It's a weird one. I don't disagree with your post, still, what is "approved" nukes? A bunch of countries got them, then decided that no one else is allowed them. Then Israel also got them, also "unauthorized", but countries who don't mind pretend they don't know.
In the end there is no authorized and unauthorized nukes, only a calculus of power.
1. Check this list
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we...
2. Cross out the countries which are attacked for having nuclear weapons.
Here's your definition of approved nukes.
Russia attacked ukraine because they didn't. Iran got attacked because it didn't. North korea isnt attacked because they have. That's the moral of the story.
It's "make nukes first, ask questions later"
This seems analogous to the idea that every household should have guns if they want to be safe.
More recent events show that it doesn't matter. India-Pakistan endless fight.
And Ukraine. Imagine they had nukes in 2022 and russian army advances. Should they nuke russian cities? It would not stop troops and give them more motivation to fight, to revenge. Should they nuke russian troops? To many nukes need for such large frontline.
How do you explain India vs Pakistan?
(Probably the risk to S. Korea, and the risk of pulling China into a war.)
Iraq also attacked an allegedly nuclear capable Israel without fear of a nuclear reprisal.
If it wasn’t the US as the world’s leading power, but rather China, the list of countries forced to give up nuclear programs would be entirely different.
I’m not against trying to limit nuclear proliferation, but trying to paint it as some democratic legal process is naive.
The US loves to use the UN as cover for their own strategic goals, but happy to ignore the UN if it benefits them. Same with those talking nuclear non-proliferation.
In general many sanctions around nukes are based on many many treaties and the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs. [2]
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferat...
There was a hope that once they acquired nuclear weapons, rogue countries would become responsible, because they didn't need to worry about their own existence. Pakistan has proven this theory wrong, sponsoring terrorism in in its neighbouring countries and abroad while being immune from the consequences.
Yes, tell me more about the US please
I think all current nuclear-weapon states would very much care, because it diminishes their status. Also Switzerland or Brasil would be breaking the Non-Proliferation Treaty which would make even more countries and the UN and IAEA care.
Several countries have voluntarily dismantled nuclear weapons programs (the participants in the South American nuclear arms race of the 1980s being examples), and several countries have voluntary disarmed of actual nuclear weapons. South Africa is not unique in doing either.
It is arguably unique among the latter group in not having inherited the weapons as a successor state from a distinct preceding regime, but even if we were going to draw broad conclusions from n=1 examples, its quite arguably that that is less relevant to the difference in experience versus that of (say) Ukraine than other geopolitical factors.
> It built 6 nuclear weapons during the apartheid era, but then voluntarily dismantled them and joined the NPT. This decision was influenced by international pressure, political changes, and a desire for greater global integration. Despite that, it suffered no negative consequences to its sovereignty or regional power projection abilities.
Kind of hard to specifically isolate the loss of regional power South Africa experienced from nuclear disarmament from the loss of regional power it experienced from other causes concurrently, but it certainly had less after than before.
Invasion of Afghanistan only happened after diplomatic efforts to get the Taliban to surrender Bin Laden. Iraq invasion was pushed through UN. Likewise, the Balkan war in 1990s was UN-sanctioned.
This? I mean, never mind the question of nukes, I don't think anyone declared war. Iran is a buffet of pick-your-own-target, in the middle of a negotiation that was supposed to end the nuclear program peacefully. I'm not saying it because I like Iran (I don't) but because it sets the tone where countries just do what they want, if they can get away with it. It's a step back from a world, where at least in theory we were supposed to stay within the frameworks of principle-based laws.
You might argue that this was always a façade only, and the powerful did whatever they wanted, bending the law around it. Maybe. But I'd like to think it set a limit to how far they can bend it. Now? I'm not so sure.
Democracy doesn't really work when people think the US invaded Vietnam attacked they attacked us, that the US invaded Iraq because they have or are building WMD, that we invaded Libya to "liberate" it, and so on. And as for Iran, here's [2] a montage of Netanyahu claiming Iran will imminently have nuclear weapons, and so they should be invaded. The claims started 30 years ago and generally had a timeline of 1-3 years at most.
If the justifications for wars were more honest, even if that entails completely dropping the facade of morality, it'd have enabled populations within countries to have a better understanding of how the world "really" works, and also to make better decisions on the sorts of foreign policy views to support.
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq
Well, Iran has been funding armies to the tune of millions (billions?) of dollars to attack Israel, as well as funding multiple terror attacks against Jews and against the US for many years.
So, alternative view - the fact that Iran has been allowed to do this, while the entire time stating quite clearly that they intend to destroy another sovereign country, while at the same time develop most of what they need for nukes - the fact that they've been allowed to do all this is actually proof that countries can do whatever they want and get away with it. And stopping their program is actually a way to show that countries can't just get away with it.
Well, sort of. They tried, but when the UN gave an answer that the US and UK didn't like, they went ahead anyway.
> You might argue that this was always a façade only, and the powerful did whatever they wanted, bending the law around it.
I'm not quite cynical enough to wholly agree with that, but given enough motivation and power the façade does crack pretty easily.
Israel is not a singer of the treaty.
>> A bunch of countries got them, then decided that no one else is allowed them.
you're both correct.
Also note the Iranian monarchy signed the NPT in 1970, while the Iranian Revolution was in 1979. When your national origin story is built on the illegitimacy of the previous government, why would you consider yourself to be constrained by the actions of your illegitimate parents?
When the west has had such overthrows, we've tended to declare the acts of the previous administration null-and-void https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinance_of_9_August_1944
Not saying the current Iranian government is good, just acknowledging that legitimacy is determined by the victors, and the current regime has been victorious over the previous, just as last night's B2's were victorious against the air defenses. Might makes right, morality is increasingly a propaganda story, and history really is written by the victors.
What made me realize that was the people who jumped in defense of Russia, because the people of Ukraine aren't allowed to join EU or NATO, because for some reason the people of a sovereign country have to respect the will of a paranoid neighbour, who wants to keep a "buffer zone" for completely irrational reasons. Who would have invaded? The Belgians?
And I mention the Ukraine because they will surely think:"We should have kept those nukes". And wo can blame them, one of the powers at the Budapest memorandum attacked them while the other two reluctantly sent weapons. So with nukes they would have had better cards.
After this episode the Iran is probably more motivated than ever to get nukes. And who can blame them, they had a good deal with the west, Trump comes along tears it up, can't deal with the consequences of tearing it up, Israel is so comfy the US will dance to its tune they attack and surely the clowns dance. Lesson: don't make deals, these idiots just listen to raw power.
Who loses? Everybody.
If a mafia boss defines anything he gets away with as legal, that's not aligned with what we commonly think of as legal justice and thus a pointless distinction.
So I've made peace with mafia boss power politics keeping the number of countries with nuclear weapons on the low end of the spectrum, and for that matter I'd support a much more aggressive approach to that end than we have seen these last 30 years.
