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If the US rhetoric continues it will not be long until you will see some currently non-nuclear EU countries start talking about contingency options. It will take a while, but it is good to remember that the reason there are so few nuclear weapons states is not because it is terribly hard, but because states have abstained for the global good and benefit of non-proliferation. This with the implied protection from states that have it.

If that no longer holds, then we enter a new era where non-proliferation will be history.

I think already at this point, that there will be several more nuclear states in Europe (inside EU) in the not so distant future.

Many of the countries already have certified delivery platforms, or have ordered them.

Of course, we're treading in new waters and it's completely unknown if any existing contracts and treaties will be honoured anymore, but that concern will be secondary to this, I think.

I say it is a secondary concern because 1. basically any European nation can put together a delivery system, ballistic or cruising, should they have to; and 2. creating the weapon itself is not really that big of an undertaking for a modern high-technology nation state level actor.

My bet is that we will see Poland to become the next nuclear weapons state. Possibly in collaboration with some neighbours around the Baltic Sea. Who knows, maybe Ukraine joins

The United States Intelligence Complex will never ever let that happen, instead we will give them an option to have our own nuclear warheads which can be equipped to a US operated aircraft on their soil just like it is in the Netherlands. The most important thing is the the Polish Government cannot independently target using a nuclear warhead the targeting and the decision to launch should always be made by the US(i.e. A US 4 star general just like how it is in NATO)

How would they prevent it? Using military force? Because if it becomes an existential question, the drive to achieve it will be very high. Also, the intelligence complex has failed to stop countries like North Korea, so I don't think they are allmighty in choosing who can get it or not. The status quo is a consensus. We will see what happens when allies to the US sense the relationship has fundamentally changed.

I certainly find the trump rhetoric distasteful and counterproductive. But I really think the EU would be better off with the ability to defend themselves. Depending on NATO article 5 always introduces a tempting ambiguity, which can lead to miscalculation.

I agree. Not only does it open the chance of miscalculation, but also makes Europe vulnerable to this kind of blackmailing.

It is still sad though. At any rate, it fits the pattern. During his first term he was also more interested in cozying up with autocrats.

For a long time Europe was happy having the cake and eating it. Pretending to be a united, peaceful, "soft superpower" and reaping the peace dividends of a US brokered world system. Yet everybody knows that almost all power rests with its varied nation governments, that they are all preoccupied with their own demons and internal inequalities and that they all see the EU as an alliance of convenience.

History called our bluff. Event after event, Financial crisis (remember that?), the Brexit implosion of the UK, the Syrian war / migration crisis, the Pandemic, the Russian invasion, the Trumpist implosion of the US, the Adtech invasion, the Energy transition disruption from China etc. An endless list of setbacks that is not going to end anytime soon.

The old continent is shaken to the very core but somehow we are still in the denial phase.

The old continent is shaken to the very core but somehow we are still in the denial phase.

I am not sure we are in denial. Have you seen defense spending since the invasion of Ukraine? Moscow failed blackmailing member states using gas. There was pretty good collective purchasing and distribution of COVID vaccinations, etc.

It's just a very slow process with 27 member states. But it seems that every crisis so far as accelerated European integration, which is a win.

> every crisis so far as accelerated European integration

There is indeed some evidence of this but this is not a cause to celebrate.

It is a reactive response and minimalist in scope. Once the crisis is somehow mitigated, everybody is back singing their old tunes. E.g., the various proclamations for banking and capital markets union are still in deep freeze, two decades after the financial crisis. The first response to the Covid and migrant crises was to close internal borders etc.

> It's just a very slow process with 27 member states.

Yes, and we should always celebrate and prioritise preserving that individuality - when it is not hindering the collective survival of our cultures and values.

The beauty of the European project is that it doesnt follow a known pattern. It must invent the needed mechanisms. At this juncture it feels there is a need for drastic such invention. To stop running after disasters and have some confidence in our future.

Hardly having the cake and eating it. Ideas of a pan-European army were always shot down by either NATO or UK. I mean, it's hard to develop an own army if you are not allowed to by people who are part of the decision process.

NATO is the EU with other hats plus US.

>it's starting to sound like a mob wanting protection money

Starting to sound like a mob? He's been at this for his whole adult life.

The long Russian strategy has been to undermine the NATO via the US. The right wing nonsense in the US plays into that, by design, and is happening at the worst time for the US.

Reality is the value that the US brings is lower than it was. Ukraine has chewed up the old Soviet-era WW2 style tank divisions, but we’ve also seen that 4th generation fighters can’t survive in contested airspace and traditional Navy ships need to stay offshore (for now) to avoid being sunk by drone jetskis. Kinda a problem where we have limited inventory of 5th generation aircraft in either of our air forces.

The Navy sort of figured this out, but instead of building submarines built stealth ships with no weapons.

We need a reappraisal of US military force structure, based on the technology of 2026 vs 1986, as we’re on the path to end up like the Russians.

As an EU citizen, what bothers me most about this is that the EU is currently verbally attacked from both sides: Lavrov started in the Carlson interview with saying that relationships with Russia and the EU will be difficult but relations with the US are still possible. Mededev topped it off by saying that the EU cannot be forgiven but the US is still an important partner.

YouTube channels that follow the Russian narrative suddenly amplify this and pivoted from "the US is to blame" to "the EU is to blame".

The US narrative (at least online) seems to shift similarly: The US wasn't that important for the conflict, it is the Brits, the French and the Eastern European states who are the real hawks and who have to pay for the war.

Since the EU will be left out of talks between Trump and Putin, one wonders what the game is here and if secret agreements have already been made.

> Since the EU will be left out of talks between Trump and Putin, one wonders what the game is here and if secret agreements have already been made

This is defeatist. Europe isn't bound by talks it's left out of.

The DMA really is despicable though. Finding existing monopoly language to be inadequate for their purposes, the EU invented entirely new language that’s theoretically neutral laws on neutral principles but was drafted with the intent of targeting specific foreign entities in a comprehensive manner (mostly American, but also TikTok which is a PRC corporation) threatening to levy fines of 20% of their global—not EU—global revenue.

With the full text of the law implemented, several of these companies came up with compliance plans that don’t run afoul of the letter of the law, but the EC has repeatedly and continued to say “not good enough”, effectively inserting itself in the design process of new products and services from these companies going forward.

I’m against using NATO Article 5 as a bargaining chip too, but seeing what popular support crappy extremely targeted and extremely bureaucratically-minded laws like this has, has me questioning how much the EU is really an ally these days. It’s a given that a lot of you feel this way about the election of Donald Trump (twice), so I get it, but it cuts both ways across the Atlantic right now.