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Comment by TheAlchemist | Hacker News Reader

For several reasons, France is uniquely positioned to be the leader of Europe. Nuclear arms, a lot of nuclear energy, defense industry, food independence. All of this thanks to Charles De Gaulle, who insisted that France must be autonomous in most important domains.

With hindsight, this was extremely important. Without France's nuclear energy and arms, Europe would be in a very very bad position right now.

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This fantastic speech points in that direction. This is the type of rhetoric that can rally Europeans behind France

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1j46edt/we_are_figh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j51HZncBvEI

YouTube link for easier sharing.

This was always obvious and my native Sweden was doing the same thing.

Unfortunately, our competent leadership was gradually replaced with charlatans and imposters and we are now in a terrible situation.

Also, crucially, France has no US military bases

France depends on Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Niger for uranium. At least it depended on Niger until there was a military coup that stopped further exports. If there is a large scale conflict, I would not bet on those reactors accomplishing much. Not to mention that they did not accomplish much three years ago during the biggest energy crisis in decades, and that they need humongous investments just to keep running, so that they can get retired for further enormous costs. I'm not sure you can lead where your allegedly biggest asset is barely holding its head above water and is long term s huge liability.

That's interesting. In case of large scale conflict, for how long could French reactors run ? I assumed for quite long, am I completely wrong here ?

> ? I assumed for quite long, am I completely wrong here ?

France has more of 10y of Uranium stockpile for it's own consumption.

While not being very actively mined, Czech Republic has large Uranium reserves & provided a lot of the initial soviet uranium after the soviet sponsored comunist coup:

https://english.radio.cz/czech-radioactive-dillema-8109837 https://www.suro.cz/files/2021-03/Uranium%20mining%20history...

I guess lots of this could be restarted if there is demand ?

Uranium is common, it's just not profitable to mine at current prices. But fuel costs are just a few percentage points of the total.

If there were a shortage, it's no problem to pay even 5x more. Then you'll see suppliers pop up everywhere.

It's a theory that makes sense, but in reality e.g. during the crisis in 2022, one of the solutions 6 months in was to fly in welders from the US. Which might be a point that a solution can be found in a crisis, except the Edf had lost billions up to that point, after countless delays, finishing the year over 15 billion in the red. Overall, that industry has been incapable of delivering anything in a reasonable timeframe for decades now, especially in France.

So I would not take theories for granted, even if they make sense.

Ain't it the truth.

The UK also has a nuclear arsenal [0]. A bit smaller than France's, but the reality is both pale in comparison to the US and Russia. Europe has no natural leader, it's an ensemble of what some would now call random countries that only have relevance when considered together.

But that doesn't need to be an issue imho. Decentralized systems are generally messier but also more resilient than centralized ones. If this situation leads to an arms race of individual countries, the outcome may well be that the combined total force is the strongest on the planet. The question is whether they're willing to go there. They would have the engineering and industrial footprint, but they would completely need to change their political DNA. Avoiding armament of European nations is literally the EU's original raison d'être. On a more practical level, they would need to ditch the Maastricht rules on fiscal discipline, something that is also deeply enshrined in the EU's institutional mindset, as well as its laws. Or they would need to issue collective debt, but that runs against the political DNA of some member states. Everything is doable, the question is whether the sense of urgency is strong enough. Given how keen European leaders currently are to let everyone who wasn't asking know that they're helpless without the US, it seems that there's still a long way to go.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we...

Without in any way indulging in the delusion of a united Europe, in which Germany is willing to subordinate itself to France, one thing is worth saying:

The UK does have a nuclear arsenal, but it's essentially leased from the US.

> in the delusion of a united Europe, in which Germany is willing to subordinate itself to France

The Haudenosaunee a/k/a Iroquois had a unique confederacy consisting of two dominant and a few lesser powers [1][2]. And the Roman Republic had two consuls, including on campaign. Maybe a nuclear command inspired by both is the answer: any launch requires codes from each of Paris, Berlin and the head of state of the country actually launching.

(Practically, the Germans are sort of irrelevant given they not only have no nuclear weapons, they’re also dismantling their civil nuclear expertise. I’m assuming they grow up and reärm. Otherwise, centralising nuclear power in Paris doesn’t depend on Germany agreement.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois

[2] https://youtu.be/S4gU2Tsv6hY

The Germans have the money, the largest GDP in the EU and France is a distant second (would be third if you counted the UK though).

At the end of the day there is no EU without Germany, and as we've seen with Ukraine, waging a war without funds is like trying to breathe in a vacuum.

> Germans have the money, the largest GDP in the EU and France is a distant second

For nuclear purposes Germany is irrelevant. For martial purposes, it’s a distant second to France.

It obviously should be part of mutual-defence discussions. But it doesn’t need to be and doesn’t bring that much to the table in the short term. (Absent a hypothetical land war.)

Again, when we're talking about warfare, there is a strong economic and industrial dimension. Unless the scope of your warfare is limited to extremely fatalistic worst-case scenarios.

Russia was on the ropes in many ways because of the cost of the war they're waging, while Ukraine was in a stronger position because of aid and promises of future rebuilding investment. If push comes to shove and there's a European conflict, Germany has a (horrifically) proven track record of war production.

I'm also baffled by the claim that Germany is a distant second to France in terms of military. Germany doesn't have any need for a carrier because they don't have colonies/former colonies they want to "work with". Germany does however spend more than twice what France does on their military budget, although in GDP terms France spends more... alas France has a much smaller GDP. Germany has a slightly smaller military force, but only about 19k or so.

> Unless the scope of your warfare is limited to extremely fatalistic worst-case scenarios

Within the context of the French nuclear umbrella there are two questions: strategic nuclear deterrence and everything else. Germany is useless for the former. It's important, but not critical, for the latter.

> baffled by the claim that Germany is a distant second to France in terms of military

Their force projection is limited. They're absolutely going to strengthen any alliance they join. But outside a conventional proxy war of attrition with the U.S. or China, they're not strictly necessary. (And could be a net negative due to their politics.)

Don't matter if they spend twice the money on military if that money don't return, France has aircraft programs nuclear programs etc while spending half what Germany do

Exactly. And in these wild times, one realize that being dependent on the US, is no longer a viable path forward.

It's quite similar actually to Germany's dependence on Russian gas. It was all self inflicted (nobody seem to remember the corrupt German politicians, that all went to work for Gazprom and co...).

Without knowing anything about the arrangement, I would assume that as far as these matters are concerned, whoever controls the launch button effectively owns the thing. Those things are made exactly for the kind of situations where treaties aren't enough.

In the short term, that's true.

If they can't independently maintain the weapons, it ceases to be true beyond the short term, though.

OTOH, my understanding is that that is not a problem for the UK; they don't “essentially lease” their arsenal from the US; they use domestically developed and maintained warheads on purchased-from-the-US but locally-maintained Trident missiles carried by UK-built-and-maintained subs.

They might have some uphill work if they wanted major delivery system upgrades, but their existing arsenal is, AFAIK, functionally independent of an ongoing dependence on the US.

I wonder how it works in practice.

I share the scepticism that the UK can fire these independently. But then, from a purely technical PoV, you'd imagine these missiles can be fired:

- from underwater, away from radio reception

- as a second strike weapon, i.e. with command centres destroyed

So here's the dichotomy. If these assumptions hold, then the UK must be able to fire the missiles independently - they seem to work offline. And if they don't, then they are even more useless than I thought. Essentially they would only be good for a first strike, approved by the US, or second strike in a sub-global conflict, not even for a NATO-wide defence in an all-out war.

I can't see a third way. Maybe US satellites which would diffuse a Trident in-flight if the US says so?

You make a good point about them being underwater and having to function offline.

I could see them having some sort of DRM "license key" that only gives, say, a 90 day window before it has to be renewed for the missiles to function.

> On a more practical level, they would need to ditch the Maastricht rules on fiscal discipline

I think this has been suggested by Ursula von der Leyen. Europe has to get united and get to the point where it can defend itself. The US has definitely proven that they are unreliable, so it has to be done. But it will take some time, and in the meantime Europe has to rely on the US. If not as allies, then as partners.

The US have been threatening to become enemies, but that's not (yet) the case, which is why the EU is still considering relying on a partner.

Almost nothing of relevance can be done overnight, but the first step is always the most important one. I haven't heard of that comment by vdL yet, maybe they're ready to take it, but the proof is in the pudding.

"Von der Leyen outlined the five-point plan at a critical time for the future of Europe's security.

One of them is a proposal to suspend strict budget rules to allow member states to ramp up "their defence expenditures without triggering the excessive deficit procedure," Von der Leyen said.[1]"

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/eus-von-der-leyen-proposes-800-billion...

Thanks. That does sound like it could be a pragmatic solution, if they go through with it.

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