Global Security Newswire

Germany is leading a push to remove all U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe, the London Guardian reported Friday (see GSN, Nov. 4).

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday of the wish from the new coalition government in Berlin for withdrawal the 18 nuclear weapons that are speculated to be located on German soil.

Five European nations -- Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey -- are believed to house roughly 200 U.S. B-61 gravity bombs. The nuclear weapons are a remnant of the strategic might the United States spread across the continent during the height of the Cold War.

Belgium and the Netherlands have given their support to Germany's effort, according to the Guardian. Norway's new government is also pressing for NATO to begin discussions on the matter as it prepares an updated strategic concept, which is expected to be revised by July 2010.

"These moves bring out into the open a topic which for too long has been discussed by diplomats and technocrats only," said former British Defense Minister Des Browne, who now leads a group of British parliamentarians that focuses on nuclear disarmament. "(It) makes possible a genuine debate between allies about the role of nuclear weapons in the NATO strategy, as set out in the strategic concept which guides alliance generals."

The present NATO strategic concept says "Nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO provide an essential political and military link between the European and the North American members of the alliance. The alliance will therefore maintain adequate nuclear forces in Europe."

Some hope to see that doctrine revised as part of the push toward global nuclear disarmament. Former French Prime Ministers Alain Juppe and Michel Rocard joined a retired general in submitting a letter to the newspaper Le Monde that called for "the structured elimination of nuclear weapons." The letter also said that Paris should be ready to reconsider its own nuclear deterrent (Julian Borger, London Guardian, Nov. 6).