We are not on the verge of a nuclear free world and may well never achieve that aim. While this is worrisome enough, there is a new concern: that the world is on the cusp of heading in the opposite direction. Though this week saw the resumption of talks between the United States and Iran to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, whether those talks will succeed is far from certain. After all, it was the first Trump administration that ended the original Iran nuclear deal, which had been signed in 2015.
But Iran is not even the primary worry in this brave new world of nuclear proliferation risk. States that had long been under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, from Japan to Poland to South Korea and Germany, are all considering developing their own nuclear weapons. The reelection of Donald Trump and his administration’s insistence that long-standing U.S. allies do more for their defense while the U.S. does less is leading these states to question the U.S. commitment to their security. As South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul remarked recently, Seoul is indeed considering a nuclear “Plan B” in light of the unpredictability of relying on the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
Some existing nuclear powers are trying to step into the vacuum and offer non-nuclear allies reassurance. France and Britain, the other two NATO allies with nuclear weapons, have offered to replace the U.S. umbrella in Europe. But from the perspective of states like Germany and Poland, that may simply replace one unsteady nuclear armed ally with another. France’s Emmanuel Macron may offer “protection of our allies on the European continent through our (nuclear) deterrence,” but would he actually authorize the use of the bomb when the fallout could feasibly reach French soil? For non-nuclear states, self-help seems like the safest bet.
