US domestic political tensions and the threat of Donald Trump’s return cast a shadow of doubt over the entire NATO. The British and French nuclear deterrent will not be enough for Europe then.
Tuukka Tervonen reporter
The latest turns in US policy have put the entire superpower’s support for its allies in doubt, endangered Ukraine’s future and raised the question: does the EU need its own nuclear deterrent?
The long-standing uncertainty about whether the US Republican Party will still be able to support Ukraine seems to have been answered.
It’s sad yes no.
A large but ever-shrinking portion of Republican congressional politicians want to support Ukraine, but the Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson’s under the leadership, the new support packages for Ukraine have been blocked. In the background, there is also someone who admires Putin and opposes aid to Ukraine Donald Trump.
At first, Johnson wanted to tie To the border law package of the US Ukraine aid package. When such a deal was made in the Senate, Johnson changed his line to say that the law is not needed and the deal will not be voted through. Johnson then turned his coat around again and blocked a clean assist package because it didn’t include any boundary laws.
It makes one doubtthat Johnson’s goal all along has been to prevent even more unpopular Ukraine aid.
Among the Republicans, world-class coat-tailers were seen, when, for example, just last year in Kiev pledged support and demanded more senator Lindsey Graham loudly against aid packages.
Later, Graham retracted and said he was “optimistic†that a solution to the support would be found. At the same time, Ukrainian soldiers are needlessly killed every day due to the lack of ammunition.
The US Congress is yet so in chaosthat it is okay to doubt that a solution will be found.
In any case America’s isolation and the republican wing pushing the isolationist line is taking over the party completelyand the support of the United States cannot therefore be relied upon with certainty in the future either.
Europe is not innocent either.
Can Europe do it alone?
Of the promised million artillery shells, only about half have been delivered to Ukraine by the promised deadline. The Czech Republic, which has worked tirelessly, has sought 800,000 artillery shells from the world, which the EU could buy and deliver to Ukraine, but for example France used the brakes earlier in buying ammunition and would like to see the money invested in the EU’s own ammunition production.
Europe still faces an even bigger threat: the political deadlock in the United States has shown that even if this is the biggest, the allies will inevitably not be helped. A respected journalist-author Anne Applebaum I said: The United States is an unreliable and lousy ally.
If Donald Trump is elected president, total chaos threatens.
Trump has hated NATO since the 1980s and has repeatedly threatened to take the United States out of the defense alliance. The voiced reason is that European countries do not spend enough money on their armies, but with additional budgets it hardly matters to Trump: the ex-president is known not to care about the facts and if he believes in something, it’s that the United States is best off alone.
Trump’s attempt to take the country out of NATO would result in the United States likely to a long legal battle.
European defense certainly cannot wait with years of courtroom drama at the same time as many countries the intelligence services warn About Russia’s intentions to attack a European NATO country.
The sad fact is that NATO’s security guarantees are also not quite up to their reputation. If Russia were to attack Finland or any other NATO country, Trump or the United States in general could just choose not to help.
Union’s own nuclear weapon?
However, the uncertain alliance of the United States almost completely deprives Europe of the ultimate weapon of war: nuclear deterrence. Of the EU countries, only France has a small nuclear arsenal, which pales in comparison to Russia’s huge nuclear arsenal. Britain, a NATO country, also has a small nuclear arsenal.
So it’s no wonder that Europe has finally started talking on common European nuclear deterrence. Finishing the taps opened last week a German parliamentarian Catherine Barley saying that the EU’s own nuclear weapons should be considered.
The concept is difficult. European countries have signed an agreement against the spread of nuclear weapons, and it is unclear under which command structure a common European nuclear weapon would be.
The discussion is still useful.
When the presidential election was debated about whether nuclear weapons could be transported or stored through Finland, we were having a discussion that was too late and outdated, as is typical for Finland.
The real question is, should we have our own nuclear weapon in cooperation with the rest of Europe?
Without it, and possibly without the protection of the United States, there could soon be trouble on the Russian border.