Agency Report
Europe would need several years to become militarily independent of the United States, security expert Jana Puglierin told Funke media group in a story published on Saturday.
Europe would need several years to become militarily independent of the United States, security expert Jana Puglierin told Funke media group in a story published on Saturday.
“It is at least five years, and for areas such as reconnaissance, surveillance and satellites perhaps even a decade or longer,” she said. In some areas, such as reconnaissance target acquistion or integrated air defence, Europe does not possess what is needed.
“There is not really an alternative, unless we subordinate ourselves to a protecting power to such an extent that we become a kind of protectorate.”
The previous NATO model, in which allies voluntarily followed the United States as partners, was “obviously no longer on offer,” Puglierin said, also with an eye towards US President Donald Trump, who in recent weeks had repeatedly threatened to annex the Arctic island of Greenland, which belongs to NATO partner Denmark.
A European nuclear deterrent?
Puglierin was sceptical about a possible EU nuclear bomb. She said she did not see this as a substitute for the US nuclear umbrella for many reasons and is also opposed to individual European countries acquiring nuclear weapons.
“Priority should be to seek a pragmatic way with the nuclear powers France and the United Kingdom for them to contribute more to pan-European deterrence.”
Unlike some other NATO partners, Germany is not a nuclear power, but under NATO’s nuclear deterrent it provides fighter jets that could be armed with US nuclear bombs stored in Germany in the event of an attack.
Since Trump took office, doubts have grown about whether Europeans could still rely on the US nuclear shield in an emergency. French President Emmanuel Macron has for some time proposed a European nuclear shield.
