Trump triggers Germany’s nuclear nightmare

BERLIN — Donald Trump may still be a long way from moving back into the White House, but he has already taken up residence in Germany’s collective psyche.

The former U.S. president’s recent threat to throw what he considers NATO’s freeloaders to the Russian wolves has ignited fears across Europe that the American nuclear umbrella that has protected much of the Continent for decades may soon snap shut.

That prospect is particularly unnerving for Germany's leaders. For one thing, unlike the U.K. and France, Germany doesn’t have its own nuclear weapons.

An even bigger challenge for Berlin, however, is that most of the country's citizens seem to like it that way, with a poll published on Tuesday by the daily Bild finding that nearly 60 percent of Germans reject the idea of acquiring nuclear weapons.

Yet without a nuclear deterrent, Germany would be exposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin like never before.

Though the menace of Russia can be difficult to gauge in a country that has lived securely under American protection for 75 years, it would be reckless to ignore it, as neither a Russian victory over Ukraine nor a Trump victory in November U.S. elections can be ruled out. If Russia succeeded in Ukraine, moreover, it would have a clear path toward the rest of Europe.

Given Trump’s long history of questioning Washington’s commitment to NATO, and the clarity of his recent threats ("I'm not going to protect you"), German leaders could be expected to be busy crafting an alternative.

So far, however, they seem to be playing for time. Last week, for instance, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and other leading officials sought to extinguish a public debate about a nuclear Germany.

“It’s a very complex discussion that would be better not to pursue,” Pistorius said during a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels. “A nuclear debate is the last thing we need. It would amount to an unnecessary escalation.”

'We have one or two years'

But such an escalation may be inevitable, given the real threats on the ground.

Germany’s military brass argues the country has up to eight years to get its act together before an emboldened Putin tries to snatch another a piece of Europe. But Maximilian Terhalle, a German security and military expert who has spent years pushing his country to reconsider its stance on nukes, is more skeptical.

 “There’s no way Putin would wait five to eight years,” he said. “We have one or two years.”

Some German politicians have clung to the default position of recent decades: Find someone else to protect us.

Both Katharina Barley, the lead candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) for the upcoming EU election, and Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the fiscally conservative Free Democrats (FDP) have suggested trying to Europeanize the French nuclear force in some way. Lindner, for example, proposed a strategic dialogue with both France and the U.K. to explore “collective security.”  

“We should see the latest comments by Donald Trump as a demand to think more about this element of European security within NATO,” Lindner wrote in an op-ed for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “When peace and freedom in Europe are stake, we shouldn’t shy from these difficult questions.”

Force de frappe

This is hardly the first time Germany has fretted over the question of a nuclear deterrent.

Trump’s outbursts against NATO in 2018 ignited a similar discussion, but the debate quickly subsided once he lost reelection.

In the early 1960s, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who had his own doubts about U.S. reliability, approached French President Charles de Gaulle to see if he might include Germany in the Force de frappe, France’s nuclear strike force. He was politely rejected.

Since then the French position has shifted, due to concern not about the Germans but about the expense.

Looking to defray the cost of managing France’s nuclear arsenal, French President Emmanuel Macron invited Germany and others to contribute to the Force de frappe a few years ago, but Berlin showed no interest.

One reason for the lukewarm response is that France is not inclined to take its finger off the trigger, and instead wants to retain command and control. The impasse highlights the fatal flaw of any “European” solution: If 27 nations have difficulty agreeing merely to sanction Russia, how could they ever reach a consensus on launching a nuclear weapon against Moscow?  

Moreover, even if all sides could agree to combine the French and U.K. arsenals into a single nuclear force, Europe would still only have about 550 warheads. Military strategists say that’s not enough to deter Russian aggression across the Continent, given that Moscow has about 6,000 nuclear warheads at its disposal.

Europe would need at least an additional 1,000 strategic nuclear weapons to deter Russia convincingly, Terhalle said.

Given its wealth and political clout, Germany would have to take the lead in acquiring such weapons. The only quick option for doing so, however, would require U.S. help.

Like Russia, the U.S. nuclear stockpile numbers about 6,000, but Washington agreed with Moscow in a 2010 treaty that both sides would keep only 1,550 of those weapons active, suggesting it might have some to sell.

“We don’t have time to develop a long-term plan,” Terhalle said. “Time is not on our side, so we have to buy off the shelf.”

A bridge too far

For the Germans, even that remains a long shot.

For starters, the U.S. has no interest in further nuclear proliferation, even among its friends, though that stance could well change under Trump.

Even if the U.S. did agree to sell nuclear weapons to the Germans, going nuclear would force Germany to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a 1968 U.N. agreement to halt the spread of such weapons.

Berlin could justify such a withdrawal by arguing that the security guarantees it enjoyed when it entered the treaty no longer exist. Under Germany’s current government, however — a three-way coalition led by the SPD that also includes the Greens — such as step would be unthinkable.

The Greens literally emerged from the anti-nuclear movement, and the party faithful consider Germany’s decision to abandon nuclear power as their greatest achievement.

The SPD has its own anti-nuclear wing, led by Ralf Mützenich, the powerful head of the party’s parliamentary group. For years Mützenich sought to force the U.S. to withdraw its remaining nuclear warheads from German soil, only changing tack after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The war also prompted the coalition to change its tune on “nuclear sharing,” Germany’s longstanding commitment to deliver U.S. atomic bombs in the event of an attack. To maintain that role, Berlin has moved to replace the country’s aging fleet of combat aircraft, agreeing to purchase U.S.-made F-35 jets capable of carrying nuclear bombs.

While that suggests a degree of pragmatism in Germany’s leadership, pursuing nuclear weapons outright may be a bridge too far.

True to form, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has steered wide of the debate. But with Trump lurking in the wings and Russia testing Ukraine's resolve like never before, he won’t be able to avoid it forever.

“We’re running out of time,“ Terhalle said.