An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, equipped with a test reentry vehicle, is launched during an operational test at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, Feb. 25, 2016. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Kyla Gifford)
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]
By James Fay
Real Clear Wire
The Russian invasion of Ukraine had ramifications throughout Europe, some positive, some negative.
For example, NATO has been partially revived and recognized as the quintessential mechanism to contain Russia. Sweden and Finland, after years of close collaboration, decided to officially apply to join NATO. Most Western European nations have awakened from their decades-long fantasy that they could collaborate peaceably with Russia and build their industrial and energy future on inexpensive Russian fossil fuels. On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States, after President Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin, appears to have returned temporarily to its Cold War bipartisan stance against Moscow.
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Other Important sectors of Western Europe, however, particularly the energy-dependent German companies, would prefer to return to the pre-invasion dalliance with Moscow. But even as the political distance between Russia and NATO increases, the desire to appease and reengage with Russia remains constant in much of Western Europe.
At this moment, no one knows how the war in Ukraine will turn out. If the West perseveres and Ukraine survives with its pre-2014 lands intact, Europe is likely to settle into another extended cold war with Moscow. For the West, this might be an acceptable endgame.
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Another eventuality might be a gradual post-war rapprochement between Moscow and its European neighbors, if the Kremlin military and political elites recognize that embracing the Chinese dragon would drag Russia into an indefinite period of military and economic subservience to Beijing.
Is Eastern Europe about to experience massive nuclear proliferation?
A plausible third outcome is that a “peace now” faction in Western Europe, led by France and Germany, would pressure a humiliated Ukraine to sign a treaty with Russia, wherein Ukraine cedes to Moscow most of its lands seized in 2014, particularly Crimea. Such an outcome would set the stage for a decades-long process of Russia reassembling the Tsarist empire by grabbing ever larger chunks of Eastern Europe as well as parts of the NATO north in Sweden and Finland.
If this third outcome becomes a reality, some Eastern European countries may be expected to take desperate measures.
The West and Eastern Europe
In recent history the West’s relationship with Eastern Europe has been marked by fickleness and betrayal. In 1938 France and Great Britain stood aside as Hitler absorbed Czechoslovakia and Austria. The flimsy excuse was “Peace in our time.” When Hitler marched into Poland in 1939, France and the British declared war on Germany but provided no military assistance to the Poles.
At the end of World War II, Franklin Roosevelt allowed most of Eastern Europe to come under Stalin’s brutal embrace. During the Cold War, the West encouraged the 1956 Hungarian revolt against Soviet oppression, only to stand aside as Soviet tanks crushed a popular uprising.
More recently, the first President Bush argued strenuously that Ukraine should not separate itself from the disintegrating Soviet Union. But in 1994, the Clinton administration persuaded the nascent Ukrainian government to give up all of its nuclear weapons, one-third of the entire Soviet arsenal, to Russia in return for inexpensive natural gas and a U.S./British guarantee of territorial sovereignty. Only a few years later, in 2014, President Barack Obama blithely dismissed this territorial guarantee of Ukraine and let his friend Putin seize Crimea.
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Now, Eastern and Central European nations, even those under the shaky NATO nuclear umbrella, have plausible reasons to question the long-term commitment of the U.S. and NATO to their territorial integrity.
The introduction of nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe
In June 2023, Putin announced his installation of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Thus, the Kremlin, which has constantly been threatening to use nuclear weapons to get its way in Ukraine, has moved to dramatically raise the stakes and threaten the catastrophic destruction of all NATO countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe.
If this placement of nuclear weapons in Belarus gives Putin the upper hand and allows him to retain the land he seized in Ukraine, he will walk away with a substantial strategic military and geopolitical victory, leaving the Russians in a dominant strategic posture and with an unsatiated taste for expansion to the West.
Such a scenario would humiliate NATO on its home turf. Its resolve would have been tested and found wanting. The U.S. commitment to Europe would be shaken, and the Article 5 commitment of NATO to defend the territory of its members would be in doubt.
Going Nuclear
If Putin gains leverage by threatening to use nuclear weapons to obtain his strategic goals, several Eastern European nations, especially the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, as well as Poland, would feel an existential threat. Would they and perhaps other threatened nations of Eastern Europe be motivated to acquire or develop their own nuclear weapons? Probably yes.
But what would be the deterrent value of a small number of nuclear weapons? Former French President DeGaulle thought he knew. When questioned about the military value of a limited number of nuclear weapons, the late French President noted that the French atomic force was militarily adequate because it was sufficient “to tear off an arm.”
In a similar vein, an Eastern European diplomat recently remarked that no one invades a country with nuclear weapons.
But how easy would it be for a coalition of Eastern, and perhaps Northern European, nations to create a handful of nuclear weapons? In a technical sense, it would not be difficult.
To give one graphic illustration, a junior undergraduate attending Princeton University in 1976, designed a nuclear weapon using publicly available books and papers. This student became a celebrity and was dubbed “The A-Bomb Kid” by the media. For his seminar on nuclear proliferation, the student outlined the design for an atomic bomb similar to the weapon used at Nagasaki. Some authorities questioned whether the teenager’s bomb, as designed, would actually go off. Dr. Frank Chilton, a California nuclear scientist specializing in nuclear explosion engineering, answered this question, saying that student’s design was “pretty much guaranteed to work.”
So, for almost half a century, it has been clear that the details for making atomic weapons are in the public domain and that any country with a modernized technical economy could accomplish the task.
The major obstacle to an Eastern European bomb would be political. The current nuclear powers, particularly France and the U.S., would probably oppose it. But if the E.U., the U.S., and NATO had allowed Putin to prevail in Ukraine, opposition from this quarter would lack credibility.
Eastern European Alliances
The European nations of the East have been developing close economic, military, and political working relations over the past few decades. Since the collapse of the Soviet empire, thirteen nations of Eastern Europe have become members of NATO. In addition, nine of the 13 nations joined the Bucharest Nine, which Poland and Romania founded. The twelve-member Three Seas Initiative (that is the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic Seas), which Poland and Croatia founded, constitutes a second alliance. Additionally, there is the four-member Visegrád Group of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. Finally, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova are tied in with the E.U. via the so-called Eastern Partnership.
Sitting on the front lines and faced with an angry expansionist Russia, many of the Eastern European states may be receptive to a proposal, probably led by Poland, to rapidly develop a small number of nuclear warheads. But how well-equipped is Europe to accomplish this goal?
Eastern Europe’s Nuclear Infrastructure
Eastern Europe, including Ukraine and Finland, has 35 nuclear reactors in service as of 2023. With the addition of a few hundred centrifuges, the East has the infrastructure in which uranium could be enriched to weapon’s grade. Moreover, ten countries of the Eastern region offer nuclear and engineering Ph.D. and Master’s degree programs. Hence, the East has many scientists and technicians who could oversee the enrichment and warhead manufacturing process.
In addition, Ukraine, when still part of the Soviet Union, housed one-third of the Soviet nuclear warheads. Those warheads, all of which were transferred back to Russia in 1994, were partially maintained by a highly trained Ukrainian workforce, many members of which are still alive.
So Eastern Europe, perhaps with the assistance of Finland and Sweden, could develop a modest number of nuclear weapons in a relatively short time if the region felt that Russia had become an ongoing existential threat.
While this Eastern nuclear initiative is realistic, it is not a desirable outcome. A nuclear-armed East is unlikely so long as NATO and the United States hold firm and insist that Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders are fully restored and guaranteed in any final settlement with Russia.
An essential component of this guarantee would be a U.S. and Western European decision to admit Ukraine into NATO.
James S. Fay is a California attorney, political scientist, and semi-retired college administrator. A graduate of Georgetown, he has a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of California. His articles have appeared in social science and law journals and the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and Real Clear Education. He served as an U.S. Army intelligence officer in Germany.
This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
