REPORT: NATO revives nuclear sharing — the Cold War as a blueprint against Putin and Trump

Introduction: The umbrella that trembles

A question no one wanted to ask out loud

For decades, the question was taboo in the corridors of NATO: what happens if the United States doesn't come? Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, that taboo has shattered. Allies on the Eastern Flank — Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — now voice it in private and sometimes in public. And Brussels, for the first time since the dissolution of the USSR, is putting back on the table an option long thought filed away in the archives of the Cold War: extending, broadening, and redeploying the Atlantic Alliance's nuclear weapons-sharing arrangement.

This is not geopolitical science fiction. It is what the Financial Times reported, confirmed by several sources close to the alliance and analyzed in detail by 19FortyFive on June 26, 2026. The plan is described as "extremely confidential," still at an embryonic stage, but real. Its very existence is a signal: NATO no longer trusts the American umbrella as the sole pillar of its deterrence.

When reality outpaces doctrine

NATO's nuclear-sharing arrangement is one of the most singular mechanisms in international defense law. It allows non-nuclear nations — Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the United Kingdom — to access, under strict conditions, American B61 gravity bombs. Those bombs cannot be armed without authorization from Washington. Aircraft such as the F-35, the F-15, and the Tornado serve as delivery platforms.

This arrangement, designed when the USSR directly threatened Western Europe, is now being examined through a new lens: how to make it more robust, more distributed, and capable of withstanding a potential American defection — or at minimum, a hesitation by Washington under domestic political pressure.

The catalyst: Russia's war machine and the Trump factor

The invasion as a structural trigger

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022, fundamentally reconfigured risk perception across Europe. What had seemed unthinkable — a large-scale conventional war on European soil — became reality. NATO members on the Eastern Flank, who had spent years demanding a stronger presence, saw their warnings vindicated by events. And they drew a logical conclusion: if deterrence failed for Ukraine, it could fail for them too.

The question of the nuclear umbrella is directly linked to that awakening. If Moscow decided to invade despite Western guarantees, it was partly because the perceived cost of nuclear escalation seemed manageable. Making that cost less manageable, more tangible, more immediate — that is precisely the objective of an expanded sharing arrangement.

Trump as an uncontrollable variable

The second catalyst is as uncomfortable to name as it is impossible to ignore: Donald Trump. Since his return to the White House, the American president has repeatedly sent ambiguous signals about Article 5 of the NATO treaty. He cancelled and then reinstated a deployment of 4,000 soldiers to Poland via a post on Truth Social. He threatened allies over insufficient defense spending. His Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated in February 2025 that European security would no longer be Washington's priority.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte put it cautiously but directly: "Anyone who thinks the EU or Europe can defend itself without the United States is living in a dream." But that dream now has a price tag: European allies can no longer afford to have no Plan B.

The nuclear-sharing arrangement: the mechanics of a reactivated relic

How the current arrangement works

NATO's nuclear-sharing arrangement rests on a simple but geopolitically explosive principle: non-nuclear nations participate in planning and, in a major crisis, in the delivery of American nuclear weapons. The B61 bombs are stored at bases spread across five member countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. The United Kingdom, as an independent nuclear power, also maintains complementary capabilities.

The arrangement ensures that non-nuclear allies have a voice in collective deterrence doctrine — without acquiring their own arsenals, which would violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is a delicate balance, maintained since the Cold War, that rests fundamentally on the credibility of the American commitment.

The gaps the plan aims to fill

The plan currently under review would seek to deploy American nuclear weapons in new member states, particularly in Eastern Europe. Poland and the Baltic states are cited as potentially open to hosting dual-capable aircraft (DCA) — aircraft capable of delivering conventional or nuclear strikes. Former Polish president Andrzej Duda had explicitly requested such hosting arrangements.

Lithuania went even further on July 2, 2026: President Gitanas Nauseda announced that the country's top political leaders had agreed to remove the constitutional ban — Article 137 — on the deployment of nuclear weapons on national territory. "The geopolitical situation is deteriorating. Our constitution was written under completely different geopolitical circumstances," he told Reuters. Finland had done the same just days earlier.

Macron and forward deterrence: Paris enters the picture

The Île Longue address

France is not part of NATO's nuclear-sharing arrangement — a position inherited from General de Gaulle, who withdrew Paris from the Alliance's integrated military command structure in 1966. France only returned to that structure in 2009, under Nicolas Sarkozy. But it has always jealously guarded its nuclear independence.

That is why President Emmanuel Macron's address at the naval base on Île Longue in Brittany resonated as a historic turning point. Macron raised the possibility of deploying elements of the French nuclear deterrent to other allied nations in Europe — a strategy he called "forward deterrence." He stated: "This could provide, depending on circumstances, for the deployment of elements of our strategic forces on allied territory."

A paradigm shift for Paris

Were this proposal implemented, it would represent a radical shift in French nuclear doctrine — historically sovereigntist and fiercely independent. France would become a central actor in European collective deterrence, complementing the American umbrella rather than simply ensuring its own defense.

Analyst Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, argues in Foreign Policy of July 1, 2026, that French forward deterrence must be understood as a complement to the American nuclear umbrella, "not as a substitute." That clarification matters: the goal is not to replace the United States, but to diversify the deterrence base to reduce its vulnerability to a political decision by Washington.

The Ankara summit: the moment of truth for the Alliance

A summit shadowed by deep tensions

NATO leaders meet on July 7–8, 2026 in Ankara, Turkey, under Erdoğan's presidency. The venue itself is charged with meaning: Turkey, the uncomfortable ally, will host a summit at which the fractures of the alliance are front and center. Erdoğan hopes to use his personal relationship with Trump to avoid open confrontation — and to extract concessions, including the sale of $700 million in jet engines.

At The Hague, during the June 2026 summit, NATO members pledged to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. A strong signal — but analysts remain cautious about members' actual capacity to honor that commitment amid budgetary pressure. Germany's defense budget reached $114 billion; Poland is targeting 5% of GDP; Norway, according to Foreign Policy, now spends more per capita on defense than the United States.

What the alliance expects from Ankara

European allies hope Ankara will produce concrete commitments on the division of responsibilities between Europe and the United States. According to Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, an ideal outcome would see Europe assume conventional defense — ground troops, territorial defense, logistics, short-range air defense — while the United States retains critical strategic capabilities: long-range strike, intelligence, surveillance, and nuclear deterrence.

This uncoupling of responsibilities is not a rupture of the alliance. It is an adaptation to a new reality: the United States is pivoting toward the Indo-Pacific, and Europe must fill the gap. In 2025, defense spending by Europe and Canada rose by 20% in real terms, reaching a combined $574 billion.

The Baltic states and Poland: fear and preparation

A documented anxiety, not a fantasy

The Guardian of June 27, 2026 precisely documented the state of mind of NATO's Eastern Flank leaders. Former Lithuanian Defense Minister Dilė Šalienė described the transatlantic relationship as "a dysfunctional family where divorce is not an option." Estonian analyst Kristi Raik, director of the ICDS, said she could not remember such levels of self-censorship in foreign policy discussions since "the end of the Soviet era."

In May 2025, a senior American official — Thomas DiNanno, Under Secretary of State — was questioned in Tallinn about a potential American intervention if Russia invaded the Baltic states. His response was deemed evasive and insufficient, unable to state a clear "yes." For small states whose entire defense strategy rests on that certainty, this amounted to a seismic shock.

Preparations that speak louder than speeches

Despite reassuring public statements, actions betray the anxiety. Germany is deploying a full brigade to Lithuania — its first permanent foreign base since World War II. Military exercises are multiplying: the Spring Storm exercises in Estonia saw no fewer than 44,000 Estonian soldiers and volunteers participate alongside French and British troops.

Former CIA analyst Peter Schroeder warned: Russia believes that "as long as Trump exacerbates tensions within the alliance, we don't need to intervene." That is the essence of the strategic risk: not a direct attack, but an exploitation of NATO's cracks until the cost of a response becomes politically unacceptable in Washington.

The architecture of decision: who decides what

The American lock on nuclear weapons

A crucial point often omitted in public debate: under the current nuclear-sharing arrangement, nuclear weapons stored in Europe cannot be armed and deployed without explicit authorization from Washington. Ultimate control remains American. European allies could theoretically serve as delivery platforms, but only if the American president gives the green light.

That is precisely where the shoe pinches. If the plan aims to reassure allies that the American umbrella will remain operational, but that umbrella still depends on the decision of a president with Trump's temperament — unpredictable, susceptible to influence, liable to tweet a decision that voids a diplomatic guarantee — then the geographical extension of the arrangement does not solve the fundamental problem: the political reliability of the American commitment.

The French track as a partial alternative

That is why Macron's proposal is strategically different. French nuclear deterrence does not depend on Washington. It is sovereign. If France commits to extending its nuclear coverage to allies such as Poland, that guarantee is not conditioned by a Truth Social post. It depends on French political will — admittedly — but that will is at least predictable, anchored in stable institutions.

Defense spending by the European Union reached an estimated $447 billion in 2025. Total transatlantic investment amounts to $7.4 trillion. Annual transatlantic trade exceeds $2 trillion. These figures illustrate the deep interdependence that makes genuine decoupling unthinkable — but they do not guarantee military commitment in a crisis either.

The internal NATO debate: reservations and risks

Creeping proliferation or strengthened deterrence?

Any expansion of nuclear sharing runs up against a weighty argument: the risk of perceived proliferation. If NATO extends its arrangement to new countries, Russia — and China — could use that as a pretext to justify their own nuclear expansions, or to abandon remaining arms control agreements. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, already dead, had left a void; a nuclear redeployment in Eastern Europe could deepen it.

It must also be noted that the plan has not yet been formalized as official NATO policy. According to 19FortyFive, it remains at a "very preliminary and hypothetical" stage. No country has yet been designated as a future storage site. No decision timeline has been set. It is a reflection, not yet a program. But the very existence of that reflection is a strategic signal that Moscow is taking seriously.

Rutte's response: ironclad or ironic?

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte sought to reassure. At a press conference, he declared: "The commitment of allies to Article 5 is ironclad. Our resolve and our ability to defend every ally is absolute." He added: "If anyone was foolish enough to attack us, the response would be devastating."

Those statements matter. But they do not answer the real question: who, between Washington and Brussels, has the final word when the missiles are flying? Rutte can promise whatever he likes; it is the American president who commands the American nuclear arsenal. And that is precisely the reality the expanded sharing plan seeks to work around — or at least to mitigate.

Ukraine in the equation: the war that changes everything

The Ukrainian laboratory of broken deterrence

Ukraine is the case study haunting every NATO planner. In 1994, Kyiv surrendered its Soviet nuclear arsenal — the third largest in the world — in exchange for security guarantees under the Budapest Memorandum. Those guarantees were violated in the most brutal way possible in 2022, and again in the years that followed.

Small states in Europe draw a dual lesson from this. First lesson: paper guarantees are only worth as much as the guarantors' willingness to enforce them by force. Second lesson: possessing one's own nuclear capability — or guaranteed access to one — is an irreplaceable geopolitical insurance policy. That is precisely the reasoning the expanded sharing plan seeks to institutionalize.

Ukraine's drone advantage

Meanwhile, Ukraine has demonstrated that deterrence can also work asymmetrically. Through its advanced drone technology, it has struck Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and now military satellite communications centers in the regions of Moscow and Vladimir. Zelensky, according to Foreign Policy, is described by his partners as "the perceived winner" of the conflict — a striking reversal from the bleak forecasts at the war's outset.

This Ukrainian success indirectly reinforces the argument for nuclear sharing: if even a non-nuclear power without a formal guarantee can hold a nuclear-armed military at bay, imagine what allies with guaranteed access to nuclear deterrence could accomplish. The combination of Ukrainian tenacity and the Western nuclear umbrella is precisely the equation Putin fears most.

The numbers of defense: an alliance in transformation

Unprecedented financial commitments

The awareness underlying the nuclear-sharing deliberations is accompanied by a historic financial effort. According to Foreign Policy, defense spending by Europe and Canada rose by 20% in real terms in 2025, reaching a combined $574 billion. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, all 32 NATO allies spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense.

Those figures are striking, but insufficient to mask capability gaps. Europe excels in conventional ground spending but remains dependent on the United States for critical capabilities: long-range strike, high-intensity intelligence, sophisticated air defense, nuclear deterrence. It is this structural deficit that the expanded nuclear-sharing plan seeks to address — not by replacing the United States, but by reducing vulnerability to their potential absence.

The European defense market: a bilateral opportunity

For American defense contractors, the European effort represents a colossal opportunity. Foreign Policy estimates the European market for American defense companies could reach approximately $1.14 trillion by 2035. That is an economic argument the Trump administration — attuned to commercial interests — cannot ignore. The transatlantic alliance is not merely a security arrangement: it is also an economic relationship worth $7.4 trillion in cross-investment.

This economic reality constitutes, paradoxically, one of the strongest guarantors of the durability of the American commitment. Not out of idealism — but out of interest. That is the central thesis of the German Marshall Fund analysis: the alliance must rebuild on "structural interdependence," not on emotional attachments between leaders.

Future scenarios: three visions for the NATO of tomorrow

The optimistic scenario: a rebalanced alliance

In the best-case scenario, the Ankara summit of July 7–8, 2026 produces a formal agreement on the division of responsibilities. Europe assumes conventional defense; the United States provides strategic capabilities, including nuclear deterrence via an expanded sharing arrangement. France complements with its own forward deterrence. And this new balance, anchored in formal commitments rather than the whims of leaders, makes NATO more robust in the face of future crises.

According to Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, "the alliance that emerges will be different from the one built in 1949. It will also be better adapted to the world that actually exists." An ambitious but coherent vision — one that demands political will, institutional rigor, and the ability to look beyond short-term electoral dynamics.

The pessimistic scenario: a Schrödinger's NATO

Researcher Pugin of the European Council on Foreign Relations introduced the concept of "Schrödinger's NATO": an alliance that simultaneously exists and does not, whose reality will only be known when it is militarily tested. And at that point, "it could already be too late for Europeans."

In this scenario, the Ankara summit concludes with satisfying declarations that mask hollow commitments. The expanded nuclear-sharing plan remains in the drawer. Putin continues to exploit the alliance's cracks. And one day, in a city like Narva — 50,000 inhabitants, a Russian-speaking majority, on the Estonian border — the question of the American commitment receives an ambiguous answer, and that ambiguity is enough to tip the scales of history.

The dissenting voices: risks and limits of expanded sharing

Not everything is as straightforward as the proponents of expanded nuclear sharing suggest. Arms control experts point out that any additional American nuclear deployment in Eastern Europe risks triggering a Russian reaction: multiplication of Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, abandonment of the last strategic stability agreements, amplified nuclear rhetoric. The risk of an escalation of perception, even without real escalation, is genuine.

Other observers note that the problem is not the technical mechanism of nuclear sharing but the political will underpinning it. No geographical extension of B61 bomb storage can guarantee that an American president will authorize their use in a crisis. Deterrence is fundamentally a matter of credibility, not geography.

The limits of European sovereignty

A senior European intelligence official quoted by the Guardian estimated that the combined intelligence-gathering capabilities on Russia of all NATO agencies except the United States amount to "less than what the United States produces independently." This fundamental dependence in the intelligence domain illustrates why European strategic autonomy remains, at best, an objective for the late 2030s or 2040s — not an operational reality for tomorrow.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys expressed that ambivalence clearly: "I'm less worried about NATO; I think if we keep our commitments, everything will be fine. My biggest concern is how we project our unity toward Russia, which could lead it to conclude that this is an opportune moment to act."

The Russian perspective: exploiting the crack

Moscow watches and waits

It would be naïve not to analyze the Russian response to all of this. Moscow watches NATO's internal debates closely. Every ambiguous statement by Trump, every deployment cancelled and reinstated, every reassuring speech followed by a contradictory action is analyzed by Kremlin strategists.

Former CIA analyst Peter Schroeder stated it bluntly: Russia believes that "as long as Trump fuels tensions within the alliance, we don't need to intervene." Russia's strategy is not necessarily to trigger an open war with NATO. It is to maintain sufficient pressure to exploit the alliance's divisions until a window of opportunity opens.

Kaliningrad and the strategic enclave

The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad remains one of the most volatile flashpoints in European geography. It directly borders Lithuania — one of the NATO members that has just lifted its constitutional ban on nuclear weapons. Kaliningrad is one of the most militarized zones in Europe: Iskander missiles, S-400 systems, Baltic naval forces. Its presence serves as a constant reminder that NATO's Eastern Flank is also the alliance's exposed underbelly.

An American nuclear redeployment to Poland or the Baltic states — should the plan materialize — would be interpreted by Moscow as a direct provocation. Russia would almost certainly respond by intensifying its nuclear posture in the region. That is the classic deterrence dilemma: reinforcing one's own credibility at the risk of provoking a symbolic escalation by the adversary.

Defense technology as a fourth dimension

Beyond nuclear: AI and autonomous systems

The debate over nuclear sharing must not obscure another ongoing revolution: the technological transformation of defense. Artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and cyber defense are reshaping military balances as profoundly as nuclear weapons did in their time. The German Marshall Fund proposed at the Ankara summit a "transatlantic defense technology pact" — a formal framework for joint development, technology transfer, and co-production in these fields.

Ukraine demonstrated the effectiveness of armed drones against an overequipped conventional army. That lesson resonates in every NATO capital. If a $14-billion arms package can be blocked or delayed by political considerations, as is the case with Taiwan, technological diversification becomes a strategic necessity, not an option.

Information as a weapon

Another critical dimension: the information war. Moscow has invested heavily in influence operations aimed at dividing democratic societies and weakening popular support for NATO. The 2024 European elections saw historic gains for nationalist parties; in Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland became the second-largest party in the 2025 federal elections. If such forces reach power in key NATO members, the nuclear-sharing debate takes on an entirely different dimension.

The 2027 French presidential election is described by Foreign Policy as "the most decisive upcoming test," with the far right polling competitively. If Macron's forward deterrence depends on French political continuity, its long-term credibility is also open to question.

Toward NATO 3.0: between continuity and rupture

A new Atlantic compact

Several leaders and analysts now speak of a "NATO 3.0" — an alliance that, while preserving its essence, reinvents itself for the twenty-first century. In this model, Europe would assume a growing share of the continent's conventional defense, while the United States would remain the guarantor of irreplaceable strategic capabilities — including nuclear deterrence via an expanded sharing arrangement. This is not a NATO without the United States; it is a NATO less dependent on the American president's mood.

Total transatlantic investment amounts to $7.4 trillion according to Foreign Policy. Annual trade exceeds $2 trillion. Both sides of the Atlantic together represent roughly 43% of world GDP. This economic interdependence is the real foundation of the alliance — more durable than presidential friendships or solemn declarations.

What this crisis reveals

Ultimately, the deliberations over expanded nuclear sharing reveal a truth that many Europeans refused to confront for decades: Europe under-invested in its own defense and overestimated the permanence of the American commitment. That is not a reproach — it is an observation. Cold War NATO worked because the Soviet threat made the American commitment self-evident. The world of 2026 is more complex, and Europe must draw the appropriate conclusions.

The expanded nuclear-sharing plan, however embryonic, is a symptom of collective awareness. It is painful, belated, but necessary. And if it leads to a more balanced, more robust alliance — less vulnerable to American political caprice — then this crisis will at least have had the merit of forcing a conversation Europe should have had much earlier.

Conclusion: the hour of geopolitical maturity

A signal, not yet a policy

NATO's expanded nuclear-sharing plan is not yet a reality. It is "extremely confidential," still hypothetical, with no defined timeline or list of countries. But its existence in the most secret discussions of the Atlantic Alliance attests to a profound shift: NATO no longer believes the status quo is sustainable. The combination of a persistent Russian threat and American unpredictability has created an urgency that even reassuring rhetoric can no longer mask.

The Ankara summit of July 7–8, 2026 will be a test. Not necessarily the definitive test — history is rarely that simple — but a revealing one. What allies decide, what they dare not decide, and what they say in private after the official communiqués will give the true measure of the alliance's cohesion in the face of the dual pressure of Putin and Trump.

Russia is watching; NATO must act

Vladimir Putin is watching. He invaded Ukraine betting that the West would not go all the way. He was wrong about Ukraine — Ukrainians resisted with a tenacity that defied every forecast — but he is right to perceive cracks in NATO. The question is not whether those cracks exist: they do. The question is whether the Atlantic Alliance will choose to seal them before it is too late, or wait for the next military test to reveal their true depth.

The expanded nuclear sharing, French forward deterrence, record defense spending, the new Lithuanian and Finnish constitutional provisions — all of this traces, piece by piece, the profile of a Europe taking its security into its own hands. This is not the end of American dependence. It is the beginning of its rebalancing. And that, despite everything, is good news.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Who I am and my acknowledged biases

I am a columnist and analyst, not a diplomat or certified military expert. I read sources, cross-reference analyses, and try to understand what official communiqués do not say. I am pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine, and I consider liberal democracy the least bad system humanity has ever invented. My bias: I tend to believe that democracies, when they exercise political will, can stand up to autocracies. That bias is entirely my own.

On the nuclear question, I acknowledge a limitation: I am not an expert in arms control or nuclear doctrine. The technical nuances of NATO's nuclear-sharing arrangement, the Article 5 protocols, and the legal implications of a potential redeployment partially exceed my expertise. I sought to compensate with solid primary sources and recognized analyses.

What I don't know and my method

I do not know whether the expanded nuclear-sharing plan will materialize. I do not know whether the Ankara summit will produce real commitments. I do not know what Trump will do tomorrow. Nobody does — and that is precisely the problem. I grounded this analysis on primary sources published between June 26 and July 2, 2026, notably 19FortyFive, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, and CNBC. I cross-referenced multiple perspectives and avoided unsourced assertions. What I presented as fact is factual and corroborated; what I presented as interpretation is clearly identified as such.

Sources

Primary sources

19FortyFive — NATO Is Weighing the Biggest Expansion of Its Nuclear Weapons Sharing Since the Cold War — June 26, 2026

Foreign Policy — Trans-Atlanticism Isn't Dead — It's Being Renegotiated — July 1, 2026

Foreign Policy — Can NATO Pull Off a Dull Summit? — June 29, 2026

Secondary sources

The Guardian — All quiet on the eastern flank? NATO leaders fear they can no longer rely on US help if Russia attacks — June 27, 2026

CNBC — Russia's neighbor Lithuania scraps constitutional ban on nuclear weapons — July 2, 2026

Euromaidan Press — Ongoing NATO coverage — July 2026