Why Would Europe Trust France with ALL the Nukes? || Peter Zeihan

TL;DR

Europe won't trust France with all the nukes — every country will likely build its own deterrent instead.

Key Points

• 1.The trigger: Europe lost confidence in US protection after Trump threatened military action over Greenland, signaling 75 years of alliance may be functionally over.
• 2.France's nuclear umbrella proposal fails on the "threshold problem" — no French president will nuke Moscow to defend a nearly destroyed Estonia, making the guarantee unconvincing.
• 3.The technical barrier is low: any country with a 1-gigawatt nuclear power plant already produces enough waste plutonium annually to build ~12 weapons using 1940s technology.
• 4.Zeihan predicts independent nuclear programs emerging soon in Finland, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Germany, and possibly smaller nations, citing Europe's historically violent, self-conflicting past before American-enforced postwar unity.