France's full reintegration is emblematic of NATO's absorption of virtually all Europe states as full members and as candidates under progressively more advanced partnership agreements: The Partnership for Peace, Individual Partnership Action Plans, Membership Action Plans and nation-specific Annual National Programs.
Of the 44 European nations that are members of the United Nations, excluding microstates and including those in the South Caucasus, only one Cyprus is not a NATO member or partner, and the Cypriot government is under pressure from conservative opposition parties to join the Partnership for Peace. Only six of those 44 nations Belarus, Cyprus, Malta, Moldova, Russia and Serbia have not supplied NATO troops for the ISAF mission in Afghanistan.
Italian ISAF troops in Afghanistan
When France rejoined NATO's integrated military command it was awarded two top military posts: Lieutenant General Philippe Stoltz was appointed commander of Allied Joint Force Command Lisbon, one of NATO's three operational commands, and Air Force General Stà ©phane Abrial became chief of Allied Command Transformation (ACT) in Norfolk, Virginia, one of NATO's two strategic commands, the other being Allied Command Operations at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Belgium. Abrial is the first non-American to command ACT in the seven years of its existence.
At the three-day Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada from November 5-7 General Abrial reiterated the NATO position on retaining American nuclear arms in Europe in language identical to recent comments by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The ACT commander stated, "As long as the world is nuclear, the (NATO) alliance has to keep nuclear weapons." [1] Last month "Clinton came out against proposals to remove the alliance's remaining 200 tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, saying that NATO must remain a nuclear alliance as long as nuclear weapons exist." [2] At practically the same time Rasmussen said that "The anti-missile defence system is a complement to nuclear deterrence, and not a substitute." [3]
Last month German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose nation had been presented as an advocate of removing U.S. nuclear warheads from Europe, including those in her own country, endorsed their retention in time for next month's NATO summit, stating: "As long as there are nuclear weapons in the world, we need to have these capabilities, as NATO says." [4]
On November 4 Rasmussen met with British Prime Minister David Cameron in London two days after a groundbreaking Anglo-French pact was signed "to create a joint military force and share nuclear testing facilities and an aircraft carrier." [5]
No unimportant development, as "Britain and France together account for 50 percent of Europe's operational military capability, 45 percent of its defense spending, and 70 percent of the research and development crucial to fight the wars of the future." [6]
In an editorial published before the treaty was signed, British Defence Secretary Liam Fox wrote, "There are many reasons why this cooperation makes sense. We are Europe's only two nuclear powers."
In fact there is another nation in Europe with nuclear weapons, the only one that is not a member of NATO, the one against whom the nuclear weapons-missile shield dyad is aimed: Russia.
Fox continued by boasting that Britain and France "are the two biggest defence spenders in Europe and are the only two countries in Europe with real, large scale expeditionary military capability."
"Since President Sarkozy came into office we have seen, with renewed vigour, an attempt to bring Europe and America closer together in partnership and cooperation, and real determination to bring France deeper into NATO where many of us believe she truly belongs".The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, including a British liaison officer already on-board, will soon be arriving in the Indian Ocean to provide greater air power for NATO in Afghanistan." [7]
In Lisbon on November 19 and 20 NATO will maintain the position on U.S. nuclear weapons stationed at NATO air bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey that was confirmed in its last Strategic Concept adopted eleven years ago: "The supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States; the independent nuclear forces of the United Kingdom and France, which have a deterrent role of their own, contribute to the overall deterrence and security of the Allies."
There are between 200 and 350 U.S. nuclear gravity bombs in the five nations mentioned above, and as part of what is alternately called burden sharing and nuclear sharing they are, while technically owned by the U.S., assigned to the host countries to deliver them with their own bombers. That arrangement is an egregious violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) which states: "Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly"." [8]
B61 nuclear bomb
In addition to the American nuclear weapons stored at NATO bases in the case of Turkey in a country bordering Iran and Syria and only separated from Russia by either Georgia or Azerbaijan France possesses an estimated 300 nuclear warheads and Britain 225. There may be as many as 900 nuclear weapons in Europe under the control of NATO powers.
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