Joe Cirincione is the vice-chair of the Center for International Policy’s board of directors and the author of Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late.
Donald Trump is tearing down the barriers that for decades have blocked the global spread of nuclear weapons. In pursuit of an alliance with Russia, he is recreating the nightmare nuclear scenarios that haunted America in the 1950s and 1960s, and that decades of bipartisan American policy prevented from coming to life.
In the 21st century American Presidents have largely viewed the problem of new nuclear weapons as a “rogue state” problem. During the War on Terror, US policy worked to prevent terrorists or countries seen by the US as sympathetic to terror groups, specifically Iraq, Libya, Iran, and North Korea, from getting the Bomb.
Now, Trump’s efforts to please Putin by betraying Ukraine and undercutting America’s commitment to defend Europe threaten to drag the world back to the dangerous nuclear anarchy of the 1950s and 1960s when dozens of countries considered getting the most powerful weapons humankind has ever invented.
Keeping Americans in, Russians out, Proliferation managed
The NATO treaty signed in Washington 76 years ago this April 4th, was, in part, a treaty to stop the spread of these weapons. The United States was then the only country in the world with atomic bombs. President Harry Truman assured the European allies that he would use all of America’s military might to protect them from any attack from the Soviet Union. They did not have to get their own atomic bombs.
This extended deterrence was not, by itself, convincing enough for all NATO members. The United Kingdom got its own nuclear arsenal in 1952 as did France in 1960 despite the security assurances. Another framework was needed: the arms control and disarmament commitments embodied in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), negotiated in 1968 and ratified by the Senate under Richard Nixon in 1970.
That treaty and the associated mechanisms provided the diplomatic and legal framework that assured countries that if they choose not to get nuclear weapons, they would be part of the international norm. The nuclear-armed states promised to negotiate their reduction and elimination; the non-nuclear states promised never to get them. This gave countries the assurance that if they did not get nuclear weapons, their neighbors would not either. This was enough to convince Sweden, the last European country with a weapons program, to end its efforts in 1968.
Those two basic frameworks are now at risk. NATO allies believe that they can no longer depend on the United States to honor its treaty commitments to come to their aid if Russia attacks. Emergency meetings throughout Europe now focus on developing new, independent security arrangements. Leaders in Germany and Poland openly speak of acquiring nuclear arsenals. If they leave the NPT to develop their own weapons, the non-proliferation regime will collapse. There will no longer be the global political, diplomatic and legal restraints that we have taken for granted. There could be a dozen new nuclear-armed states, not just the “rogues” but our closest allies.
Germany’s likely next Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said that “My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.” The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, says “the Free World needs a new leader.” French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to discuss having his nation’s arsenal of 290 nuclear weapons serve as a Euro deterrent force — and Poland, Germany and Denmark say they are open to the idea.
But could a French or British nuclear umbrella open to replace the one Trump is closing?
Collapsing the Nuclear Umbrella
Consider Europe’s new dilemma. If Putin prevails in Ukraine — and Trump is doing his best to help him win his war — he will certainly pursue his territorial ambitions with Moldova, Romania, the Baltic States and Poland. He will certainly make new demands on all of Europe, backed by veiled or direct nuclear threats. Yale historian Tim Snyder writes that should Russia prevail, should Ukraine be defeated, then “nuclear weapons will spread around the world, both to those who wish to bluff with them” – the way Putin has done in his war on Ukraine – “and those who will need them to resist these bluffs.”
These nations might be able to rely on a French nuclear umbrella with Macron in power, but what if far-right leader Marine Le Pen becomes president? She has already said that “French defense must remain French defense.”
Could Germany step into the breach? It certainly has the ability to build nuclear weapons. But if the pro-Putin, far-right AfD party, already the second largest party in Germany, takes control, Germany’s weapons would certainly not protect other nations from Putin. Worse, if America walks away from NATO while bolstering these anti-American parties, “it will lead to a Germany once again led by fascists and willing to arm itself with nuclear weapons,” warns New York Times columnist Bret Stephens.
Poland could reasonably conclude that it must develop its own arsenal. Polish President Donald Tusk is already preparing for a post-NATO future, pledging to increase military spending, have every man undergo military training and adding, “We must be aware that Poland must reach for the most modern capabilities also related to nuclear weapons and modern unconventional weapons.” Sweden, Norway and others might feel the same.
We have seen this dynamic before. The first comprehensive national intelligence assessment of the risk of nuclear proliferation was in the Eisenhower administration in 1958. It assessed that 16 nations had the ability to produce nuclear weapons. Twelve were in Europe, including West Germany and Poland.
That is why President John F. Kennedy asked us to consider “what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world. There would be no rest for anyone then, no stability, no real security, and no chance of effective disarmament.”
In nonproliferation’s twilight, disarmament’s dawn?
Kennedy understood that non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament are two sides of the same coin. He tried to limit both existing arsenals (most dramatically with the 1962 Limited Test Ban Treaty) and prevent new ones. Reducing existing nuclear arsenals helps convince other nations not to get them; stopping new programs gives states the confidence to reduce their stockpiles. You cannot do one without the other.
This core truth must guide the three steps we must take to avert the nuclear nightmares Trump has unleashed. First, future presidents will have to recommit to the collective defense of Europe. Second, to prove we mean it this time, America must have an urgent action plan for reducing the global nuclear arsenals, launching negotiations with Russia and China that can eventually bring in as many of the other six nuclear-armed states as possible. Finally, the next administration must rebuild the interlocking system of treaties, controls and security agreements that Trump and Putin are tearing down.
To kill the nuclear nightmares now rising from the grave, Democrats will need their own Project 2029 plan, and be willing to implement it as rapidly as Trump has implemented his.
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