I guess nobody disagrees that Europe needs to have a better footing with regards to both production and employment. But is there a real political will? It would require a nuclear arsenal and I don't really see many countries in the EU wanting to go that way. The only one who seem to want to go that route are Poland, and they know WHY they want nukes - see the history they have with Russia.
The long term viability of the UK nukes does rather depend on support from the US though - they use our own fissile material, but the warhead designs are believed to largely be based on the US W76 and the actual Trident missiles come from a pool controlled by the US.
I dunno, for decades the policy by most of the West has been (a) keep Germany from re-arming in case they start WW3 and (b) discourage nuclear proliferation by anyone, and now because the Americans have thrown security out the window in exchange for freedom to bully, we have to reverse course on both of those?
And I think even before 1950 there was a feeling, particularly in the US, that it was good to have the Germans on-side in a military conflict due to their recent experience fighting the Soviets.
