Titolo completo

Europe, Nuclear Risks, and the Politics of Restraint

Attacks on nuclear facilities – whether conducted during armed conflict, outside of it or as pre-emptive counterproliferation measures – represent one of the gravest yet least regulated dangers in contemporary international security. European states have long been central actors in shaping, discussing and ultimately constraining the development of norms governing such attacks. From the 1943 Allied bombing of Norway’s Norsk Hydro plant to Russia’s ongoing occupation and shelling of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe has served as both a historical ground of nuclear-facility vulnerability and a diplomatic arena for deciding how these infrastructures should be protected. Yet over five decades, European governments – Sweden being the notable exception – have repeatedly adopted a posture of normative deferral, expressing humanitarian concern but avoiding commitments that might restrict military flexibility or disrupt alliance politics. This pattern produced the “linkage dilemma” of the 1980s, stalled multilateral negotiations in the 1990s, contributed to the terrorism-centric nuclear security regime of the 2000s, and now shapes divergent European reactions to recent US-Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and Russia’s actions in Ukraine.