U.S. weighs expanding nuclear weapons sharing to more NATO allies

Washington is weighing whether to bring more European allies into NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangement, a move that would redraw the alliance’s deterrence map at a moment of war in Ukraine, pressure on burden-sharing and renewed fears about Russian aggression.

The proposal would go beyond the current posture, in which U.S. nuclear forces in Europe already rely on six host countries and on certified allied aircraft prepared to carry out a nuclear mission if ordered. NATO says that arrangement is not the sharing of nuclear weapons, but the sharing of the deterrence mission and the political responsibility that comes with it.

Any such mission would still run through a tightly controlled chain. NATO says political approval would be required through the Nuclear Planning Group, which was established in 1966, and any launch would also need authorization from the U.S. president and the U.K. prime minister. NATO says the first U.S. atomic weapons arrived in Europe in 1954, underscoring how long the alliance has treated nuclear signaling as part of its core defense posture.

The discussion would matter most for NATO’s eastern flank, where Poland and some Baltic states have shown interest in hosting such bases. Poland is already a major site of expanded U.S. military presence, and the State Department says the first permanently stationed U.S. forces there are improving command-and-control and interoperability. For governments near Russia, a nuclear-sharing role would be a stronger political signal than conventional deployments alone.

The military machinery behind that signal is also changing. U.S. defense officials have emphasized the B61-12, the latest version of the U.S. nuclear gravity bomb, and the F-35A as the dual-capable aircraft modernization path. NATO’s 2025 Steadfast Noon exercise involved more than 60 aircraft, with operations centered at Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands, Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, Kleine-Brogel Air Base in Belgium and Skrydstrup Air Base in Denmark. Finland, Poland, the United States and Germany took part.

The politics are harder. Any country asked to host U.S. weapons or dual-capable aircraft would face domestic debate over becoming more visibly tied to nuclear deterrence planning and more exposed in a crisis. That risk comes as NATO has already set a new burden-sharing benchmark, with allies pledging at the 2025 summit to spend 5% of GDP annually on defense and security by 2035.

The wider diplomatic backdrop is no less charged. NATO and the United States reaffirmed at the 2026 NPT Review Conference that the Non-Proliferation Treaty remains the cornerstone of the global nonproliferation regime, even as Russia continues to demand the removal of forward-based U.S. nuclear weapons from NATO territory before any tactical-nuclear arms talks. For Washington, expanding nuclear sharing would be meant to reassure nervous allies and warn Moscow that the alliance is prepared to keep its nuclear posture visible, modern and intact.