EUROPEAN NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AFTER BREXIT

The existence of nuclear weapons in Europe and the possibility that the European Union (EU) or its Member States may be attacked with nuclear weapons raise the inevitable debate on a European nuclear deterrent system, understood as that system based on independent possession of nuclear weapons by one or several European States and that is put at the service of the security of the EU and its Member States, beyond, or even outside, the nuclear deterrence exercised by the Atlantic Alliance. In Europe, there are two types of nuclear weapons: the purely European ones, which are the ones that France has in the so-called Force de Frappe, which includes the Strategic Air Forces, the Naval Aviation and the Strategic Oceanic Force, which are developed with technological and industrial independence, and American nuclear weapons that are deployed in air bases of five European countries, all of them members of the EU, and Turkey. In addition, there is the British case, which has its own nuclear weapons with its nuclear ballistic-missile submarines of the Vanguard class, which are loaded in the American Trident II missiles, and American nuclear bombs on British territory, which are under the control of the American military command. The American nuclear weapons in Europe are at the service of the security of the allies within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance, according to the programs adopted in the Group of Nuclear Plans, and their autonomous use is not possible by the European States where they are located (Germany, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands and United Kingdom). Therefore, they could not be integrated into an eventual European nuclear deterrence. Then, there are the British nuclear weapons on the SSBN of the Royal Navy, which are national and their use depends exclusively on political decision of the British Premier in case of attack against the United Kingdom or its allies, but London only contemplates its collective use within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance. Finally, there are French nuclear weapons in their air forces and SSBN, which exert strategic deterrence power, under the permanent threat of causing absolutely unacceptable damage to any adversary that will attack French territory or its allies. In this particular case, a series of declarations of the high representatives of the security and defense policy of France have been made since August 1995, by President Chirac, Prime Minister Juppé, Minister of Defense Alliot-Marie to President Sarkozy, affirming the availability of French nuclear capabilities at the service of the European Union and its Member States. From the point of view of International Law, they are unilateral legal acts with effects on third parties. The political background of this debate is that the nuclear option continues to be a qualified instrument of international power. We need to analyse the consequences of the Brexit in the debate between the European nuclear powers, between France and the EU, between EU and the Atlantic Alliance, the possibility to build European nuclear deterrence after the United Kingdom leaving the EU and to whom would correspond the decision to use force in case of attack. 

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