Merz Urges European Nuclear Deterrent and Strategic Rethink of Transatlantic Ties

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz used his Munich Security Conference appearance to press European capitals to confront a growing gap between long‑standing security assumptions and a more transactional U.S. posture. He said Berlin and Paris have opened exploratory discussions about whether some form of shared European nuclear deterrent should be studied — a proposal he presented not as an immediate programme but as a planning and signaling device to spur capability and political alignment. Merz anchored the argument in recent trends: official U.S. strategy documents and diplomatic behavior that signal Washington will prioritise narrower strategic aims, episodic friction between allies and even temporary interruptions of battlefield intelligence-sharing that exposed operational vulnerabilities. Those episodes, and blunt assessments from leaders such as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte that Europe currently lacks the industrial, fiscal and nuclear capacity to substitute for the U.S., inform Merz’s insistence that hedging and redundancy must be treated as policy priorities. He urged European institutions and governments to speed defence‑industrial cooperation, procurement and stockpiling while also deepening diplomatic partnerships beyond the transatlantic core. The proposal raises acute legal and political questions — notably NATO’s collective deterrence arrangements, the Nuclear Non‑Proliferation Treaty and France’s unique national force — and would demand years of heavy investment in delivery systems, secure basing, common command arrangements and integrated intelligence links. Paris is a natural fulcrum for any Europeanized nuclear concept because of its existing independent force, but French political will and legal constraints will determine whether the idea remains rhetorical or moves toward concrete planning. Washington’s likely reaction will be closely watched: U.S. officials may welcome greater European burden‑sharing yet worry about fragmentation of nuclear responsibilities and the risks of mixed signalling. Domestically in Germany and across Europe, leaders would face difficult parliamentary debates and public scrutiny given postwar norms against nuclear proliferation. Practically, meaningful changes would require sustained budgets, industrial scaling and interoperable command-and-control that cannot be achieved rapidly, even as interim NATO measures — such as rebalancing command roles and focusing deterrence in the High North — are being discussed. Merz’s intervention functions primarily as a political provocation and planning prompt: it is intended to force hard trade‑offs onto agendas, test allies’ responses and build momentum for long‑term capability projects rather than to announce an imminent program.