Neither the U.S. nor France should be trusted to provide nuclear defense guarantees for Poland, a leading expert on transatlantic relations has told TVP World’s On the Record program.
Robin Niblett of the London-based Chatham House international affairs think tank, also warned that if NATO nuclear weapons were moved close to Russia, Moscow would see it as an escalatory step.
“I wouldn’t trust the U.S. nuclear guarantee over NATO right now, today under President Trump,” Niblett told On the Record host Adam Jasser.
Polish President Andrzej Duda argued in an interview with the Financial Times on March 13 that since NATO expanded eastward in 1999, nuclear weapons should follow. “For me, this is obvious,” he said. “It will be safer if those weapons were already here.”
Meanwhile, Niblett said: “If we get to a point where Russia and nuclear weapons owned by NATO are increasingly close together, it would certainly be seen as an escalatory step.”
At the same time, France has floated the idea of extending its atomic deterrent to European allies in the form of a “nuclear umbrella.”
But Niblett argued that “Poland or any other EU member or European member of NATO” cannot trust that “the French president would sacrifice the survival of France in return in a nuclear exchange with Russia.”
“I wouldn’t trust the U.S. nuclear guarantee over NATO right now, today under President Trump,” Niblett told On the Record host Adam Jasser.
Polish President Andrzej Duda argued in an interview with the Financial Times on March 13 that since NATO expanded eastward in 1999, nuclear weapons should follow. “For me, this is obvious,” he said. “It will be safer if those weapons were already here.”
Meanwhile, Niblett said: “If we get to a point where Russia and nuclear weapons owned by NATO are increasingly close together, it would certainly be seen as an escalatory step.”
At the same time, France has floated the idea of extending its atomic deterrent to European allies in the form of a “nuclear umbrella.”
But Niblett argued that “Poland or any other EU member or European member of NATO” cannot trust that “the French president would sacrifice the survival of France in return in a nuclear exchange with Russia.”
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