SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Amidst a state visit this week steeped in the past with royal carriage rides, state dinners and agreements to lend each other priceless artifacts, France and the United Kingdom also made a major announcement with their eyes on an uncertain future. The two countries agreed to intertwine their nuclear security and to work together to protect the rest of Europe against nuclear threats. That, of course, is something that Europe has long relied on the United States for. Here to talk through the agreement and its implications is Jon Wolfsthal. He's a security analyst currently serving as director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists. Welcome back to the show.
JON WOLFSTHAL: Thanks for having me on.
DETROW: So how significant is this? And what does it tell you about the shifts in the alliances that have really shaped the last 80 years or so of global policy?
WOLFSTHAL: Well, I think it is important anytime nuclear weapons are discussed by heads of state. Obviously, it has significance. But this has really, I think, a lot of implications for both Europe and the United States and the world. For many years, France has wanted to maintain true independence for its nuclear forces. The United Kingdom obviously has its own nuclear forces but is heavily reliant on the United States. And so for the leaders of both Britain and France to publicly align themselves on their nuclear policy, to state explicitly that any threat to Europe is a threat to them and could involve nuclear weapons, is, I think, a significant statement.
And it also shows, I think, two things that both leaders are really concerned about. One, they are worried about the threat from Russia to NATO territory and the way that that can destabilize every aspect of European life. And they are quite concerned about the durability and the credibility of America's commitment to NATO, and they want to try to protect against both uncertainties - Putin aggression and American intransigence (ph).
DETROW: Before we keep talking more broadly, two quick clarifications - first of all, can you just contextualize what exactly changes here? It's not like France and the U.K. are going to have joint decision making on whether or not to use weapons, right? It's more of just kind of - what's the best way to think about this?
WOLFSTHAL: Yeah, I think it's coordination. I think there are two things going on here. One is simply signaling or doctrinal. With the U.K. having gone through Brexit, with France having an independent nuclear force that's not always aligned with NATO, it's important for the two countries to say, we can't live without Europe, so that if there's a threat to the Baltics or Poland or Finland, that immediately involves the British and French strategic interest and could involve nuclear weapons. That's the basis of deterrence. You want to inject uncertainty into the mind of an adversary, and so I think the declaratory policy here is significant.
But there is a concern that because Russia has about 5,000 nuclear weapons, and together, Britain and France have about 500 nuclear weapons, independently, those two countries can't do enough to really deter Russia. And so what they want to do is coordinate more effectively to determine if are going to have to rely on nuclear weapons, and God forbid nuclear weapons would actually have to be employed, can they do more together than they could do independently?
And I think those consultations are just beginning, but the fact that they're going to set up a steering committee, that the heads of state will actually engage and talk about these things, is designed to see whether they can be greater than the sum of their parts. And I think that's something that the United States can play a role in, but the limits of that cooperation have yet to be tested.
DETROW: Any sense why now was the moment for this new agreement?
WOLFSTHAL: There shouldn't be any question about why now. It's because the United States is not as - seen as reliable, as it has been in the past. We have said for 70-plus years, an attack on any NATO state is an attack on all NATO states. And even after the NATO summit, people don't believe that Donald Trump is actually going to protect Europe in the face of Russian aggression.
And so there are two things going on. One, Britain and France want to make sure that they are deterring Russia. But there's also a real acute concern that countries closer to Russia - whether that's Poland or Finland or Turkey or elsewhere - may decide, if we can't rely on the United States, maybe we need our own nuclear weapons. And that's something that the United States, Britain and France would all oppose, that would undermine our collective security. The more nuclear weapons states there are in the world, the worse it is for everybody. And so I think this is designed to not only deter Russia but also to reassure other NATO allies so that they don't have to pursue their own nuclear capabilities.
DETROW: Lastly, you're talking about part of the equation here being relying more Eastern European countries of, hey, you don't need to develop your own nuclear weapons. At the end of the day, do you think this new agreement between the U.K. and France is a step forward, a step backward or kind of neutral when it comes to the overall nuclear security of the globe and the prospect of ever having to use any of these weapons again?
WOLFSTHAL: Yeah, it's such a meta question, and...
DETROW: It's what we go for.
WOLFSTHAL: No, and it's important. I mean, I've been doing this almost 40 years, and there's a duality around nuclear weapons, which, you know, has to be talked about so people understand it. On the one hand, these are the only weapons that human beings have created that can destroy all of humanity, right? You go back to the Albert Einstein quote, we have to abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us. And so anytime you're relying on the threat of nuclear weapons for your security, you're playing a very dangerous game. We've been very fortunate that for 80 years, since the end of World War II, these weapons haven't been used, but they are more central, they are more relevant, and many people consider them more usable now than at any time in 50 years. And so that's a concern.
On the other hand, political commitments by the United States, France, U.K., that we will use our nuclear weapons to protect Europe or, in the case of the United States, to protect South Korea, Japan, Australia and others, have been instrumental in keeping the number of nuclear weapons states to a minimum. Right now, there are nine countries that have nuclear weapons. A world where you have 15 or 20 means that there are 15 or 20 fingers on the button. There are 15 or 20 nuclear arsenals that could potentially be subject to theft or diversion or accidental escalation. And the more that risk grows, the greater the nuclear danger. So if the - what the U.K. and France have done helps convince U.S. allies that they shouldn't acquire nuclear weapons, as long as that's not seen as an aggressive, coercive threat to Russia and others, then I think it is a net positive.
DETROW: That is Jon Wolfsthal of the Federation of American Scientists. Thanks so much.
WOLFSTHAL: My pleasure. Thank you, Scott.
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