2024, Tallinn, Estonia. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets with Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson at the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) Summit in Estonia. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Simon Dawson, No 10 Downing Street, the United Kingdom Open Government Licence
According to quotes from SVT’s program Agenda for Sweden, there are discussions with Britain and France about nuclear weapons cooperation. Since Britain’s nuclear weapons are completely dependent on the United States for manufacturing and maintenance, France is the only realistic discussion partner and discussions have already begun.
This is very bad news for Russia: implementing this plan would mean deploying the ASMPA-R supersonic (3,000 km/h) air-launched missile, which was adopted and tested during the Operation Durandal nuclear exercise in 2024, in the Scandinavian and Finland’s Arctic regions. It features a new 300-kiloton warhead and a range of 600 km. Having begun work on the project in 2014, France will also adopt a hypersonic air-launched missile in 2035, the successor to the ASMP missile, currently known as ASN4G (Air-Sol Nucléaire de 4ème Génération), with a range of over 1,000 km.
If French nuclear weapons are deployed in Scandinavia, targets in Russia will be hit from launch sites in northern Norway and Finland, including all strategic targets in northwestern Russia: the western entrance to the Northern Sea Route, the entire Kola Peninsula with its strategic air and submarine bases, the Arkhangelsk and St. Petersburg military-industrial complexes, and key infrastructure in this region of the country.
If the deployment of French nuclear forces in Scandinavia and Finland takes place, Russia will have to find an adequate response—nuclear, of course—that will neutralize the emerging nuclear threat involving a new, extra-regional player.
The Nuclear Discussions Have Begun
Asked how he responds when France inquires about cooperation on nuclear weapons, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson replied: “I say that when we joined NATO, we are fully involved in all discussions, including those in Europe revolving around nuclear weapons. Not so that they should be used, but as long as dangerous countries possess nuclear weapons, sound democracies must also have access to nuclear weapons.”
In a follow-up question about whether Sweden could participate with France in a nuclear program, Kristersson responded ‘yes,’ before revealing that such discussions have already begun.
Just as Britain buys its nuclear weapons from the USA, including maintenance and the robots, it is of course very appropriate that Sweden buys the same from France, which has the entire process.
In fact, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands have or have had a nuclear weapons cooperation with the US, where they have the possibility of carrying American B-61 tactical nuclear weapons on their attack aircraft in wartime, which is also practiced. Hopefully, Sweden is now interested in initially having this capability but with French nuclear weapons, and perhaps later on participating in a collaboration to develop new nuclear weapons together.
Quote from Kristersson:
“We would start by saying that it is important that there are nuclear powers in Europe. You mentioned it yourself. It is Great Britain and France. France’s are also completely separate and France occasionally, even in public, expresses an interest in discussing nuclear weapons capabilities with other European countries. But we should fundamentally value the fact that there are more democracies in the world that have nuclear weapons. Even though we would prefer to be without nuclear weapons in the world.”
SVT then asks how we respond if France asks about cooperation and Kristersson says:
“I say that since we joined NATO, we have been fully involved in all discussions, including in Europe, that revolve around nuclear weapons. Not because we want them to be used at some point, but because as long as dangerous countries have nuclear weapons, healthy democracies must also have access to nuclear weapons.”
On the question of whether Sweden can cooperate in a joint nuclear weapons program, says Kristersson:
“Yes, we are currently holding ongoing discussions with both France and the UK. They are not particularly precise so far and, as I said, the French ones are uniquely French. But France is also showing an openness to discussing with other countries.”
When asked what Sweden’s role in such cooperation on nuclear weapons could be, Kristersson says:
“We should not get ahead of ourselves, but these discussions are ongoing right now. And as a NATO member, we are fully involved in everything. Then we have not seen any need to have deployed in Sweden in peacetime in the same way that we have not seen any need to have foreign forces in Sweden in peacetime.”
SVT asks if it is about research or money, but Kristersson is unwilling to specify:
“Yes, as I said, the discussions are in their infancy. It is important to know that there is nuclear weapons capacity in Europe as well.”
Source: Cornucopia (in Swedish)
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