US spend a decade fighting in Afghanistan and 0 years in Pakistan despite UBL being in Pakistan.
9/11 was used as an excuse to for these regime change wars. There are old videos where they were talking about doing this in the 2000s.
And even nuclear armed nations aren’t exactly able to use their weapons to devastate an opponents military - see Ukraine and Russia.
Today countries as various as Brazil and Australia are independent, sovereign nations. Even Ukraine which was invaded by nuclear-armed Russia is still sovereign and fighting. Iran for that matter still has its sovereignty, they just lost some military assets.
But I largely agree, if you aren't a giant economy and you don't have nukes - then if the US or Russia accesses you of building nukes, you need to start building nukes ASAP.
Well the prime minister who was elected promising not to bend the knee to Trump has bent the knee to trump.
It looks like it might even be Iran.
