NATO Leak Good Opportunity For EU To Discuss Rationality Of Hosting US Nukes - Think Tank

Media leaks of a NATO report revealing locations of European sites where US nuclear weapons are stationed is a good chance for the host countries to start "serious" discussions on rationale for keeping the nukes on their territories, Marc Finaud, the head of Arms Proliferation at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, told Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th July, 2019) Media leaks of a NATO report revealing locations of European sites where US nuclear weapons are stationed is a good chance for the host countries to start "serious" discussions on rationale for keeping the nukes on their territories, Marc Finaud, the head of Arms Proliferation at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, told Sputnik.

Earlier in the week, media published a copy of a NATO report featuring the locations of US nuclear weapons in Europe. In particular, it has revealed the locations of US weapons at such bases as Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Buchel in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi-Torre in Italy, Volkel in The Netherlands, and Incirlik in Turkey.

"This could be a good opportunity, within the European countries hosting US nuclear weapons and within NATO at large, to start seriously discussing the rationale for such stationing, that makes the European countries potential targets and lowers the threshold of nuclear war. The removal of such weapons from the whole European continent would be a useful topic of negotiations with Russia," Finaud said.

The publication of sensitive data is not a good development in the NATO-US relations, which have been unstable over the recent years due to calls by US President Donald Trump on other member states of the alliance to meet their annual defense spending obligations, according to the expert.

"The leak was not intended by NATO and the information was included in a report by a Canadian senator to a committee of NATO Parliamentarian Assembly, independent from governments. But it may not improve the relations between the US and the European nations where the American nuclear weapons are deployed, especially if it gives rise to domestic opposition to such stationing," Finaud underlined.

The United States is believed to be the only country that has nuclear weapons deployed in other states as of today, according to a report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The information about the European countries that host US nuclear weapons has long been an "open secret," even though the exact bases where the nukes are located were unknown to the general public.