Trump threatens and the EU trembles. “Europe must arm itself to the teeth with nuclear weapons”

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) is clearly irritated. He does not like the idea of ​​talking about European nuclear weapons in front of German television cameras and microphones. – There is no reason to discuss a nuclear protective shield now – he says in an interview with the first program of the German public television ARD.

A few days ago, the likely Republican candidate for US President Donald Trump threatened that if he was re-elected, not every NATO country would receive American military support. If someone does not invest enough in defense, they will not necessarily be able to ensure the military defense of their country, warned the former president, who “would even encourage Russia to do whatever the hell it wants to do.” The presidential candidate therefore threatens to withdraw NATO’s commitment to provide support .

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that an attack on one of the members of the Alliance is, in fact, an attack on the entire NATO. Its member countries would then have to take measures to ensure the security of Alliance territory. “Including the use of armed force,” as stated in the treaty.

Nuclear weapons for the European Union?

Due to these statements by Trump, Vice-President of the European Parliament Katarina Barley (SPD) expressed doubts about the credibility of the US nuclear shield as protection for Europe. Barley believes that the European Union should consider purchasing its own nuclear weapons. German Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) is in favor of closer cooperation with European nuclear powers, Great Britain and France. These countries, along with the US, are the only NATO countries with nuclear weapons, although they have relatively few of them.

– European Union a nuclear power? A complete illusion – says DW Karl-Heinz Kamp from the DGAP think tank (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, German Foreign Policy Society), who also worked for NATO and the German Ministry of Defense: – So far, the EU is not even a military power. We do not have common armed forces. We don’t have a common government. And all this would be a necessary condition for Europe to become a nuclear power. We would have to have a president, i.e. a boss, who would decide about these nuclear weapons. Until we have all this, all such considerations are completely illusory, says the German expert.

Protective power USA

The debate on European nuclear weapons is “a very German debate that does not exist in any other country,” says Kamp. And above all, it does not exist in Eastern Europe, where the threat from Putin’s close and aggressive Russia is particularly felt, which also scares nuclear war.

According to Kamp, common European defense will not emerge in the foreseeable future “because Eastern European countries do not want it at all. They ask, where would we be without the Americans in this war of Russia against Ukraine?” In an interview with the “Tagesspiegel” newspaper, Professor Maximilian Terhalle from the Institute of Security Policy at the University of Kiel explains: – If Trump wins and Europe is unprepared, it will become vulnerable to blackmail due to lack of credible deterrence. To prevent this from happening, Europe must arm itself to the teeth with nuclear weapons.

The situation in Germany has much in common with recent history. After the experiences of World War II, the first chancellor of the still young Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer (CDU), already in 1954 announced Germany’s abandonment of its own nuclear weapons. The United States pledged to provide the Federal Republic with a nuclear deterrent against the Moscow-dominated Warsaw Pact.

– A country that started two world wars and was still perceived as inherently aggressive until the end of the second one was not treated as one that could be trusted with nuclear weapons, explains Kamp. This is also why there has never been a discussion in Germany about its own nuclear weapons. – And those who are now talking about the European defense dimension are not talking about German nuclear weapons, because Germany is a member of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and has repeatedly committed itself under international law to give up possession of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons – explains the DGAP expert.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the division into East and West Germany, the German position was re-cemented in the so-called “Treaty 2 plus 4”: No nuclear weapons! On September 12, 1990, the four victorious powers of World War II world (the United States, the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain) decided that East and West Germany (hence 2 plus 4) should be united and renounce nuclear weapons. Also because, as Kamp emphasized in an interview with DW, “German power nuclear would be something that would be terrifying, if only for historical reasons.

Nuclear weapons in Germany?

During the Cold War (i.e. 1947-91), the United States armed Western Europe on a large scale with nuclear weapons to deter the Soviet Union from attacking. After the collapse of the USSR, the American government withdrew many of these atomic bombs. It is estimated that 180 nuclear weapons are still in Europe: in Italy, Turkey, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Nuclear sharing is the name of the model that allows Germany, a country without nuclear weapons, to participate in American nuclear bombs.

Experts assume that 20 pieces of American nuclear weapons are stored in the town of Büchel in Rhineland-Palatinate in western Germany. – But only the US president can have this weapon – emphasizes the DGAP Kamp expert.

In a television interview, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius criticizes the statements of Donald Trump conducting the US election campaign. Pistorius is convinced “that most of those responsible in the United States of America know exactly what they have with their transatlantic partners in Europe, what they have with NATO.” Security expert Karl-Heinz Kamp puts it this way in an interview with DW: – Trump may be able to significantly harm NATO, but cannot destroy the Alliance. Decades of transatlantic relations cannot be destroyed in one term.