & WHEN
The election of Donald Trump for the US president, and in particular his statements in the past weeks have changed Europe’s own nuclear shield from a remote possibility into an urgent necessity.
Without the assured nuclear shield provided by the US it will be ultimately impossible for Europe to defend itself under nuclear blackmail, regardless of any % of GDP committed for the military spending. The only imaginable alternative is Europe’s own nuclear shield.
Friedrich Merz, the likely new Chancellor of Germany, has already ceded that Germany should rely less on American military safeguards, and is advocating talks with France and Britain that would see Europe’s two nuclear powers expand their protective shield to Germany.
A fast track to a European nuclear shield is possible, but it requires a deal between the UK and France, and the 28 other European NATO countries. Cost sharing of the maintenance and future development of the nuclear armament of the UK and France by the other European NATO countries, would obviously be in order.
Boundary conditions for the European Nuclear Shield include NATO, the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty and, in the current situation, the Budapest Memorandum.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, 1949)
NATO is a collective security system of 30 European countries, the US and Canada. In the Treaty the commitment clause of Article 5 is of the biggest interest here. It commits each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state to be an armed attack against them all. Upon such attack, each member state is to assist by taking ”such action as [the member state] deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” Three of the NATO member countries, the US, the UK and France have nuclear weapons, but currently only those of The US and the UK form NATO’s nuclear forces.
The fundamental purpose of NATO’s nuclear forces is for deterrence. While the employment of nuclear weapons is considered extremely remote, any employment against NATO would impose costs on the adversary that would be unacceptable and far outweigh the benefits that any adversary could hope to achieve.
The strategic forces of the Alliance, and particularly those of the United States, are the supreme guarantee of the security of the Alliance [thus the lay terms nuclear shield or umbrella]. The independent strategic nuclear forces of the United Kingdom have a deterrent role of their own and contribute significantly to the overall security of the Alliance.
Without such nuclear deterrent or shield, if not by the nuclear arsenal of the US, then Europe’s own, European countries must ultimately bow to any blackmail from any nuclear power. This would, simply, be an intolerable and unsustainable state of affairs.
But why was this nuclear shield, that covers the 32 countries of NATO, first established by the US and the UK? In its current form it is based on two public documents agreed by all Allies: The 2022 Strategic Concept; and The 2012 Deterrence and Defence Posture Review.
History: In 1948 only the US and Russia possessed nuclear weapons. Each of the two could have crushed any enemy – except the other nuclear power – without being crushed itself. In 1949 NATO was established. In short, to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. In 1952 the UK and in 1960 France detonated their first nuclear weapons. In those days also other countries like Sweden (1945-72) and Italy (late 1960’s) had ongoing nuclear weapons programmes. Nazi-Germany had had one (1939-45), and there were new nuclear aspirations in Western Germany (NATO member since 1955). The idea, however, of nuclear weapons proliferation into new countries was seen as gravely dangerous by most, and of German nuclear weapons after WW I and WW II simply out of question.
The fundamental security of any NATO Ally against nuclear attacks was, therefore, agreed be the backed up by the nuclear arsenal of the US and the UK, i.e., own nuclear arsenals would not be necessary for the other NATO members.
Has NATO Article 5 been ever invoked? Yes. On September 12, 2001, the day after the al-Queda 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, when NATO met in an emergency session. For the first and only time in its history, NATO invoked Article 5. The NATO allies did come to help the US in 2001 when called for. This led to the invasion of Afghanistan by NATO forces from the US, the UK, France, Canada, Italy and Germany, and SEATO forces from Australia, and New Zealand. After the defeat of Taleban International Security Forces (ISAF) were formed to help the new Afghan security forces. ISAF consisted of 8000 American and 5000 coalition (other Nato countries) soldiers. Eventually 2400 US and 1100 coalition soldiers got killed in action in Afghanistan, including soldiers from Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT, 1970)
In NPT the five NWS parties (Nuclear Weapons States, the US, the UK, France, Russia and China) agree not to transfer nuclear weapons capabilities into the NNWS countries (Non-Nuclear Weapons States) (Article I). The NNWS parties on their part agree not seek such capabilities (Article II). The NNWS parties also agree to accept safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify that they are not diverting nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons (Article III).
Additionally, the US, Russia, the UK, France and China undertook not to use their nuclear weapons against a non-NWS party except in response to a nuclear attack, or a conventional attack in alliance with a NWS.
Budapest Memorandum (1994)
After Ukraine became in 1991 independent as the Soviet Union dissolved, Ukraine possessed the 3rd largest strategic and tactical nuclear arsenal after Russia and the US. One can now speculate that had Ukraine kept this arsenal, in no way would Russia have invaded Crimea on 2014 or any part of Ukraine in 2022. At the same time, it is questionable that Ukraine possessed in 1991 the capabilities and resources to maintain this huge strategic and tactical nuclear arsenal to remain operational and safe – maybe a part of the tactical weapons, though.
In the early 1990’s, however, the US and Russia both wanted eagerly to get the nuclear weapons out of Ukraine. In the Budapest memoranda, signed in 1994 by the representatives of the US, Russia, and the UK (later by France and China), these nuclear powers promised to respect the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan in their existing borders, and were prohibited from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against them, ”except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
Since 2014 Russia, however, has bluntly violated the Budapest Memorandum but so have also the US and the UK by not interfering – unless one counts the sanctions that have failed to change the situation on the ground.
Since 2022 Russia has also violated the undertakings of the NPT via thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine if it felt that its critical interests are threatened. Putin appears to interpret the NTP so that Russia is subject to “a conventional attack by Ukraine – and not the other way around – in alliance with a NWS, i.e., the US”, and that Russia is, thus, entitled to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine or any NATO country supporting Ukraine as it deems necessary for the self-defence of Russia – and not the Russian invasion of a sovereign Ukraine.
Now, how crooked can the interpretation of the situation on the ground in Ukraine and the text of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty get?!
Nuclear shield of Europe – Lost and found
Faced with Putin threatening the US NATO Allies in Europe, president Trump forgets the invoking of Article 5 in 12.9.2001 by the US. He obscures and vaguely conditions the US commitment to Article 5 in case its NATO Allies would be attacked in Europe. Via such talk Trump not only hugely encourages Putin to test what, if anything, might be left of the most formidable defense alliance in the World, but also forces European Nato countries to replan their defences uncertain about which side the biggest and strongest NATO Ally would take.
The Baltic NATO states are afraid that they would be Putin’s first test site. The people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are already looking back to the future of being betrayed, rolled over, robbed, railroaded to Siberia and randomly murdered by a military superpower.
Without an assured nuclear shield provided by the US it will be ultimately impossible for Europe to defend itself under nuclear blackmail, regardless of any % of military spending. The only imaginable alternative is a shield provided by Europe’s own nuclear arsenal. The new Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, has already ceded that Germany should be less reliant on American military safeguards, advocating talks with France and Britain that would see Europe’s two nuclear powers expand their protective shield to Germany.
Shielding individual countries and not others within the small, densely populated countries of Europe would, however, be technically impractical and politically divisive – we need an EU-NATO-wide nuclear shield. One NATO, one shield.
Fast track to a European nuclear shield is possible, but it requires a deal between the UK and France, and the 28 other European NATO countries. Cost sharing of the nuclear armament costs of the UK and France with the other European NATO countries, would obviously be in order, and that idea might appeal to the UK PM Keir Starmer, who just announced a significant increase of the defence budget, including new Dreadnought-class nuclear submarines.
On 25.2.2025 the Telegraph reported that France is ready to use its nuclear deterrent to defend Europe instead of the United States.
This discussion has been going on with a saving flame for years, but the election of Trump for the US president, and in particular his statements in the past weeks have changed Europe’s own nuclear shield from a remote possibility into an urgent necessity.