France And The Netherlands Form A Nuclear Steering Group To Discuss The Bomb In Elegantly Appointed Parisian Boardrooms

France and the Netherlands officially convened their first Nuclear Steering Group meeting in Paris on Wednesday. Delegations of elegantly dressed officials from the Élysée, the Dutch prime minister's office and both defence and foreign ministries gathered to seriously discuss the strategic future of the bomb on the European continent.

Despite what the name suggests to a country that is also busy planning new power plants, this is not about electricity: the meeting follows Emmanuel Macron's speech at the submarine base of Île Longue, where he offered European partners strategic dialogues on what he calls forward deterrence. The Dutch government eagerly sought the seasoned expertise of a state that has spent decades convincing its own citizens that nuclear warheads are basically a sophisticated and culturally acceptable insurance policy.

The meeting was characterized by the usual diplomatic choreography, where questions of literal annihilation are immediately translated into soothing administrative vocabulary. Both sides discussed closer bilateral cooperation and strategic alignment and agreed on a way forward, an official phrase that absolutely guarantees numerous future meetings involving expensive catering and remarkably vague press releases. Where that way leads, the press release does not say, which in deterrence is apparently the whole point.