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Germany steps up to replace ‘unreliable’ US as guarantor of European security
(theconversation.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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No nukes - no guarantees.
France has Nukes
The headline says Germany is replacing the US as security guarantor. Clearly it's more nuanced, as you point out.
So France, and only France has a believable deterrence. Or do you really think a front national President would risk Paris for a small tactical nuke on Nato troupes in Poland? France doesn't have tactical nukes, only the city destroying strategic ones, they can't answer without escalating.
Which, you know, is a great deterrance to would be attackers. Nuclear deterrance is 4D chess via game theory. Not being able to slowly escalate a nuclear war is a benefit that makes people think twice about starting one.
It works as long as its plauble to think that someone will press the red button. I have no doubt that Macron would follow a treaty that would demand that, but he wouldn't be the president of France forever. Baradella (Front national) has good chances to get the next president and I wouldn't trust him risking a nuclear over anything but France itself.
Your pretty generous assuming that he would defend France since all those fuckers are Putin puppets
In Europe? Also the UK.
You don't think we are capable of building nuclear weapons. If not, the French can deploy there nukes on our soil. The Green's will be pissed.
After the Russo-Ukrainian war began the Greens have really done a 180 on this sort of stuff, so I wouldn't count on it.
Greens? Not rather The Left?
The Greens went nuts over the Pershing II missiles back in the 1980's. "Die Linke and AfD," the fucking losers, will cry too.
Quick reminder: 1985 is 40 years ago. The Greens have agreed to regime change missions in several countries. The Iron Curtain fell; Ukraine was disarmed; Srebrenica, 2014 and 2022 happened. Traffic light coalition consisted of social democrat's historical-moderate restraint, market-conservative opportunism and green-liberal-interventionist guilt. 1980s West-Greens are not 2020s middle-class intellectuals Greens.
Operation Paperclip
Of course youre capable of building nuclear weapons, but it takes time which we dont have
Germany already hosts nuclear weapons.
Considering this is about the USA becoming unreliable, I would say those nukes don't count.
Unreliable and stupid. They probably left the gate unlocked and the keys in it.
Doubt it, but even if, those aren't the big nukes you need for nuclear deterrence. These you need to strap to a Tornado or F35 and fly it all the way to Moscow or Washington and hope you don't get shot down en route.
Need to get nukes may also revitalize nuclear energy in Germany for peaceful purposes. I hope.
Possibly. Issue is the kind of reactors that are typically employed in submarines and on aircraft carriers are not necessarily the ones we want for civilian uses, but the temptation to use the civilian program as a training ground for military stuff is huge, for economic reasons. I think nuclear energy would be far more advanced if it wasn't shackled to the pressurized water designs.
Yes, that's what I meant.
Only for 'peaceful purposes'. You have to run nuclear reactors to create plutonium for the bomb. So all peaceful nuclear electricity creates the material for the bombs.
Not True, that was the case with light water reactors, which were initially, only ever conceived for nuclear submarines. They were never meant to be scaled up. But, the US government canned research into Thorium and Natrium Nuclear reactors. Which can produce 1/1000 the amount of nuclear waste and can be fueled using spent nuclear rods from lightwater reactors. They create longer, more complete and sustained fission and we have had these designs since the 60's. But the fossil fuel industry spent billions trying to demonise and delegitimise nuclear power because that would be the end of for-profit energy production. Now private companies like Copenhagen Atomics and Bill Gates's Natrium are producing vastly more efficient and in the Case of CA, modular nuclear reactors. Like, the size of a 40 ft shipping container modular. It is super exciting stuff.