Does Germany Need the Bomb?

[Montmorency]

Recently front-page in a German broadsheet (can't locate article text online):



"Does Germany Need the Bomb?"

"Yes..."

And a response from Tagesspiegel on why Germany doesn't need the bomb.

Uh oh. @Husar

[Fragony]

Read up on neo-realist theory, starting with Kenneth Waltz probably, a diversion from classical political realism where only power is assumed to be the dominator

[Furunculus]

i've seen this proposition mocked all across the security community on twitter.

germany needs to first get serious about; foriegn policy, public acceptance of defence funding, conventional defence capability...
... before it even thinks about nukes!

it would be like giving a gun to a four year old; in having no strategic culture within which to frame their use, no active public debate on that use, and no graduated escalation for conflict before some panicky person arrives at their only remaining option: "PUSH THE BUTTON!"

germany chooses to self-define as a child, but fortunately it has a nuclear shield provided by the UK and US through NATO, its parents. yes, the UK deterrent (unlike the french one) is a NATO asset.

[spmetla]

Arguably Germany sorta 'had/has' the Bomb already throughout the Cold War (and now?) in which their Tornado Fighter/Bombers would use US supplied bombs. That being the reason that Germany wanted to get the US okay to use the Eurofighter for that purpose:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g...-idUSKBN1JG1J4

My personal opinion would be that so long as the US, UK, and France are all in NATO and maintain their nuclear arsenals then no, Germany would not need a truly independent arsenal. If they pursued one anyhow they are missing out on the most effective and secure method of delivery which is via ballistic missile submarines seeing as land and air based systems are vulnerable to a first strike, hacking, etc..

Also in a Germany in which they are getting rid of nuclear power I cannot even imagine how they could get their public behind nuclear weapons, there's simply zero political/social support for such a capability. They are not in a situation like Japan/South Korea in which they are the only two capable military powers able to contend against a Russia or PRC war with or without the US.

They'd be far better served if they sought to improve their conventional and special operations capabilities such as getting their spare parts/ maintenance down time issues fixed or growing their military to match their domestic and overseas commitments (Chad, Turkey ADA, Afghanistan, Baltic Air Policing, Kosovo, anti-piracy operations etc..).

[Fragony]

Yes they already have these things. So do we in the Netherlands, Belgium has nukes as well. How ready they are I don know, probably not as ready as every city in Europe France has pointed theirs, comfy place tjat Europe isn it

Fun fact not all that much, the nuclair tech of Pakistan comes from here, kinda slipped. Whoknows how many of these ... things... are really there, I don't. In a twisted way it is comforting that everything can burn as log as everybody stays reasonable. I would not stay on Hawai if I were you Spmetla you are going to get hit. I do not know how it works but sometimes I see things in advance, usually I am wrong but sometimes not

[Husar]

It would be a great suicide device before we all get killed by the neoliberal heatwave:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ing-earth.html

It's funny how some seem to believe we could terraform Mars but refuse to accept man-made climate change. And here we are talking about nukes as a security issue while we're already scorching our entire planet without them just fine.

I'm not going to reply with expletives to what Furunculus posted, but he's wrong anyway and he forgot something very important as always, something that is only mentioned to display it in a negative light and forgotten when its positives apply.....
By the way, WELT is from the same company that makes BILD, the worst, most popular tabloid in Germany...

[spmetla]

Yes they already have these things. So do we in the Netherlands, Belgium has nukes as well. How ready they are I don know, probably not as ready as every city in Europe France has pointed theirs, comfy place that Europe isn't

Fun fact not all that much, the nuclear tech of Pakistan comes from here, kinda slipped. Who knows how many of these ... things... are really there, I don't. In a twisted way it is comforting that everything can burn as log as everybody stays reasonable. I would not stay on Hawai if I were you Spmetla you are going to get hit. I do not know how it works but sometimes I see things in advance, usually I am wrong but sometimes not

These US nukes are gathering dust next to somenes NES-game collection

The state of readiness is probably pretty low, the US arsenal is in a low state of readiness (outside of US Navy boomers) and is a source of repeated USAF scandals. Additionally the countries which would carry the US bombs probably haven't trained on conducting a nuclear strike on East Europe/Russia in years, possibly decades. As for gathering dust, to be completely honest that is the best use of a nuclear weapon. It should be ready and available for use but its gathering dust is a sign that it's deterrent is working and effective. Would be more cost effective to get the available deterrent to high standard of readiness and safety instead of embarking on a separate weapon system for Germany. This would like I said also require Germany to devote resources to ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines or ballistic missile capable diesel subs, silos etc... All to be a redundant deterrent and at the expense of the already suffering conventional military.

Yes, Hawaii could get hit, if a war with the PRC or Russia ever went nuclear I'm sure Hawaii, Guam, Okinawa, and mainland Japan would receive no shortage of nuclear weapons. If it were a rogue state like North Korea there is a chance the the missiles could be intercepted so thankfully we had our ballistic missile attack false alarm earlier :D

I think what all the major powers around the world are seeing is that with the US and Russia not in a state of perpetually ready to obliterate each other that the likelihood of a nuclear war is less of course but that a conventional war is far more likely. Would most Western leaders back nuclear strikes on Russia or the PRC as a response to a conventional military strike or action? Their public would probably decry it as bullying overkill even if it were the loss of something major like an aircraft carrier.

As such, I fear that in the event of say Russia invading the Baltic states or doing some sort of action like in the show 'Occupied' or even if the PRC attacked Taiwan or Vietnam/Philippines over the South China Seas islands that our current public trends towards isolationism (the US) and disarmament (most of Europe) would cause the US and major western powers to fold under the threat. In a "why die for Danzig?" situation of the present day I don't think people really care about the collective security of the Western World anymore. No one wants a major war but I don't want to have to have Munich like concessions given to the world's strongmen. Trump calling into question why we should back the "aggressive" State of Montenegro is sadly endorsed by a lot of his supporters. If the US were to possibly abandon its treaty obligations to mutual defense what does anyone think the chances are that any other NATO, East Asian, or EU power would risk outright war with Russia or the PRC?
This wouldn't require Germany to build up an independent nuclear deterrent because already mentioned they don't have the political will to use such a capability anyhow and if they were in such a situation I certainly hope that at least France and the UK would be on their side. Getting the EU's and NATO conventional capabilities to at least be in a reasonable state of readiness in the unlikely event that they needed to send actual Troops to contest Russians driving into the Baltic States or any of our other NATO allies.

Yeah, but why should I care as long as his strategic interests make him send his people to defend me?
I'm just maximizing my profits here...

Because sadly it looks like Trump and a frightful amount of the American public believe that if you're too weak or small to put up a reasonable fight then you're not worth defending. Putin is definitely getting his money's worth out of Trump's putting NATO's mutual defense into question and getting a fair number of people on his side that don't want to US to interfere or help anyone unless it directly benefits the US in immediate and absolutely clear ways.
As long as we have enough US troops already there to fight and sadly die in the initial part of such an unlikely war then the US public would probably galvanize behind a war effort. The absence of those troops to shed blood makes it so much easier for the US to decide it's not involved and abandon its friends and allies.