One little point about nuclear weapons
One thing, why NATO has been established is that the small Western European countries wanted that the nuclear weapons of the United States would protect them against Russia or the Soviet Union. The membership of that military alliance hoped to bring the nations under the Nuclear Umbrella.
Then two European NATO countries the United Kingdom (1) and France (2) created their nuclear deterrence for their protection because they were afraid that the USA would not protect them against the Soviet Union and its allies. That thing delivered the pressure from the USA to other countries and the independent nuclear weapons of France and the United Kingdom highlighted the independence of the NATO countries. The United Kingdom was the first and it exploded its first fission weapon in 1952 and hydrogen bomb in 1956.
France made its first fission weapon test in 1960 and the first fusion weapon test in 1968. Today the UK has the stockpile of 214 nuclear warheads and France has 300 nuclear warheads in storage. (1)(2).
In the Warsaw pact the only state, that had nuclear detonators was the Soviet Union. That thing was used as the propaganda weapon, and the thing was that the Soviet Union treated its allies by using nukes as the threat.
In NATO those weapons are under the national command. So not a single nuclear detonator is not owned by NATO.
NATO is the military and defensive alliance. It has not owned nuclear weapons under NATO military control. Three NATO states the USA, France, and the United Kingdom are states with national nuclear weapons. And this thing makes the role of NATO more problematic than we ever expect.
Does that mean that what if the NATO troops would be lost conventional campaigns in Europe? What is the limit of the use of Nuclear weapons in that case? If NATO is under threat and outnumbered, that means that there would be also other nations than the USA, what would want to use nuclear weapons as the final change? And the thing is that what if the tanks of Russia would come too far, and the attack or campaign cannot be stopped?
When the governments of the United Kingdom or France would start the nuclear attack against Russia? This kind of case would be possible if the USA would leave its allies, and some side would start the aggression. The nuclear policy is one of the most secretive things in the world, and if NATO loses its spine in the critical moment, the conflict can be started. And then the case is about the "limited nuclear warfare", what can expand to the global nuclear conflict.
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