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An Unreliable America Means More Countries Want the Bomb

By Debak Das, an assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, and Rachel A. Epstein, a professor of international relations at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

 Without credible U.S. security guarantees, nuclear proliferation is likely to increase
rapidly across Europe and Asia. U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent
foreign-policy moves have alienated the country’s traditional allies in
Europe while stirring glee in Moscow. While it’s a catastrophic
development for Ukrainian security and democracy, this paradigmatic shift
portends much larger risks for global security.

The most pressing is the
threat of rampant nuclear proliferation that the Trump administration’s
actions will elicit. While on the surface it might seem as though a warmer
relationship between two of the world’s largest nuclear powers could
reduce the risk of nuclear war, the opposite is true.

We are on the precipice of a global turn toward nuclear instability, in which many
countries will be newly incentivized to build their own arsenals,
increasing the risk of nuclear use, terrorist subversion, and accidental
launch. Countries like South Korea, Japan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are all
so-called nuclear latent states that could potentially build nuclear
weapons quickly—as are Germany, Belgium, Italy,

 Foreign Policy 14th March 2025, https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/14/trump-nuclear-weapons-proliferation-nato-security-guarantees-korea-poland-germany-japan/

March 17, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war