That is not really true. Some european countries have nuclear forces. France and the UK.
There are also countries who host American nuclear weapons, but they can't arm them without the authorisation of the US Department of Defense. (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey)
Europe as an entity does not have its own nuclear force. (It is hard to even know what that would mean.)
UK Trident missiles are leased from the US. Also, Much of the technology in the UK program is from the US, and the french tech was developed independently.
If France consider the EU being one of it's 'vital strategic interest', you can consider EU to have 289 nukes available. Not 290, because the first one will be used as a 'warning shot'.
It seems pretty clear that yes. Probably won't do the warning shot until a EU city where a french embassy/school is present is bombed, but clearly yes.
Post-95 french doctrine refuse the use of nuke as a tactical weapon, so i guess supply lines or military airports would be the targets of subsequent nukes, but we have generals who grew with the idea of using tactical nukes, and i'm pretty sure the possibility is still studied at St-Cyr.
French will say "we won't bomb Russia, but do you think we can bomb your territory, close to the border, on this train station/close to this airport?" It will probably be refused, until its _really_ needed.
Russia (and US) doctrine of only using nuke if their territory is nuked does not work in an offensive war.
You're correct. They wouldn't. The US and France would not nuke Russia if it invaded Poland or Germany. But that isn't necessarily true if Russia invaded the US or France (and had a chance of winning).
The UK is still in Europe, it has a lot of interest in keeping Europe as a whole safe and defended. France is tightly integrated and dependent on the EU, being a nuclear force makes the EU as a whole a nuclear force.
Unless you believe France and the UK would leave the rest of Europe hanging to dry in case of a nuclear exchange, if you think so I'd first question why.
The European nuclear arsenal isn't for countering Russian invasion, it's for MAD. If Russia tried to invade poland, they get kicked out by Nato conventional forces instantly (and probably take Kalliningrad while they're at it). If, OTOH, France's nukes are to prevent Russia from using nukes.
There is no European nuclear arsenal. There is a French nuclear arsenal. It functions to deter other countries from using nuclear weapons against France.
I have read some experts views a while back and as far as I understood it’s more complicated. Suppose that Russia launches nukes for The Netherlands or South-West Germany, it’s likely that the UK/France will retaliate ‘just in case’ because it’s not immediately clear if the nukes are not destined for the UK/France.
But yeah, Poland/East Germany is probably too far away and there will be debates about nuclear sharing.
We were told in 2022 that the Russian army was incompetent, people had no gloves and were fighting with shovels. Probably not entirely without reason, because the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2022 was relatively successful.
So the gas money definitely did not go to the army. Now, after the sanctions, on the other hand Russia keeps producing missiles and other things and trades with China.
By the way, Saudi Arabia does have a history of invading Yemen. Not an EU country, but a "military operation".
You are basically saying that despite pre-2022 Russian/European gas trade revenue initial Russian military performance was poor, but since Russian combat readiness improves now (with sanctions in place), the EU might as well have continued trading? Because that is just faulty reasoning; You would need actual data here to draw any conclusions about sanction effectiveness.
