Germany is at a crossroads when it comes to its security policy — one of the deepest upheavals of the post-War era.
At least until the next French election. Not exactly a long-term guarantee. Germany needs its own deterrent.
France has no choice. Europe is so small and densely populated that any nuclear attack would have an immense impact on France as well (due to the channel, that is less clear for the UK).
And on the other hand, Germany’s nukes would be highly dependant on France as well, as Germany shut down their civil nuclear program a while ago, and you can’t have nukes without one. And restarting their civil nuclear program would be complete economic madness for Germany. So the nuclear material and expertise will come from France most likely, and then Germany might as well negotiate a much cheaper sharing arrangement directly.
I guess the logic is that France might stand by if Germany is attacked conventionally. It’s not just about whether a nuke hitting Germany would affect France.
Do we really need that many nuclear power plants for it though? Wouldn’t some experimental nuclear power plants be sufficient? I guess we still have some, right? …right?
Germany still has some research reactors running. But for enrichment you don’t need a reactor, gas diffusion and centrifuges are also options. There should be enough fuel left to enrich enough uranium for at least some bombs. So it should be possible without too much reliance on external partners.
I really hope europe can “denazify” now that we have seen what it brings.
Europe is not a country and historically the internal cooperation we see today is the extreme exception. Any of the countries could flip at any time for a multitude of reasons, and then what? France just dominates?
This wouldn’t change much. Europe is too small to use nuclear weapons in internal conflicts effectively, so it is really only a suitable weapon to deter enemies from outside, like Russia.
Given the disregard Russian leadership displays towards the well-being of its own citizens, and how it likes to overestimate its own capabilities, the relatively limited nuclear deterrent offered by France might not be enough.
Especially if Russia either gets lucky and manages to detect some (or worse, all) of the few French strategic missile submarines on patrol, and puts a little too much trust in its own anti-ballistic missile capabilities.
