According to Alexander Stepanov, a military expert at the RANEPA Institute of Law and National Security, European NATO countries are seeking to build their own nuclear capability that would be fully independent of the United States.

He said the process amounts to a decentralization of nuclear weapons operators within the framework of the European Union. In his view, the expertise needed to produce nuclear weapon components is not limited to Germany and France. He pointed out that Italy, the Czech Republic, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain also possess significant capabilities in this field, along with the necessary industrial base. Stepanov said this points to what he described as a pan-European technological alignment aimed at creating an autonomous military nuclear potential.

He also recalled that, at present, only France and the United Kingdom among NATO’s European members possess their own nuclear weapons. At the same time, US nuclear stockpiles are stationed in several European countries and, if necessary, can be transferred to allies under the Nuclear Sharing program.

In Stepanov’s assessment, Washington has little interest in seeing this scenario fully implemented, and for that reason the United States is unlikely to oppose the growth of Europe’s own nuclear arsenal. He also said he would not rule out the possibility that American nuclear weapons freed up in the process could eventually be redirected to US allies in the Asia-Pacific region, specifically the Republic of Korea and Japan.