Nine countries possess nuclear weapons, and it has never seemed so obvious to ask which will be the next. This was the subject of a recent podcast by Chatham House, a British center for studies in international politics.
The major and mid-level nuclear powers are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (USA, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom), as well as India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel.
However, the queue has never grown so rapidly since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, according to the institution, due to an accumulation of unfortunate factors.
A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of carrying a nuclear bomb, participates in a parade in Moscow – Alexander Nemenov – May 9, 2022/AFPRobert Kelly, a political scientist at Busan National University in South Korea, paradoxically believes that the next bomb will come from the country where he teaches.
The South Korean government fears the victory of Donald Trump in the American presidential elections. This would make the Asian allies of the US less protected, which would accentuate South Korea’s tendency to consider developing a bomb to counter the nuclear warheads already built by North Korea.
However, North Koreans lack diplomatic skills. It is unknown how they would behave in a real crisis situation. They pursued nuclearization by ignoring the generous offers from the United States in exchange for more food and to avoid further famine crises.
They also have a significant tactical drawback. Against South Korea, they would not have time for a second nuclear shot. The enemy would be very close, and retaliation would certainly be immediate.This scenario would also affect Japan, where the anti-nuclear taboo is incredibly strong for historical reasons.
However, the country could consider developing a bomb if the US were to withdraw the nuclear protection umbrella it has placed over its territory. Once again, the potential impact of a Trump presidency is at play.But this would require a very cautious rhetoric.
Just a few days ago, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida spoke out against the trivialization of the bomb issue, causing many to forget that, in real circumstances, Japan is the only country still bearing the scars of two explosions in 1945.
The most remote factor that has led to the growth of the queue of bomb candidates was Russia’s abandonment of its old deterrence strategy, which guided the “balance of terror” with the US for 45 years, according to Hanna Notte, director of the Eurasia Group’s non-proliferation center.
In other words, “do not attack me, and I will not attack you, and if we attack each other, we will mutually destroy ourselves on a global scale.”As the conflict in Ukraine escalated, Kremlin strategists began to view atomic bombs as offensive weapons (rather than just defensive tools), dangerously disrupting the nuclear balance.
As a result, Russia is altering the hypothetical war map in Europe. Not that NATO, the Western military alliance, is adopting an offensive stance. However, they have stopped theorizing about whether they should be the first to detonate a bomb.
The conflict in Ukraine has created this confusion.Another participant in the podcast, Patricia Lewis, an international security expert at Chatham, cites Iran as the obvious next candidate for nuclear weapons. However, she has serious reservations.
She believes there are indications that Iran is more interested in psychological terrorism than in attacking its Muslim neighbors.If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would immediately force its regional rival, Saudi Arabia, to follow suit. In this stand-off scenario, traditional Turkish forces would also be involved, albeit without nuclear weapons.
This makes sense, even if current evidence suggests that Iran intends to acquire the bomb to frighten Israel, a nuclear-armed country for decades, although Israel has never admitted to having nuclear weapons.Iran is a curious case of regional urgency.
It defeated Iraq, its historical rival, with indirect help from the US-led war against Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. It allied with Lebanon through Hezbollah and with the Palestinians through Hamas. However, achieving its main goal – destroying Israel – requires a military capability that the Iranians currently lack.
Furthermore, it is worth remembering once again that Israel also has nuclear weapons.The podcast participants warned about Russia’s announced plans – conflicting with international treaties – to place nuclear bombs in Earth’s orbit. For Kremlin strategists, this would buy time.
They would not need to launch a missile in case of retaliation.However, for the West, this is a tragic prospect. Missiles would mix with the highly magnetized areas of communication satellites, making an accidental disaster highly likely.
