New NATO Member Joins First Nuclear Weapons Drill

Finland will take part in a major NATO nuclear weapons exercise next week for the first time since the country joined the military alliance last year, local media reported on Friday.

According to Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, Exercise Steadfast Noon will be launched on October 14 and will last two weeks in the airspace of the United Kingdom, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Finland would send fighter jets to the exercise, the report said.

Key.Aero, an aviation news site, reported that the Finnish F/A-18 fighter jets were among the participating units in the exercise. NATO has said the annual exercise, which is long planned, helped to ensure the credibility, effectiveness, and security of its nuclear deterrent.

Finland became a member of NATO, an alliance led by the United States, in April last year. The Nordic country, which borders Russia to the east, changed its policy of military non-alignment following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022.

After the completion of accession to NATO, Finland’s Defense Ministry said it would take part in the nuclear planning and support operations of the alliance. However, the country has also decided it would not permit the deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory.

This will be the third time NATO holds its nuclear weapons drill during the Russia-Ukraine War, the largest conventional war in Europe since World War II, where Moscow has repeatedly threatened nuclear escalation against Kyiv and its partners in the West.

During last year’s Steadfast Noon exercise, which did not involve live bombs, 60 military aircraft trained over southern Europe, including fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads. NATO said the training was held at least 621 miles from the Russian borders.

The U.S. has deployed B61 nuclear gravity bombs in Europe as part of NATO nuclear sharing arrangements, where the nukes remained under the custody and control of the U.S. military. They would be armed on allied fighter jets in the event of a nuclear conflict.

The Europe-based American nukes served as an extended deterrence to support NATO’s collective security. This commitment, also known as the “nuclear umbrella,” aims to deter and respond to potential nuclear and non-nuclear scenarios in defense of allies and partners.

NATO has said that nuclear weapons are a core component of the alliance’s deterrence and defense capabilities. It said it is committed to arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation, “but as long as nuclear weapons exist, it will remain a nuclear alliance.”

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the U.S. stationed around 100 nuclear gravity bombs in Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Among them, the Belgian, Dutch, German, and Italian air forces are assigned an active nuclear strike role.

Besides the U.S. nuclear weapons deployed in Europe, which are tactical or non-strategic due to their low yields and designed for use on the battlefield, NATO relies on the American strategic nuclear forces, including ballistic missiles and nuke-capable bombers.

The U.S. has a nuclear stockpile of 3,748 warheads as of September last year, government data showed. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated there were 200 B61 nukes, of which half are stored in the U.S. for backup and support of non-European allies.

The British and the French nuclear forces also “contribute significantly” to the security of the alliance, NATO added. The U.K. has 225 warheads in its nuclear arsenal, while France possesses 290 nukes, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.