The historical speech issued by French President Emmanuel Macron this week – with a nuclear submarine serving as a surprise platform – announcing the expansion of France’s nuclear arsenal, did not receive much attention in the United States. That makes sense: There’s a lot going on in the news, to say the least which is an ongoing war in Iran.
But although they are not directly related – Macron’s speech was planned for some time – the two stories are examples of the same situation: In today’s world, thanks in large part to the policies of the administration of Donald Trump, nuclear weapons seem more attractive than before. This is true for America’s allies as well as its adversaries.
Nuclear training from Iran
In Iran, the world is watching how two nuclear-armed states, the United States and Israel, are becoming over protection of a country that maintained a nuclear enrichment program for years but never built a weapon.
It is now the second time in a year that Iran has been attacked during talks with the United States over its nuclear program, with meetings scheduled on the calendar when the bombs began to fall. This time, the government itself, not just its nuclear program, is at risk of destruction.
For years, Iran had deliberately maintained its status as a nuclear “threshold”. Officially, Iranian officials maintained that they did not seek a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against one. Meanwhile, Iran has enriched its uranium stockpile for the less reliable purpose of nuclear weapons. which is currently unknown.
As a former head of Iran’s nuclear program put it in 2024“It’s like having all the parts to build a car: we have the chassis, the engine, the transmission, everything.”
By almost building a bomb, Iran, who signed the international agreement which prevents it from acquiring nuclear weapons, can avoid the diplomatic costs of building one while negotiating concessions from its adversaries, and maintain the threat of developing a weapon if it were ever attacked.
This turns out to be a terrible miscalculation. Iran’s nuclear program led to years of economic sanctions, which, along with the government’s own mismanagement, created a major economic crisis that contributed to mass protests against the government. And since Iran’s conventional defenses have been ineffective for the past two years – its missiles have not been able to overwhelm the air defenses of Israel and its “axis” allies in the Middle East. badly damaged – The Trump administration came to an agreement with Israel that it was easier to deal with Iran’s nuclear program with military force than with diplomacy.
Some countries may conclude that it is not worth even trying to acquire nuclear weapons, due to the risks. But there is a counterexample. As bombs fell on Iran this week, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un took a televised tour of a cement factory this week. to congratulate the employees for what he called “the high spirit of the powerful working class.” North Korea first tested nuclear weapons in 2006 and today is believed to have them 50 battles in his arsenalenough fissile material to build several more, and long-range missiles that can theoretically reach United States. Short of the “fire and fury” threats from Trump’s first term, though, the world has quietly accepted North Korea as a nuclear power, and no one seems too worried about risking military action to disarm it.
North Korea quickly developed its plan, facing years of crippling sanctions. In previous rounds of talks, North Korean officials have done just that he pointed to the fate of Libya and Iraqtwo governments that abandoned attempts to develop nuclear weapons and were later overthrown in US-led military operations.
As Carnegie Endowment nuclear analyst Ankit Panda he wrote this week“Regardless of the costs of this tactic—and they were high!—no one is bombing North Korea today. … Pyongyang and Tehran will present two examples to the next propagandist; it’s pretty clear which tactic is more attractive.”
The good news for the United States and its allies is that with Iran’s nuclear capabilities largely destroyed by this war, even if the regime survives, no other enemies of the United States are known to be developing nuclear weapons. It doesn’t have to stay that way, especially if current US foreign policy trends continue. Trump is already discussing it publicly Which country will he invade next?and the leaders of some of those countries may decide they need something more than conventional weapons to avoid the fate of Nicolás Maduro or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Macron throws down the gauntlet
Currently, the countries most likely to build their nuclear capabilities, or acquire new ones, are America’s allies, as Macron’s speech revealed this week. Speaking during a visit to the Île Longue submarine base in Brittany, Macron announced that France would expand the number of nuclear weapons in its arsenal – currently 300 – but did not specify the number.
He has also said for the first time that France will allow the deployment of its nuclear-armed aircraft to other European nations, although it will maintain full control over the decision to use those weapons.
France is the only country in the European Union with its own nuclear weapons (since Britain left), although several countries keep US weapons on their soil. Most European countries are members of NATO, meaning that in theory they are protected by America’s nuclear “umbrella”. But as reported by Vox, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with Trump’s dismissive attitude toward U.S. mutual defense commitments under NATO, has sparked a debate on the continent about whether European countries need a nuclear deterrent of their own. This concern reached a fever pitch in January when Trump was in office threatening to use military force to seize Greenland from Denmark, a NATO member state.
The past week may not have reassured Europeans worried about America’s reliability as a security partner. Although neither government has supported the US-Israeli attack on Iran and both have questioned its legitimacy, Britain and France have moved forces closer to the Middle East. in response to Iran’s retaliatory attacks the whole region. Iranian missiles have landed in Cyprus, a member of the European Union, and Turkey, a member of NATO. Trump has ever he criticized the Spanish government by refusing to allow its bases to be used for attacks against Iran, threatening to freeze all US trade with the country and suggesting that it should be thrown out of NATO.
France has always been the country most suspicious of the security guarantee of the United States. In the 1960s, French President Charles de Gaulle skeptically asked President John F. Kennedy whether the United States would really be ready “business New York to Paris.” In his speech, Macron did not mention Trump specifically, but said that “Europeans are used to their security based on the rules set by others,” while the current era requires new rules “called for our security interests and those of our continent.”
France may not be the only European country with nuclear plans. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk suggested this week that his country, at the forefront of tensions between Russia and Europe, may soon seek its own nuclear weapons.
Last month the completion of the final arms control agreement between the United States and Russia it was another sign that the world has entered a new nuclear age. One in which the number of weapons, led by China’s arms proliferation, is increasing – such as the use of nuclear threats for coercion, as seen in Vladimir Putin’s speech in Ukraine. Decades-old arms control agreements are falling apart, along with advanced technology it can add new debilitating trends.
In the past, the United States often worked to prevent new countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. That includes opponents, but also allies like South Korea and Taiwan. Now, US foreign policy may create a world where nuclear weapons seem more attractive than ever.
“When you look at what’s happening in Europe with Macron’s speech, this war against Iran, Maduro’s invasion, the crisis in Ukraine, the prospect of conflict in East Asia, you see a world where the public in countries that see threats to their national security will talk more about the bomb,” Carnegie’s Panda told Vox. (One example: Some 74 percent of South Koreans in favor of the country building its own nuclear weapon.)
The more countries that have these weapons, the more likely it is that either on purpose or by mistake, one of them will use one.
