The world is moving into a more dangerous age. According to the Peace Research Institute Oslo, last year set a grim record, namely the highest number of state-based armed conflicts in more than seven decades. At the same time, we are seeing a fundamental realignment of global geopolitics – made clear from the recent meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation in Tianjin and the ‘Victory Day’ parade held in Beijing shortly afterwards. There, the leaders of what many in the West see as an emerging new world order stood shoulder to shoulder as Chinese military hardware was put on display to mark 80 years since the end of the second world war.
That anniversary underscored the commemoration last month to mark the only two occasions where atomic bombs have been used. The detonation of these devices in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was so horrific that they played an important role in the fragile balance that characterised the Cold War. The fear of nuclear war scarred generations, as did the well-grounded anxiety that the use of a single warhead might result in a retaliation so severe that military strategists came to talk of the doctrine of ‘mutually assured destruction’.
Thoughts are turning in many quarters to whether it’s time for a new chapter in the bleak history of nuclear weapons proliferation. Lessons from Ukraine and the Middle East have shown the use of force can pay handsome dividends. That’s something that has become mainstream even in the US, which has played the role of guarantor of the rules-based system since the end of the second world war. As Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, put it earlier this year: ‘The postwar global order is not just obsolete, it is now a weapon being used against us.’
Not surprisingly, then, in some quarters the US is seen to be using coercion to reshape the world in its favour. That’s being done through the application of tariffs as economic punishment. But the threat of military force, too, has been a signature of Donald Trump’s year in office. Many take the US President’s comments about the possible annexation of the Panama Canal to Canada with a pinch of salt; but many do not. Or there was Vice-President J.D. Vance who stated in March that ‘the President said we have to have Greenland. We cannot just ignore this place. We cannot just ignore the President’s desires’. The new world order, in other words, depends on the whims of a single individual, whose wishes cannot apparently be ignored.
Lessons from Ukraine and the Middle East have shown the use of force can pay handsome dividends
The uncertainties of today and tomorrow, made worse by anxieties about economic challenges and by rising concerns about large-scale migration, have spurred a new set of discussions in many countries about how to prepare for an age of fracture, competition and new rivalries. Some of these have been fuelled by technological leaps, including automation, drones, AI, robotics, all of which will already have dramatically lowered the cost of war, making military confrontation more thinkable.
In such a world of multiplied pressures and fragmented power, it is chilling – but perhaps not surprising – to find voices calling for the development of nuclear weapons programmes, in order to provide a new line of defence against possible state-on-state violence.
Those conversations have been fundamental to Iran for several decades – one reason for the dramatic events of the ‘12 Day War’, when Israeli jets targeted nuclear facilities, as well as high-ranking Iranian personnel, including some of its most senior scientists working on enrichment and on delivery systems.
It is discussions in other countries, however, that have been striking. Take Turkey. The country has long been a key member of Nato, with B61 nuclear bombs held at the airbase at Incirlik a vital part of western defence capabilities in the time of the Soviet Union, as well as today. For decades, Ankara kept its own ambitions firmly in the realm of a civilian nuclear programme.
This summer, though, more commentators have been arguing that not only does Turkey possess both the scientific base and natural resources to pursue enrichment, but that only an indigenous-designed and manufactured bomb would truly constitute ‘mutlak caydirıcilik’ (absolute deterrence).
For one thing, nuclear self-sufficiency would act as an alternative to having to rely on Nato. Much has also been made about the fact that Israel – which is Turkey’s primary rival in Syria and beyond – has an undeclared arsenal and acts unilaterally as a result, thanks to the knowledge of what it could unleash should it have to. The strike on Doha last week targeting what remains of Hamas’s leadership was a stark display of how Israel’s capabilities emboldened it to carry out what the Emir of Qatar called a ‘reckless criminal act’ and ‘a flagrant violation of international law’. To many in the region, the support given to Israel by the US is important, but its nuclear capabilities provide the ultimate layer of protection.
Even Pedro Sanchez, the Prime Minister of Spain, noted that his country’s capability to restrain Israel is compromised by the fact that Spain does not have ‘aircraft carriers’, ‘large oil reserves’ or nuclear bombs. By this he meant that Spain had limited abilities to influence global affairs – but he added that it didn’t mean it would stop trying.
The point has been made several times in the Turkish press in recent weeks that Iran was vulnerable to Israeli attacks because of the ‘double standard’ by which Israel is allowed nuclear arms while Iran is punished for enrichment. As one press commentary put it, when medium- and small-sized states are forced to ask what genuinely deters attacks, the answer is increasingly an obvious one: nuclear deterrence.
What was unthinkable a decade ago is now discussed in mainstream newspapers and research institutes
Public opinion has started to move in the direction of support for Turkey acquiring nuclear weapons – just as it has elsewhere. In Poland, on another part of Nato’s eastern frontier, calls to host nuclear weapons on Polish soil have grown, while in some quarters the question has begun to be asked about whether the country needs its own deterrence. One catalyst for this has been the war in Ukraine, while Moscow’s announcement that it would station nuclear warheads in Belarus in 2023 provided another.
The recent incursion of Russian drones into Polish airspace, in what Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister, made clear was not a mistake, will only increase calls to boost Polish defence readiness – not least that some senior figures in Russia have proposed using a nuclear strike to deter western support for Ukraine. The risks, wrote the Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov last year, were low: if Russia used a device against Poznan, he argued, the US would not dare to retaliate. Doing so would risk sacrificing Boston for a Polish city. And only a ‘madman’, he suggested, would consider doing that.
The calls in some Polish quarters for nuclear deterrence have been encouraged by Trump’s unpredictability and the perceived hostility towards Europe. This month, the Pentagon informed EU diplomats that the US was no longer willing to fund programmes to train and equip militaries in eastern Europe, creating a hole in defence expenditure worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That is a problem, but just as important is the message that Europeans are on their own.
That has not been lost on the Poles. President Andrzej Duda has already declared that Warsaw is ready to join Nato’s nuclear-sharing programme and to host US weapons – though some fear that Washington’s retreat might make that a pipe-dream of its own.
According to leaks over the weekend from the forthcoming National Defence Strategy, the new consensus in the Trump administration is to disentangle the US from foreign commitments, and to prioritise places closer to home – such as Central America and the Caribbean – rather than focus on China, Russia or others. Not surprisingly, that leaves Europeans feeling exposed, especially those on the eastern flank.
That is one reason why even in Germany, a country that has prided itself on military abstinence, there has been growing debate about how best to counter the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Even before Trump’s re-election last year, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published essays debating whether Germany should consider an independent deterrent or support a Franco-British umbrella, with other newspapers following suit to ask if Europe must not only learn to ‘love the bomb’, but to develop one in the face of current US foreign policy. Leading thinktanks have started to turn out research papers urging for deeper nuclear dialogue inside Europe – including around developing weapons and delivery systems. What was unthinkable a decade ago is now seriously discussed in mainstream newspapers and research institutes.
Similar questions are also being asked across Asia, with debates driven by proximity to threats – perceived or otherwise. South Korea lives in a nuclear neighbourhood that has become increasingly precarious. North Korea is thought to possess as many as 50 nuclear warheads, with enough fissile material to make dozens more. Its deepening partnership with Russia has seen men and weapons reinforce the front lines in the Ukraine conflict, while advanced technologies, including missile systems, have flowed in the other direction. North Korea is not just a problem for Washington, but a permanent feature of Seoul’s security environment.
Even in Japan, the only country to have atomic bombs used against it, public sentiment has been changing
Against this backdrop, South Korean public opinion has swung heavily toward nuclear options. The Asan Institute’s polling shows more than three-quarters of citizens favouring either an independent bomb or the redeployment of US tactical weapons, which were removed at the end of the Cold War as part of the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Even in Japan, the only country in history to have atomic bombs used against its people, public sentiment has been changing. Tokyo has been careful to develop advanced fuel-cycle technology and large plutonium stocks. So far, calls for a domestic nuclear weapons programme have been muted – at least in public. Behind closed doors, however, some senior figures admit that exposure to risk is rising in a world that is changing rapidly. Having allies and friends in North America and Europe is all well and good, but with competition in the South China Sea more likely to rise than diminish, anticipating problems has become increasingly important – one reason why Japan’s defence budget has increased for 13 years in a row, with spending up almost 10 per cent this year alone.
A key factor in that is the build-up of Chinese hardware. Last year, for example, a single Chinese shipbuilder produced more tonnage than the US has produced since 1945. The rate of expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal has been breathtaking too, with around 100 warheads estimated to have been added since 2023. In ten years, some reckon that China’s arsenal could almost treble – putting it at parity with the US and Russia in terms of the size of its devices ready for use at short notice.
In Japan as in Europe, it has dawned on politicians that decades of overdependence on US security – and on US taxpayers – is coming to an end, leaving existential questions about how to invest in security and defence and how to do so quickly. Japan remains committed to non-nuclear principles, but nuclear options are no longer unmentionable.
Taken together, these cases underscore the prospect of the possible erosion of the old nuclear order and raise fears of a new era of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Iran has been on the edge of being nuclear ready and is thought to be more or less nuclear capable. In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been explicit, stating that while ‘we are concerned of any country getting a nuclear weapon’, if Iran did develop a weapon ‘we will have to get one’.
The next decade will be a time of uncertainty. If more states do cross the nuclear threshold, they will not only have to develop the weapons themselves, but also the doctrines to guide their possible use.
History shows that the process of drafting those doctrines can itself be destabilising, as rivals attempt to divine intentions and try to work out how to respond in kind, in theory and in practice. It remains uncertain, too, how the US or China, both of which have consistently voiced opposition to further proliferation, would react if partners or adversaries seek to join the nuclear club. What is certain is that every new entrant adds complexity to an already fragile system.
These risks are not abstract. Confrontation between nuclear-armed states carries the prospect of catastrophe on a global scale. The world has come close before, whether during the Cuban Missile Crisis or in South Asia, where tensions between India and Pakistan this year edged near to escalation. Each near-miss underlines the same truth: nuclear weapons are not just the last line of defence but also the last line of existence. As more states contemplate acquiring them, the space for miscalculation grows ever wider, and the margin for survival ever thinner.
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