June 25, 2025
What’s Making Some Countries Daydream About Nukes Again?
For 80 years, the United States has invested enormous effort in preventing countries from building nuclear arsenals. It has done so through lengthy negotiations, trade incentives, diplomatic engagement, treaties and, on rare occasions, military force.
The recent U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was aimed at the same goal: stopping Iran from becoming the world’s 10th nuclear power. Whether that goal was achieved will not be known for some time. But by bombing now, the United States might have brought about the very thing it was trying to prevent.
Yet the majority of nations that might decide to go nuclear are not rogue states, but U.S. allies and partners.
It is possible the attack might induce Iran to capitulate and end its nuclear ambitions. It is far more likely, however, that the U.S. strike will convince Iranian leaders once and for all that acquiring nuclear capability is the best way to secure the regime’s survival. Regardless of how the Iran situation turns out, the appeal of nuclear weapons is growing elsewhere.
Today, nine nations possess nuclear weapons, a fraction of the several dozen that are technically advanced enough to build them. In the worst case, the number of states with nuclear weapons could more than double in the next two decades.
Read the full article on The Washington Post.
More from CNAS
-
Understanding Russia’s Calculus on Opportunistic Aggression in Europe
Reports
Executive Summary Numerous factors are working to dissuade Russia from directly challenging NATO, but once Moscow reconstitutes its military, one scenario stands out as a plau...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend, Kate Johnston & Greg Weaver
-
Video
Indo-Pacific Security / Transatlantic Security
‘Trump Should Be Worried’ as China’s Leader Hosts Russian and North Korean CounterpartsThe gathering of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un shows a collective appeal to a new world order not dominated by the United States, according to Richard Fontaine, c...
By Richard Fontaine
-
Podcast
Transatlantic Security / Energy, Economics & Security
LISTEN: Why It’s So Hard to Go After Russia’s Oil RevenueEmily Kilcrease, senior fellow and director of the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, joins the show to talk about secondary ta...
By Emily Kilcrease
-
Denmark Summons U.S. Envoy Over Alleged Greenland Operations | CNN
Video
Jim Townsend, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, discusses the evolving situation with the "influence operations" in Greenland and what that coul...
By Jim Townsend
