The Incoming Arms Race

Right now, everyone’s hyped up on the AI arms race between the US and China. It’s going to be important, no doubt. But the other arms race I think people are underlooking is the rush for all countries to get nukes. For the past few decades, globally, we’ve held back the tide on nations developing their own independent nuclear programs, based on US and global commitments. But let’s look at recent history in the past half decade Ukraine decides to disarm with the promise that Russia won’t invade. Eventually they do invade. Iran made some good faith attempts to hold back on their military development of nuclear arms. What happened? The mercurial nature of American politics meant that previous commitments were trashed, and they ended up getting attacked by the US despite having no nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, North Korea, the tiny hermit kingdom, barely scraping by economically, makes whatever provocations and threats it wants to, and is untouched. Couple this with the general American position of withdrawal from the global order and no longer maintaining its previous security commitments with the same seriousness – what does this tell every non nuclear nation?

• If you were relying on American commitments for safety, you are now substantially more at risk than you were a decade ago.
• You can’t trust your enemies to stick to commitments without proportionate arms to deter them
• Nuclear arms are effective at deterring enemies

Logically, if you are in this position and don’t have a nuclear weapons program, you’re now greatly incentivized to start one. Why? Because who’s going to stop you? Likewise – who’s going to protect you? America deglobalizing works on both levels – under our current administration – if we’re no longer guaranteeing safety of our allies, there’s no guarantee we’ll go after “bad actors”, so to speak. Right now, the US is reverting to simple Great Powers style power grabs without regard for the system of rule of law it created and maintained. We haven’t hit the tipping point yet, but when we do, global objections won’t matter – it’s going to be a free for all anyway, so as an independent nation you ‘re going to have to consider what’s in your best interests. That’s all presupposing AI doesn’t wipe us out first, of course.