Foreign Affairs

Will Poland and Turkey Become Nuclear Snares for the U.S.?

Both nations want nukes—and continued American protection.

George Washington and America’s other Founders repeatedly expressed an aversion to “entangling alliances” that could snare their country in unnecessary and unwise conflicts. Unfortunately, recent generations of U.S. political and policy elites have thoroughly abandoned that wisdom. 

Nowhere is the corrosive change more evident than with respect to Washington DC’s multi-decade love affair with NATO—an alliance that officially links America’s security to a growing roster of allies (or more accurately, security dependents). Such an entanglement was bad enough at NATO’s founding in 1949 with 12 members—all stable countries in Western Europe and North America. That number has now grown to 32 countries, mostly in volatile Central and Eastern Europe, and a fierce lobbying effort is underway to increase America’s already worrisome risk exposure by bringing corrupt, autocratic, and irresponsible Ukraine into the fold.

Worse, at least two alliance members, Poland and Turkey, are exhibiting ambitions to join the ranks of nuclear weapons powers. Until now, the United States, Britain, and France were the only NATO members to have that enormously destructive capability. Warsaw and Ankara joining the list would significantly boost America’s risk exposure. Even though both countries signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) years ago, their commitment to a non-nuclear status is wavering. Moreover, both Turkey and Poland have shown a willingness to pursue uncompromising, even provocative, policies toward potential rivals. Their conduct could trigger or expand military crises and drag the United States into those conflicts. 

There is significant, growing sentiment in Poland that the country must gain “access” to nuclear weapons to adequately provide for its own defense against a looming Russia. It is not yet clear what such “access” means in operational terms. Polish leaders may be talking about something akin to French President Emmanuel Macron’s comment in March 2025 that he would consider extending the protection of his country’s nuclear deterrent to France’s nonnuclear NATO partners in Central and Eastern Europe. Or, Polish leaders might instead have in mind authorizing the United States (or possibly France or Britain) to deploy nuclear weapons in Poland. 

Warsaw may want to control such weapons regardless of which nuclear NATO ally retains official ownership. In mid-March 2025, President Andrzej Duda reportedly urged the Trump administration to move some U.S. nuclear forces to his country. The ultra-hawkish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies considers that move a splendid idea, indicating that the policy has friends among America’s foreign policy establishment.

While details regarding the nature and extent of Warsaw’s proposal remain obscure, there is no longer any doubt that Poland wants a nuclear weapons capability in some form. During a speech to parliament in March 2025, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his country must drastically increase the size of its military and even “reach for opportunities related to nuclear weapons.”

That desire is more than a little dangerous. Poland has been among the most militant of NATO’s European members in backing Ukraine’s war against Russia. The Polish government has given financial support and transferred sophisticated U.S. weaponry to Kiev. Polish officials have also consistently prodded Ukraine’s government to adopt an uncompromising stance regarding territorial concessions and NATO membership, further reducing the prospects of a negotiated peace accord with Moscow.

In addition, Poland is building up its own military forces next to Kaliningrad, Russia’s isolated enclave on the Baltic coast. Such behavior is provocative and could cause NATO’s already dangerous proxy war against Russia to spiral out of control. Poland with nuclear capabilities would potentially be even more assertive and risk-tolerant.

A similar dynamic is in play with respect to another rising NATO member: Turkey. In early July 2025, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan criticized the NPT. “When I first read the text of the NPT,” Fidan said, “I asked myself: How did those who signed this ever agree to it? It’s essentially a document where non-nuclear states accept in perpetuity the military superiority of nuclear-armed nations.”

His remarks came at a time of increasing tensions over nuclear issues and the formation of a new regional balance of power. Those developments are affecting Turkish public opinion, making it decidedly more receptive to the idea of having their country rescind its adherence to the NPT and barge into the global nuclear weapons club. A survey conducted by Research Istanbul in early July 2025 found an outright majority of respondents favored that course of action. Israel’s air strikes on Iran clearly spooked the public—and that was before the United States launched its own, more devastating attacks on Iran, confirming beyond doubt America’s support for Israeli ambitions in the region.

The changing mood in Turkey should create considerable uneasiness. Ankara is displaying its own bold ambitions on multiple fronts. It is working closely with the new Islamist government in Damascus to eradicate the last remaining self-governing Kurdish enclaves in northeast Syria along the Turkish-Syrian border. Ankara’s military assertiveness has spiked to the point of generating tense aerial confrontations with Israeli planes operating in Syrian airspace. Turkey’s ongoing effort to play an outsized diplomatic and economic role in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia also indicates surging great power ambitions.

Although Ankara has yet to express explicit intentions to build a nuclear arsenal, it is indicating interest in that option, and the country certainly has the necessary technological capabilities. Crossing the line against acquiring nuclear weapons may be seen as the final phase before Turkey fully joins the ranks of the world’s great powers.

Without Washington’s NATO entanglement, U.S. leaders could view such developments dispassionately. Possessing a nuclear arsenal as an independent deterrent might be a more prudent alternative for both Poland and Turkey than continuing to rely on Washington’s promise of extended deterrence—which has always had some aroma of being a bluff. However, Ankara and Warsaw appear to want to have it both ways: a national nuclear weapons capability while still being able to rely on the United States for extended deterrence if their own capabilities proved insufficient.  

That scenario would be a very bad deal for the United States, bringing expanded risk with no additional benefit. We would have less control regarding the nuclear option, as two more incautious powers would control apocalyptic weaponry. At the same time, the thankless extended deterrence commitment would remain undiluted. This situation threatens to become the final, potentially fatal consequence of America’s NATO entanglement. 

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