In his “Ile Longue” speech on March 2, 2026, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a message that will echo across European capitals for years to come. For the first time, a European leader publicly articulated that France’s nuclear deterrent carries a distinctly “European dimension.” While the ultimate authority to launch remains the prerogative of the French President, Macron made it clear that an attack on a key European partner could trigger a French nuclear response. This is not a symbolic gesture: it reflects a growing recognition that Europe can no longer rely solely on the United States to guarantee its security. In a world where great-power priorities are increasingly transactional, Europe is beginning to define its own strategic boundaries.

The 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) reinforced this reality. By designating Russia as a “European responsibility,” the strategy signals a deliberate shift: Washington will focus its conventional forces on the homeland and the Indo-Pacific Theater, leaving Europe to confront the Russian threat largely on its own terms. The nuclear umbrella remains intact, but the implicit promise of automatic conventional reinforcement is fading. Even seemingly peripheral actions, such as elevating Greenland to a primary U.S. homeland interest alongside the Panama Canal, highlight an unmistakable message: European security is now secondary to America’s own global priorities. Transactions, not guarantees, define the relationship, and Europe is taking note.

This strategic recalibration has deepened a credibility gap that European policymakers cannot ignore. Repeatedly questioning of NATO’s relevance, combined with explicit demands for Europe to “Buy American,” has underscored a harsh truth: the U.S. is no longer a guaranteed partner for long-term security. European arms imports from the U.S. surged to $68 billion in 2024, a fivefold increase over the 2017–2021 average, while American threats of trade countermeasures in response to “Buy European” procurement rules have reinforced the perception that collective defense is contingent on economic acquiescence. For many in Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw, the lesson is stark: security can no longer be assumed; it must be actively prepared.

Europe’s response has been both practical and psychological. The continent is actively building a more integrated and networked continental defense architecture, driven by a growing demand for strategic autonomy—particularly in areas such as drone defense, air and missile defense, and long-range strike capabilities. This effort reflects a gradual shift toward forward deterrence, in which credible conventional capabilities are positioned to signal readiness and resilience in the face of potential aggression. Forward deterrence, therefore, is not simply about stationing troops or deploying hardware; it represents a broader strategic mindset in which Europe seeks to reduce its structural dependence on external guarantees. While European defense infrastructure is not yet fully independent of Washington, ongoing investments and integration efforts indicate a clear trajectory toward greater operational autonomy, with more robust capabilities expected to mature between 2025 and 2030.

Meanwhile, France and the United Kingdom through the Northwood Declaration are exploring ways to “Europeanize” their nuclear forces, offering broader protection to allied partners while retaining national control over launch decisions. Macron’s speech embodies this principle: strategic assets—including Rafale jets and the planned next-generation nuclear submarine, “The Invincible”—can now be dispersed across allied territory to provide strategic depth and complicate adversary calculations. For the first time, non-nuclear partners such as Germany and Poland are participating in joint exercises that directly interface with French nuclear capabilities. The psychological message is clear: Europe is beginning to assert a sovereign layer of deterrence that complements, rather than replaces, NATO’s structures.

Poland’s recent statement that it may eventually seek its own nuclear weapons, as President Tusk indicated, also highlights the accelerating sense of urgency in Eastern Europe. So here the question arises that While Macron’s “Europeanized” nuclear deterrent provides a layer of strategic depth, then why Poland seeks to own nuclear weapons? The answer is that Macron’s forward deterrence is not scaled to cover the entire continent comprehensively, particularly in regions most exposed to Russia. For Warsaw, the calculus is simple: if U.S. guarantees are increasingly transactional, and if NATO’s nuclear planning remains centered in France and the U.K., then relying solely on allied deterrence is insufficient.

This development illustrates two broader dynamics. First, it highlights the limits of “second-layer” nuclear deterrence. Even with France operationally dispersing assets and including non-nuclear allies in exercises, some countries may feel compelled to consider independent capabilities to ensure credible protection. Second, it signals that Europe’s forward deterrence is moving from theory into practice, not only in doctrine and exercises but in actual national policy deliberations. Warsaw’s potential pursuit of nuclear weapons is less a provocation than a symptom of the same trend already evident in France and Germany’s expanded conventional and nuclear postures: Europe is taking responsibility for its own security.

Hence, Macrons’ speech represents a redefinition of European strategic autonomy. Between 2021 and 2024, EU defense spending rose by 30 percent, reaching €326 billion, signaling a growing recognition that reliance on Washington alone is no longer sustainable. European governments are investing not just in hardware, but in doctrine, interoperability, and the credibility of their deterrent posture. Strategic autonomy, once rhetorically flourishing, has become an existential imperative. Forward deterrence and strategic autonomy are complementary layers of security designed to mitigate the risk of over-reliance on an American partner whose priorities may shift.

Europe is thus navigating a delicate balance. It is neither abandoning NATO nor discarding the U.S. nuclear guarantee. Instead, it is learning to prepare for a future in which guarantees are no longer unconditional. The era of unquestioned extended deterrence is ending, and the continent must act with foresight. Forward deterrence is more than a strategic posture; it is a signal to Moscow, to Washington, and to Europe’s own citizens that the continent is willing and able to take responsibility for its own defense.

Europe is no longer a passive theater under American protection. It is a region preparing to defend itself, thoughtfully and decisively, in a strategic environment defined by uncertainty, transactional alliances, and shifting global priorities. Macron’s “Ile Longue” speech may have been delivered in France, but its message resonates across the continent: the future of European security will be determined not by the automatic extension of U.S. deterrence, but by Europe’s own willingness to claim responsibility for its survival.

Qurat-Ul-Ain Shabbir, a PhD scholar at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, is currently serving as a Research Officer at the Centre for International Strategic Studies AJK. Her research interests lie in the global nuclear order and geopolitical dynamics. The views of the author are her own.

Beyond the American Umbrella: Europe’s Turn to Forward Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.

The international system is now firmly bipolar, with China’s global power rapidly increasing at a time when Russia regularly threatens to use nuclear weapons against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), influencing the administration of President Donald Trump. The combined Chinese and Russian threats are leading President Trump to warn of a possible World War III.

American power is increasingly contested, bringing new operational challenges to extended deterrence. A fundamental question is now in play—should the US abandon the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it created in 1960s and instead push its allies to field nuclear weapons?

Allies are already reconsidering their nuclear stance. In the Asia-Pacific, American ally Australia provides useful historical insights.

From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Australia sought to acquire nuclear weapons in response to an unstable international order where it felt threatened by China. In 1967, Secretary of US Defense Robert McNamara said it would be “entirely natural” and “an obvious thing to happen” for Australia to acquire nuclear weapons in response to China developing them. He also expressed interest in establishing a collective nuclear organization for the Far East, “starting with Australia and the Philippines.”

Indeed, Secretary of State Dean Rusk earlier suggested a “US-supplied Far Eastern nuclear stockpile” open to Japan and India. In 1958, others proposed the US could base intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in Australia, in the event the US decided to keep tight control of nuclear weapons in its own hands and actively worked to push its allies to agree to the NPT treaty.

There were similar debates around friendly nuclear proliferation in Europe around the same time. Aiming to regain leadership in Europe, the US proposed a multilateral nuclear force within NATO. While there were doubts over its military utility, the diplomatic discussions that started around sharing nuclear hardware and control did allow time to develop a European non-proliferation solution. In 1966, the NATO nuclear planning group was established, allowing some European allies to be involved in how and under which circumstances American weapons might be used.

The structural changes in the international system that prompted these earlier ideas are happening again. It is time to start thinking seriously about the next steps to take. The nuclear history noted suggests three broad approaches.

First, allies might build their own nuclear forces. The logic is that in a high-intensity conflict between the US and a nuclear power, the adversary may target American allies with nuclear weapons. Such an escalation demonstrates an adversary’s willingness to coerce allies into ceasing support for the United States.

This is the worst-case scenario that extended deterrence was created to prevent. If allies seriously doubt American credibility, fielding independent nuclear forces is a solution.  Indeed, economically challenged Pakistan and North Korea took this path already. For America’s allies, acquiring nuclear forces may be a lower cost option than growing their conventional forces.

Second, allies might work together to devise a modern multilateral nuclear force as considered in 1960s Europe. In the Pacific, Australia considered working with Britain on nuclear weapons in the late 1940s and 1950s; some still favor this effort. In that regard, Japan and Australia have recently acquired Tomahawk cruise missiles, which the US armed with nuclear warheads to deter Russia in the 1980s. Such weapons might be a starting point for an allied nuclear force in the eastern Pacific. As noted, the US considered deploying ICBMs in the Australian outback.

Third, another option, arguably better for American global leadership, is to address the allies’ deepening concerns over extended deterrence. This would involve the current administration actively reassuring allies that it still places importance on existing security treaties, increasing nuclear sharing and including more nations in nuclear planning, especially in the Pacific. Such steps would be at marginal cost to the US.

The most important might be nuclear sharing as this appears a tangible example of commitment. Of course, nuclear sharing is actually a misnomer since the US shares in the employment of certain nuclear weapons. It retains full control of the weapons prior to an authorization to strike a target.

The US could increase nuclear sharing with Pacific allies, such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, and broaden out to other NATO nations like Poland and the Scandinavian nations, which appear to be Russia’s next target after Ukraine. These nations could then reciprocate in hosting US nuclear weapons as Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands do now.

This discussion hinges on American ambitions for global leadership. As the Trump administration pushes allies to bare a greater share of their own security while attempting to close a $2 trillion annual deficit, the US must necessarily cut costs everywhere. Thus, American allies must take a realistic look at what President Trump is seeking to accomplish with the federal budget and understand that they must step into the breach while the US sets its house in order.

Sometimes, a great power must admit that it may be in its interests to change direction and push its allies down a new, different path. In that case, the Trump administration might declare the NPT finished and instead encourage its allies to go nuclear.

Dr. Christine Leah is a Fellow at the US National Institute for Deterrence Studies and has worked on nuclear issues at Yale, MIT, and RAND and in London, Singapore, and Canberra. She is the author of The Consequences of American Nuclear Disarmament and Australia and the Bomb. Dr. Peter Layton is Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He is author of Grand Strategy and coauthor of Warfare in the Robotic Age.

Time to Proliferate Nuclear Weapons (or Not?) was originally published on Global Security Review.

Given these doubts, European political leaders have expressed a determination to increase their defense budgets and upgrade their armed forces and defense industrial bases. For example, European Community leaders met in early March to discuss the urgency of rearmament and the possible shift in American commitment to the defense of Ukraine and/or Europe altogether. The president of the European Commission noted that Europe faces a “clear and present danger” from the possibility of an asymmetrical peace agreement favorable to Russia followed by a more ambiguous American commitment to the defense of Europe.

European concerns are understandable, but the possibility that free Europe can establish a self-sufficient deterrent against further Russian political coercion or military aggression, apart from US security guarantees, is remote. An effort to bisect American national security from that of Europe would be politically unwise, weaken deterrence, and open the door to piecemeal disintegration of the transatlantic partnership that served leaders during the Cold War and thereafter. Four aspects of this issue merit specific consideration.

First, NATO is the strategic and military embodiment of shared security commitment and risk among member-states. NATO’s totality of conventional and nuclear military strength, supported by its political unity, is the linchpin for credible deterrence against Russian revanchism. Collectively, NATO members have the resources, including conventional forces for modern combined arms battle and the defense industrial base for protracted conflict, to deter any repetition of Russia’s invasion against Ukraine or any Russian attack on the alliance. American commitment to European defense ensures that its strategic nuclear forces support deterrence across the entire spectrum of conflict, including possible Russian nuclear political coercion or first use.

Second, President Trump, on his best and worst days, tends to see international relations as entirely transactional. This may work when dealing with trade or tariff matters but not matters of war and peace. American entanglement with the security of Europe is not only transactional; it is also existential. European and American defense and deterrence requirements are joined at the hip, notwithstanding occasional spats and acrimony over the details of military planning and defense economic priorities. American politicians complain that the United States should try to avoid getting stuck in another “forever war” in Ukraine but Ukraine is not Iraq or Afghanistan.

A victory for Putin in Ukraine opens the door to European vulnerability that Russia will later exploit at a higher cost in blood and treasure for the United States and its European partners.

Therefore, it follows that the US decision in early March to suddenly suspend American military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine was ill advised and poorly timed. Although holding back equipment deliveries might take some months to impact events at the front, failure to share timely intelligence could impact immediately on Ukraine’s ability to strike key Russian targets, including logistics hubs, command centers, and troop concentrations. Thus, the suspension sent the wrong message to Ukraine and to Russia about allied steadfastness as preliminary ceasefire and peace negotiations were taking place in Saudi Arabia.

Third, messaging of American commitment to peace and security in Europe also involves the decisions about modernization of the American nuclear deterrent and supporting infrastructure. This has a number of components. First, the US is replacing all three legs of its strategic nuclear triad. The Trump administration also wants to deploy the sea-launched cruise missile, to replace some existing nuclear warheads with upgrades, and to provide additional limited nuclear options for contingencies short of general nuclear war.

Fourth, American defense planning for each potential theater of war will continue to emphasize a spectrum of options including both conventional and nuclear weapons. The US must maintain credible deterrence against the combined forces of China and Russi, not only with respect to the possible outbreak of conventional war in Asia or Europe, but also with regard to the threat of nuclear first use or first strike against American allies or the American homeland.

In this respect, another challenge to deterrence lies in the increasing capability of conventional weapons for use against targets previously assigned to nuclear weapons, and, conversely, the attractiveness for some parties of low-yield nuclear weapons for use against targets previously assigned only to conventional weapons.

The challenges in meeting the preceding standards for deterrence in Europe and beyond are enormous. First, they include the evolving international security environment in which an emerging multipolar realignment places a coalition of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia at cross-purposes with US and allied visions for world order in Europe and Asia. Second, the challenges involve the significance of emerging technologies for long-range precision strike, missile and air defenses, cyber deterrence and war, space conflict, and continuing developments in autonomous warfare. Third, the costs for maintaining deterrence in Asia and Europe are enormous and Europe cannot expect the United States to foot the bill.

Some American allies in Asia and Europe expressed a willingness to increase their defense budgets and their degrees of readiness for local or regional conflict. More demanding times are ahead. In short, there is no “Eurodeterrent” without the United States and vice versa.

Stephen Cimbala, PhD, is a distinguished professor at Penn State-Brandywine and a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

Euro-deterrence and the Quest for Peace in Ukraine was originally published on Global Security Review.