Pictured is a Tomahawk land attack missile in flight, 27 May 2019. While this variant is a shipborne missile, the US will use a land-based variant in Germany from 2026. Credit: DVIDS.

Germany has agreed to station US medium-range weapons on its soil from as early as 2026.

Such weapons can reach targets in Russia within a range of up to 2,500 kilometres, the German Ministry of Defence stipulated in a press release on 27 July 2024.

The decision was made as a defensive measure against Russia’s long-range cruise missiles and rockets that could be equipped   with both convnetional and nuclear warheads.

While the arrangement is a temporary precaution, it is a clear and necessary step-change in the strategic decision-making in Washington. It is a far cry from previous US efforts to limit what it had viewed as ‘escalatory measures’ such as providing increasingly lethal and effective means, such as F-16 fighters, to Ukraine.

The German Ministry of Defence added that it would have to be seen in the coming months where the planned US medium-range weapons would be stationed in Germany.

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A balance in Europe

The planned deployment will employ three different systems: the Tomahawk cruise missile, SM-6 (Standard Missile) ballistic missiles and systems that can fly at multiple speeds of sound.

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“What they all have in common is that they have a conventional role, that they are conventional systems – not nuclear systems – that they will be land-based,” emphasised Dr Jasper Wieck, the political director of the German Ministry of Defence. “They will have a range that goes far beyond what we have so far in the European part of the [Nato] alliance.”

European Nato members have so far had nothing to counter Russia’s longer range cruise missiles.

A nuclear tit-for-tat

Wieck affirmed that the deterrent will serve “as a response to a threatening, worrying development of the last ten years,” referring to Russia’s aggressive foreign and defence policy.

Besides the prevalence of nuclear sabre-rattling in Russian public discourse, the Kremlin has also demonstrated a willingness to opt for the nuclear option.

The country has recently conducted drills to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in May, and sent Russian warships and a nuclear-powered submarine for a port call to Cuba in June – a thinly veiled reference to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

US nuclear weapons have been deployed in Europe since the mid-1950s, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorised their storage at allied Nato bases on the continent for use against the Soviet Union.

Beyond the alliance’s three nuclear powers – France, the UK and US – five others members participate in US nuclear sharing. In 2021, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation estimated that there are 100 US-owned nuclear weapons stored across six bases: Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel Air Base in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi Air Bases in Italy, Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands, and Incirlik in Türkiye.