European leaders, increasingly alarmed about threats from a nuclear-armed Russia and uncertainty surrounding U.S. security guarantees, are intensifying debates over the continent’s nuclear deterrence.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the Munich Security Conference (MSC) that he had "held confidential talks with the French president about European nuclear deterrence".
And Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, Europe's other nuclear power along with France, said it was "enhancing our nuclear cooperation with France".
The UK's nuclear deterrent already protects NATO members, and Starmer said "any adversary must know that in a crisis they could be confronted by our combined strength" alongside France.
Still, while the United States and Russia have thousands of nuclear warheads each, the combined French and British arsenal is in the hundreds.
