The Danger of a New Arms Race in Europe

This was bound to happen with the U.S. withdrawing leadership from international relations.

Power abhors a vacuum, and it's getting filled by Russian capabilities in Europe. Sooner or later the stress of conflict will reach a boiling point. Putin will continue to grab territory to the west, or the European states will stand up to Russian expansionism. Logically, strategic arms will be implicated because Moscow's been saber-rattling its nuclear capabilities.

At Der Spiegel, "Cold War Resurgent: US Nukes Could Soon Return to Europe":

Washington is once again talking about stationing nuclear warheads in Europe. Russia, too, is turning up the rhetoric. Europeans are concerned about becoming caught in the middle of a new Cold War.

It's been more than three decades since the vast peace protests took over Bonn's Hofgarten meadow in the early 1980s. Back then, about half a million protesters pushed their way into the city center, a kilometer-long mass of people moving through the streets. It was the biggest rally in the history of the German Federal Republic.

Today, the situation isn't quite that fraught, but it seems feasible that a similar scene may soon play out in front of the Chancellery in Berlin. For some time now, the Americans have once again been thinking about upgrading Europe's nuclear arsenal, and in the past week, a rhetorical arms race has begun that is reminiscent of the coldest periods of the Cold War.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned of an "accelerating spiral of escalating words and then of actions." He described them as "the old reflexes of the Cold War."

Berlin is concerned that Europe could once again become the setting of a new East-West confrontation -- and that Germany might once again become a deployment zone. A source in the Defense Ministry suggested that "more (military) equipment may once again be stockpiled in Germany." Washington plans to station tanks, weapons and heavy equipment for 5,000 soldiers in Germany and the eastern NATO countries. US President Barack Obama hopes that doing so will soothe the fears of the Baltic States and countries in Eastern Europe, which, since the Ukraine crisis, are once again fearful of Russian aggression. He also hopes to quiet his critics in US Congress.

For German Chancellor Angela Merkel, this prospect is not a pleasant one. She shies away from publicly criticizing her American allies, but Merkel is loathe to do anything that might heat up the conflict with Moscow. Furthermore, a new debate on rearmament would hardly be winnable on a domestic front. The chancellor would potentially look like a puppet of the United States, one who not only allows herself to be spied on, but who also stands by as her carefully established link to Putin is damaged.

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