New Delhi: France has been pressing Germany to define the scope and usage of its long-range “deep precision strike” missiles if a larger conflict with Russia erupts, and has warned that failure to do so would risk dragging Europe accidentally into the clutches of nuclear war, according to a report by Financial Times.
In talks with German officials in an attempt to align Berlin’s use of weapons capable of deep-precision strikes (DPS) with France’s nuclear strategy, French officials fear that the nuclear threshold could be crossed unknowingly if Russia misreads the situation and chooses to respond to a conventional assault with a nuclear option, said the report.
These developments are set against the background of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, now inching towards its fifth year.
The report, citing inputs from six people familiar with the discussions, said the French concerns lie in the fact that Germany along with the UK, Poland and Nordic and Baltic states have majorly boosted its arsenal of far-reaching weapons in an attempt to strengthen Europe against Russia to prepare for an occurrence of an all-out European war.
Germany has led a concerted effort to helm European rearmament amidst the continuing conflict and the USA’s tumbling security commitments under President Donald Trump.
But concerns have been raised over Germany, with its defence budget of $114 billion and ambitious rearmament plans, being unaccustomed to nuclear “grammar” and “vocabulary”
since it is not a nuclear state, unlike France which has nuclear weapons. Berlin has been buying and developing a range of ground-launched missiles with ranges from 500 kilometres to more than 2,000 kilometres, capable of striking targets deep inside Russia.
French officials are also concerned that President Emmanuel Macron’s concept of “forward deterrence” could enable Moscow to hold Paris responsible for attacks launched by its European partners. Macron, in March, had said he would open discussions on how the French nuclear programme could protect European countries.
Both French and German officials agree on a joint doctrine and a joint comprehension of the escalation ladder so as not to provoke Moscow.
Under a bilateral defence agreement signed in 2024, the UK—the only other nuclear power among European NATO members—is discussing plans with the Germans to develop weapons capable of reaching more than 2,000 kilometres, reported FT. A British official said France being added to the agreement is also being mooted, while discounting French fears and placing his trust in German strategic culture instead of clinging to past stereotypes.
These events mark a break in the German stance on rearmament since the Second World War and also highlights the results of the American retreat from Europe that opens up a pandora’s box of tensions between European states.
Ingo Gerhartz, the German general at the head of the NATO command for central and eastern European defence, told the Berlin Security Conference last week that although presenting new German defence capabilities such as satellite-based reconnaissance and intelligence as European ones is fine, such decisions need serious consultation with other NATO allies “because whatever a single nation is doing towards Russia, they always will attribute it to the whole of NATO”.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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