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Is Macron Greenlighting a New US-Led Nuclear Arms Race?

As the global arms control regime collapses, France plans to expand and Europeanize its nuclear arsenal.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s March 2 address on France’s nuclear arms doctrine ought to be remembered for what it did not provide: a robust call for European diplomacy, amid the collapse of the arms control regime that once bound the United States and Russia. International treaties to limit stockpiles of nuclear weapons and control the risk of conflict were now “a field of ruins,” according to France’s president: “The prevailing animosity does not inspire the confidence required to rebuild the norms of collective security. That is why we are right to harden our position.”

With the expiration of the New START treaty last month, for the first time in decades no formal agreement limits the size of the nuclear arsenals deployed by the two leading nuclear powers. Signed in 2010 by then–Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, New START limited US and Russian nuclear arsenals at 1550 deployed warheads per country. It now joins the growing list of abandoned agreements: In 2002, Washington withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; in 2023, Russia left the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty.

All the ingredients are there for a reckless resumption of the nuclear arms race. Even within the terms of New START, both the United States and Russia had embarked on a costly modernization of their nuclear arsenals. There is now talk of the agreement’s tacit extension—the treaty was extended for five years in 2021—but that could prove a dead letter. Donald Trump’s complaint is that the expired framework does not include the US’s main geopolitical rival, China, currently in the throes of a significant expansion of its stockpile. In the grim world of nuclear theorizing, the fear for Washington is that the US could find itself facing not one but two peer rivals—in a race for ever more extravagant quantities of unusable weapons.

“The end of New START is certainly a regrettable step, but it’s by no means the only one,” said Alicia Sanders-Zakre, head of policy at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). “Nuclear armed states like Russia and Israel are waging wars of aggression. The US-Israeli attack on Iran raises real proliferation risks. We’ve seen very close calls between India and Pakistan. All nuclear-armed countries are investing in their nuclear arsenals.”

In a study published last June, ICAN estimated the 2024 global price tag for nuclear rearmament at just over $100 billion. According to the Geneva-based NGO, the United States accounted for over half of that total, spending over $56 billion.

With geopolitical tensions on the rise across the globe, is Europe now about to join the arms race too?

Speaking on March 2 at the Île Longue nuclear submarine base off the coast of Brittany—a “cathedral of sovereignty,” according to the French president—Macron confirmed that France too would expand its arsenal. In a break from precedent, it would also cease to announce the precise size of its weapons stockpile. “To be free, you must be feared, and to be feared you need to be powerful,” he said.

France is currently estimated to possess just shy of 300 warheads, roughly half the size of its arsenal at the height of the Cold War. Since Brexit, it is also the only member state of the European Union to possess its own nuclear weapons. Since France discontinued its ground-based missile program in the 1990s, its nuclear weapons are designed for delivery by air from Rafale jets, or from nuclear submarines, a new generation of which is expected to be rolled out in the 2030s. A special military budgeting package this spring is........

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