Experts: New missile plans for Europe raise the threat of the Cold War

• The United States and its allies are pursuing various plans to strengthen their long-range weapons capabilities in Europe.
• Experts warn that these measures reflect one of the most dangerous aspects of the Cold War.
• The renewed arms race with Russia in the area of ​​long-range strikes carries the risk of an escalation of tensions throughout Europe.

The United States and some of its NATO allies are pushing ahead with plans to develop and deploy new long-range weapons in Europe, as the war in Ukraine underscores the combat value of these weapons and the lack of restrictions in this area provides new impetus.

The new steps reflect one of the most dangerous aspects of the Cold War and pose the risk of escalation and a full-scale arms race with Russia, arms control experts say.

“We have been down this path before, and it has taken us many decades to emerge from it with bitter lessons about the dangers of intermediate-range missile escalation in Europe,” Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told Business Insider.

He described the potential “tit-for-tat” escalation tactic as a hallmark of the Cold War that could now make a comeback.

Last week, the United States announced plans to station long-range capabilities in Germany. The deployment will take place sporadically from 2026 onwards, before a permanent deployment takes place at a date not yet foreseen.

“When fully developed,” the allies wrote in a statement, “these units will have long-range conventional SM-6, Tomahawk and development-stage hypersonic weapons that have significantly greater range than current land-based weapons in Europe.”

This announcement was followed a day later by plans by some NATO allies to develop new long-range missiles. France, Poland, Germany and Italy signed the initiative, which focuses on ground-based cruise missiles with a range of over 500 kilometers.

In both cases, the United States and its European partners are responding to what they see as crucial gaps in their long-range weapons arsenals that have been revealed by the war in Ukraine.

The war “showed something that many already knew: long-range weapons are of great use in warfare,” wrote Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral student at the Oslo Nuclear Project at the University of Oslo, in a commentary on War on the Rocks.

“The ability to attack targets at operational and strategic depth is crucial in enabling offensive and defensive maneuvers and can create the conditions for victory on the battlefield,” he explained.

The new plans follow years of rising tensions between the West and Russia over a range of issues, including long-range fire following the US withdrawal from the INF treaty in 2019, which Washington accused Moscow of violating. Russia denied the allegations and later withdrew from the agreement as well, opening the door for both countries to develop and deploy new ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles.

In response to the US and German plans and other NATO actions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: said: “This is a very serious threat to the national security of our country.”

“All this,” he said, “requires us to take thoughtful, coordinated and effective action to deter and counter NATO.”

Experts pointed out that Russia’s violation of the INF Treaty had triggered a snowball effect. “I have long said that the Russians will regret Putin’s violation of the 1987 INF Treaty. It opened the door to the large-scale deployment of precision conventional long-range missiles in Germany and elsewhere,” Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey and an expert on nuclear proliferation, wrote on X.

Although Russia was the initiator of these plans, the deployment plans for Europe certainly have an escalatory character, explained Kristensen, and would probably prompt Russia to deploy more of its own long-range weapons.

“There is an element of autopilot in this dynamic, with each side using the other’s actions to justify ever more steps to build up its military capabilities,” he said, adding that East and West appear to be back on track for tit-for-tat responses.

Kristensen’s views reflected concerns expressed by other experts and officials about recent developments.

Jon B. Wolfsthal, a nuclear arms control and nonproliferation expert and national security official in the Obama administration, wrote on X: “We have recreated one of the most dangerous components of the Cold War in Europe, and things can only get worse from here.”

Conventional long-range strike capabilities in the range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers offer the ability to penetrate deep into enemy territory without warning. Although the intention behind the introduction of new capabilities might be deterrence, it could instead trigger an arms race.

The bright spot in the agreement between the US and Germany, says Kristensen, is that it is a nuclear agreement.

However, he added: “Conventional missiles – particularly fast-flying ballistic missiles – have their own problems, as they shorten policymakers’ reaction time and thus increase the risk of overreaction and mistakes. These factors lead to worst-case planning and undermine crisis stability. And superior conventional capabilities can lead the other side to rely more heavily on nuclear weapons to compensate.”