Looks like the arms race with nukes are back on the table... Ugh, whatever it takes to keep Europe safe I guess... I'd rather not have this, but unfortunately it seems like the 180 turn by the US and Russia's agression is forcing Europe to do this.
this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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I'd rather have french Nukes from Macron than US Nukes from Putin-Loving Trump in Germany
I'm not sure this really qualifies as an arms race. France doesn't have an arsenal like America or Russia, and this plan doesn't involve expanding the French arsenal or putting nukes anywhere that there aren't already nukes
I wouldn't call it an arms race too, although, if France's nukes are being spread out, it would make sense to expand their arsenal as well.
it would make sense to expand their arsenal as well.
A quick search tells me that a french submarine contains 16 M51 missiles, and each of these missiles can contain up to 10 warhead witha power or 300 kt. Such a warhead SHot over New York City would killl over one million people, break the windows up to Newark airport.
let's assume a Sub empty it's load, and 80% of the warhead are intercepted by air-defence. It's enough to wipe 32 cities/strategical sites from the map. I don't see how a country even as big as Russia/China/US won't fully collapse from that much damage.
So even a small actor as France has enough nuke to bring back a country in middle-age. It's indeed making sense to have some Nuke abroad as it increases the number of potential targets in case of war. To my understanding France has been offering to share nuke with Germany for decades
80% is also suuuuper optimistic, especially if there are dummy munitions in the mix.
I have no idea of the actual number (and the one who do, aren't bragging about-it), but I was talking about a 80% loss rate rather than a 80% pass rate.
I think you two are talking about the same. With dummies mixed in, you can waste a lot of the air defense on them and have more nukes pass. So far MAD works as a strategy. Problem is, if someone manages to find a reliable way to intercept nukes, it will topple the global power balance.
While macrons a more stable person than Trump or Lepen, he has almost as little respect for democracy and for the truth as them. And anyways in 2 years he's gone with significant odds that Lepen or Bardella get elected...
It seems pretty clear at this point that one of the principal lessons of the Russo-Ukrainian war is "Having nukes guarantees sovereignty". It's unfortunate because nukes are obviously pretty fucking bad, but even if they aren't saying it, every nuke-less nation with a sketchy neighbor is trying to figure out a way to obtain strategic nuclear capabilities now, and anyone who was thinking about giving them up has stopped... and I can't say I blame them.
More eu nations are going to need their own arsenal. If you don't have your own, you are at risk. Sad but true.
The French have more than enough, there just needs to be a proper agreement at EU level to share more responsibility (and costs).
What about a President Le Pen? Then the whole Trump problem repeats.
Not if there is a proper sharing agreement in place before that, something similar to Airbus or so.
And as bad as a President Le Pen would be, the Front National (or what ever they call themselves these days) does not have an agenda of undermining the state and international relations, like the new Trump administration seems to have.
Not if there is a proper sharing agreement in place before that, something similar to Airbus or so.
Very true! Airbus is a European public company, seated in the Netherlands and controlled by multiple European governments (FR, DE, ES) who together control a blocking minority.
This is exactly what would have to happen to French nuclear weapons, turning them into European nuclear weapons instead.
does not have an agenda of undermining the state and international relations
We relied on that not changing before. We mustn't do it again.
i think poland will annonce a nuclear weapons program soon.
Good. The EU needs to start stockpiling nukes. The US is now a hostile foreign power.
Jet fighters could be posted to Germany as deterrent as Emmanuel Macron
Cool, then the we can drop the Tornados and tell the Americans to GTFO when we built back our Military
