Once upon a time in Prague, a just-inaugurated Barack Obama laid out his vision for a nuclear-free future.
From a podium at Hradcany Square, he reached back two decades to the upheaval that had remade the region. The Velvet Revolution, he said, had shown that “peaceful protest could shake the foundations of an empire, and expose the emptiness of an ideology. It showed us that small countries can play a pivotal role in world events, and that young people can lead the way in overcoming old conflicts. And it proved that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon.”
It’s depressing work, measuring the distance between that hopeful logic and the present moment. Moral leadership seems rare and endangered. In the current era, old conflicts are exhumed by aging strongmen, while smaller neighbors are invaded by powers still nostalgic for empire.
And with that regression, radioactive war has crept back onto the list of global anxieties.
Emmanuel Macron announced earlier this month that France would expand its atomic arsenal and assume a larger role in shielding European allies, marking the biggest shift in the country’s deterrence posture since the Cold War.
The announcement came just weeks after the quiet expiration of the last remaining arms-control treaty between the U.S. and Russia — the two countries that hold roughly 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.
As Paula Soler and Peder Schaefer write this week, Macron’s proposal raises deep questions about Europe’s nuclear future and what a shared deterrent would actually mean.
But the more existential question, perhaps, is whether the world would have survived its past conflicts had most participants possessed nuclear weapons from the outset — a reality we may now be drifting toward.
China, India, Pakistan and North Korea are all expanding their arsenals. So, too, for the world’s democracies. Poland has said it will pursue its own nuclear weapons. In South Korea, polls show record support for an atomic bomb, with three-quarters of the population in favor. Even the Nordics — long champions of disarmament — are weighing their options.
There’s an obvious logic to open and democratic countries matching, or out-gunning, rogue regimes. Yet nuclear history is riddled with blunders, close calls and near-infernos. Such moments will multiply if armed actors do.
Besides, and as we keep learning anew, democracy itself offers no permanent guarantee of restraint. Eight years after Obama’s speech in Prague, his successor reportedly asked a foreign-policy advisor why the U.S. couldn’t simply employ its nuclear warheads: “If we have them, why can’t we use them?”
Indeed, the whole idea of deterrence and the balance of terror — the peace supposedly enforced by mutually assured destruction — presumes rationality and ignores the Caligulan possibility. But even without madmen, today’s more precise and low-yield nuclear weapons already risk blurring the line between conventional and atomic war.
Obama’s lesson in Prague was that moral leadership is the strongest weapon. This nuclear era may yet suggest a more sobering one: that only a few actors had so far possessed the means to prove otherwise. As the EU and its democratic partners debate an atomic future, we can only hope both lessons are kept in view.
What we're writing
Paula Soler & Peder Schaefer: The EU welcomes France’s nuclear turn, but questions remain
As the U.S. shifts its strategic attention to Asia, and Russia and China expand their arsenals, France is recasting its nuclear force as a pillar of European security.
Francesco Puggioni (Q&A): Can the EU depoliticize the housing crisis?
EU housing chief Dan Jørgensen outlines Brussels' plans to boost affordability, steady rents and stop rising costs from fueling political extremism.
Peder Schaefer: The EU's space ambition has a rocket problem
The continent builds world-class satellites but lacks the launch power to send them into orbit. Now policymakers are looking to private companies to restore the continent’s place in space.
Peder Schaefer: How housing became a central political issue in the EU
D66 found success in last year's elections in the Netherlands after centering its campaign on access to affordable housing — charting a path for other parties across the bloc.
What we're reading
Economist: Viktor Orban’s illiberal intellectual patronage system
The Budapest Megaphone blares populism to the world.
The Atlantic: The obvious is taking its revenge on Trump
The reasons other U.S. presidents avoided war with Iran are becoming all too evident.
Financial Times: Poland’s Eurosceptic president vetoes EU funding for defence
Karol Nawrocki opposes Safe loans, claiming they would give Brussels a say in national security matters.
Foreign Affairs: The new Khamenei
How America and Israel solved Iran’s succession problem.
What we're following
The Parliament's March print edition is out now.
This month's issue explores how Ukraine’s battlefield-forged defense industry offers cutting-edge capabilities for the EU; what rising energy prices due to war in the Middle East mean for the bloc's reindustrialization efforts; how Europe risks falling behind in the rocket race — and much more.
Read a preview and subscribe to receive a hard copy.
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