America adopts "NRA" style geopolitics - 'A nuclear-armed global society is a polite global society'

[raharris1973]

[For those unfamiliar with the abbreviated reference (some non-Americans, possibly), I refer to the NRA meaning 'National Rifle Association' within the United States, which promotes the idea that the ultimate safeguard to individual and community liberty is armed self-defense.]

What if during the later stages of the Cold War as the Soviet Union was achieving nuclear parity in warheads and delivery systems, the US reversed course on its nascent preference for nuclear non-proliferation, and instead began to actively encourage its frontline allies in Eurasia to develop their own national nuclear deterrents along the lines of what the French had (Force de Frappe), the British had, or the Americans had at the theater level in Western Europe and the Pacific Rim?

As the USA's overwhelming nuclear superiority eroded after 1962 with the technical design improvement and ultimate mass production and finally MIRV'ing of Soviet ICBMs, by the end of the decade, mutual assured destruction became much 'mutual', and people on both sides of the Atlantic began to cast doubt on America's willingness to trade Paris for Peoria.

This was used as a strategic rationale for the French nuclear force. In the meantime you had the Vietnam War, protests against it, McGovern's 'Come Home America Campaign', which lost badly, but also some broader force drawdowns in the Pacific Rim, and the return of Okinawa to Japan. You had NATO allied non-support during the American airlift to Israel during the Yom Kippur war, save for Portugal.

Finally, by the middle 70s after some years of declining armed forces budgets, South Vietnam fell, Watergate happened, and one can imagine American hawks feeling like Presidential authority was being crippled.

The divergence here is that the Cabinet and Sub-Cabinet members of Ford Administration by mid-1975, like Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, alongside President Ford, and Secretary of State Kissinger, come to panic that this trend will be irreversible after the election of the Watergate baby Congressional class of 1974.

So while conservatives like Cheney and Rumsfeld still work institutionally to fight these trends and champion the 'unitary executive' theory, they set in a motion a geopolitical back-up plan to contain the growth of Soviet power and ambition on a sustainable basis in case they don't prevail or prevail fast enough to keep the US credibly backing up its global commitments.

They take heart by noticing the significant growth in the ROK, Japan Self-Defense, and Taiwan forces in the early 1970s during the US drawdown, the military rise of Israel, and the Shah's Iran. The East Asian partners, rather than buckling under and getting weak and demotivated by the US pullout from Vietnam, seem to have gotten more serious about getting their shit together, built up their economies and militaries more, and reduced their bickering with each other.

The new US strategy, rolled out shortly after the presentation of the Helsinki Final Act in August 1975, is for a lengthy phased out and controlled withdrawal of U.S. forces and U.S. automatic security guarantees to take place over 15 years until 1990, with the partners of the United States being warned of their need to substitute by their own national means for any American conventional or nuclear deterrent capabilities which will become unavailable to them by 1990.

Essentially, the United States is advising West Germany, Japan, South Korea that there is an expiration date for them to be under an American protective umbrella, and the time limit has been generously extended long-enough for the economically viable and technologically competent countries to modern conventional self-defense forces backed by nuclear weapons deliverable by aircraft or SRBM or MRBM.

Germany and Japan already had civil nuclear power sectors at this point, and in fact, the US had spent time and effort in the 1960s trying to tamp down any interest by any faction of German politicians in independent nuclear weapons. This would reverse the US policy just before Germany signs the NPT, and would toss out the NPT. South Korea had already started, or would soon look into starting nuclear weapons research that the US would in OTL need to spend alot of the 1980s trying to squash down.

Here, the US leaders, wanting above all to contain the Soviet Union, but lacking in confidence in the will of the American public and the credibility of extended deterrence, put their bet on allied self-interest to protect themselves if they have no other choice.

This policy is locked in by the end of September 1975, with a globally known sunset for NATO and the Far Eastern alliances of 1990.

How does the world of the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and beyond look?

Is a world with wide nuclear proliferation a multipolar, balanced, polite world?

Is Eurasia, Western Europe, and the northern hemisphere dead? Or Red?

Is the Soviet Union in 21st century? If not, is it because its a peaceful collapse like OTL (albeit with some violent aftermaths), or because its nuclear rubble?

If Germany is alive through the 1990s and 21st century, is it ever allowed to be re-unified?

 

[raharris1973]

Thoughts?

 

[stevep]

Its going to be a very dangerous place as with so many nuclear players its a lot easier for something nasty to happen, by intent or accident. Plus with no NPT expect a lot more countries to go the nuclear route around the world. Places like Egypt, Iraq, Iran, plus India and Pakistan a lot earlier, possibly Taiwan - although I'm not sure what Beijing's response would be to that and gods knows how many other places. I have read that Switzerland and Sweden were among the other locations in Europe which considered. Possibly also Argentina and Brazil while white ruled S Africa is far more likely to develop a significant nuclear arsenal, which might be used when they looked like losing power.

This also excludes the issue of terrorists or extremist non-government players getting hands on such weapons.

W Germany going nuclear would become very divisive, both inside the country itself and also Europe while the USSR would seek to make huge political capital out of it so it could well not happen. However how confident would Bonn be that Paris or London would be willing to use nukes to protect them?

If the Europeans have to pay a full nuclear burden as well as the bulk of the conventional burden for the defence of NATO then its going to impact on their economies and might have a fall back on the US as well. Since there will both be less resources for imports from the US and also there's going to be some resentment at the US 180 and the additional costs.

If course the Warsaw Pact won't have any additional nuclear powers as Moscow won't allow it. However what happens when the USSR collapses? Which is still very likely. We were lucky enough OTL but how luck TTL might find out.

 

[Airedale260]

Our safety comes down to whichever leader of a nuclear power is the least stable. It's an accident waiting to happen.

This attitude also completely flies in the face of how the American people as a whole view nuclear weapons.

And then there are the political implications: Adding West Germany to NATO was as much a way to defend it from Soviet control as it was a way to keep West Germany from going rogue and causing World War III in an attempt to succeed where it had failed twice before. NATO ensured that while West Germany had a military, it was one under American control.

Likewise, a nuclear-armed West Germany is likely enough to set the Russians off given historical animosity, and they'd probably nuke it as a pre-emptive measure to make sure that it can't ever threaten them or anyone else in Eastern Europe ever again.

Or you have one of the Arab states go "fuck it" and nuke the shit out of Israel, thereby ensuring EVERYONE in the area dies, the world's economies go into a tailspin, and everyone scrambles to arm themselves against their neighbors.

 

[GoldRanger]

This approach doesn't scale well to the international level. In a polite society of a gun-toting populace, if a misunderstanding of some sort happens and leads to a shoot-out (and it WILL happen from time to time, even if overall crime rates drop greatly), then a few lives may be lost, which is tragic, but not world ending. An equivalent incident with nuclear weapons could be literally world-ending, or civilization-ending at a minimum. Nuclear weapons are not like guns.

The more states have them, the more chance of something bad happening with those nukes, even if we're speaking only statistically.

 

[ATP]

Thoughts?

Nobody would use it against state without nukes.And against those who had no it - rarely,becouse you want steal from enemy,and stealing from ashes bring little profits.
Becouse modern leaders could cosplay as nationalists or commies,but do not risk their own life or power.

 

[raharris1973]

Nobody would use it against state without nukes.And against those who had no it - rarely,becouse you want steal from enemy,and stealing from ashes bring little profits.
Becouse modern leaders could cosplay as nationalists or commies,but do not risk their own life or power.

sounds like you said the same thing twice? Please re-state or rephrase for clarity.

 

[stevep]

Nobody would use it against state without nukes.And against those who had no it - rarely,becouse you want steal from enemy,and stealing from ashes bring little profits.
Becouse modern leaders could cosplay as nationalists or commies,but do not risk their own life or power.

No rational person would. Unfortunately there are a hell of a lot of people who vary from irrational to raving lunatics.

 

[ATP]

This approach doesn't scale well to the international level. In a polite society of a gun-toting populace, if a misunderstanding of some sort happens and leads to a shoot-out (and it WILL happen from time to time, even if overall crime rates drop greatly), then a few lives may be lost, which is tragic, but not world ending. An equivalent incident with nuclear weapons could be literally world-ending, or civilization-ending at a minimum. Nuclear weapons are not like guns.

The more states have them, the more chance of something bad happening with those nukes, even if we're speaking only statistically.

Reality showed something else.North Korea had nukes,do not used it only genocided its own people - and nobody attacked them.
Khaddafi agreed to not pursue nukes,and get killed.As a result.Libya,state when womans had best position in muslim world become islamist hellhole.
If Saddam had nukes he would not get attacked,and christians there would not be massacred.Most of them was not even catholic,so i do not undarstandt why american protestant Bush destroyed them.

 

[raharris1973]

Providing some background reading and fodder for speculation.

The US did however consider drastic action against the French nuclear capability, as well as the Chinese:

In 1964, officials in the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson pre- pared a series of papers laying out policies to halt the spread of nuclear weap- ons to particular countries. Two of these documents dealt in part with options for containing or even reversing the French nuclear weapons program. The papers are striking for their consideration of violent, coercive measures to ob- struct French nuclear arms development. “Possible sabotage and forceful frus- tration of French [nuclear weapons] tests” was one option;1 “U.S.-Soviet ac-tion to eliminate . . . French nuclear capabilities” was another.

from: Rethinking Nonproliferation: LBJ, the Gilpatric Committee, and U.S. National Security Policy | Journal of Cold War Studies | MIT Press, a highly recommended article


But there were non-proliferation successes, and very important ones, West Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Of those countries, the West Germans, South Koreans, and Taiwanese had interest in nuclear weapons, and they, along with the Japanese, had initial reservations about joining the NPT.

The West German case is detailed here: Alliance Coercion and Nuclear Restraint: How the United States Thwarted West Germany's Nuclear Ambitions | International Security | MIT Press

There's a short-book length study on the Taiwan case: Taiwan's Former Nuclear Weapons Program: Nuclear Weapons On-Demand | Institute for Science and International Security

The non-proliferation successes have had two consequences - limiting local proliferation to those countries, and any copycats they might have inspired, but also keeping those countries dependent on US security alliances, even after the fall of the Soviet Union.

One interesting effect of this is that because of the nuclear 'nakedness' of South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, when contrasted with China, the US never had the option to pull out its conventional forces and let them pay for all their own conventional defenses, which their strong economies in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s could have done.


Here's French think-tank peace that's more sanguine about nuclear deterrence consequences:

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/48/009/48009684.pdf?r=1

 

[stevep]

You might find a couple of other points of interest:
a) In 1969 IIRC I think it was the Soviets approached the US for a joint military action to denuclearise China by force. This was at a time when the Soviets and Chinese were having violent border clashes along the Amur and there were fears of a larger war breaking out. The US refused and shortly afterwards had its reproachment with China.

b) I did read once that during the 1970s or 80's having seen the US turn towards China rather than them elements in Taiwan started work on a nuclear weapon. On this being found out the US made clear its opposition but also make promises of support in protecting Taiwan against attack from China. I have considered whether this might have been the intent all along, i.e. to pressurise the US into making a commitment for its defence rather than actually developing their own nukes, which would be risky until they actually had a deterrent force in place. [Or since we're talking about Mao for the earlier part of this period possibly even after such a force was in place!]

Steve

 

[Agent23]

Best Thread OP Ever!

 

[WolfBear]

[For those unfamiliar with the abbreviated reference (some non-Americans, possibly), I refer to the NRA meaning 'National Rifle Association' within the United States, which promotes the idea that the ultimate safeguard to individual and community liberty is armed self-defense.]

What if during the later stages of the Cold War as the Soviet Union was achieving nuclear parity in warheads and delivery systems, the US reversed course on its nascent preference for nuclear non-proliferation, and instead began to actively encourage its frontline allies in Eurasia to develop their own national nuclear deterrents along the lines of what the French had (Force de Frappe), the British had, or the Americans had at the theater level in Western Europe and the Pacific Rim?

As the USA's overwhelming nuclear superiority eroded after 1962 with the technical design improvement and ultimate mass production and finally MIRV'ing of Soviet ICBMs, by the end of the decade, mutual assured destruction became much 'mutual', and people on both sides of the Atlantic began to cast doubt on America's willingness to trade Paris for Peoria.

This was used as a strategic rationale for the French nuclear force. In the meantime you had the Vietnam War, protests against it, McGovern's 'Come Home America Campaign', which lost badly, but also some broader force drawdowns in the Pacific Rim, and the return of Okinawa to Japan. You had NATO allied non-support during the American airlift to Israel during the Yom Kippur war, save for Portugal.

Finally, by the middle 70s after some years of declining armed forces budgets, South Vietnam fell, Watergate happened, and one can imagine American hawks feeling like Presidential authority was being crippled.

The divergence here is that the Cabinet and Sub-Cabinet members of Ford Administration by mid-1975, like Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, alongside President Ford, and Secretary of State Kissinger, come to panic that this trend will be irreversible after the election of the Watergate baby Congressional class of 1974.

So while conservatives like Cheney and Rumsfeld still work institutionally to fight these trends and champion the 'unitary executive' theory, they set in a motion a geopolitical back-up plan to contain the growth of Soviet power and ambition on a sustainable basis in case they don't prevail or prevail fast enough to keep the US credibly backing up its global commitments.

They take heart by noticing the significant growth in the ROK, Japan Self-Defense, and Taiwan forces in the early 1970s during the US drawdown, the military rise of Israel, and the Shah's Iran. The East Asian partners, rather than buckling under and getting weak and demotivated by the US pullout from Vietnam, seem to have gotten more serious about getting their shit together, built up their economies and militaries more, and reduced their bickering with each other.

The new US strategy, rolled out shortly after the presentation of the Helsinki Final Act in August 1975, is for a lengthy phased out and controlled withdrawal of U.S. forces and U.S. automatic security guarantees to take place over 15 years until 1990, with the partners of the United States being warned of their need to substitute by their own national means for any American conventional or nuclear deterrent capabilities which will become unavailable to them by 1990.

Essentially, the United States is advising West Germany, Japan, South Korea that there is an expiration date for them to be under an American protective umbrella, and the time limit has been generously extended long-enough for the economically viable and technologically competent countries to modern conventional self-defense forces backed by nuclear weapons deliverable by aircraft or SRBM or MRBM.

Germany and Japan already had civil nuclear power sectors at this point, and in fact, the US had spent time and effort in the 1960s trying to tamp down any interest by any faction of German politicians in independent nuclear weapons. This would reverse the US policy just before Germany signs the NPT, and would toss out the NPT. South Korea had already started, or would soon look into starting nuclear weapons research that the US would in OTL need to spend alot of the 1980s trying to squash down.

Here, the US leaders, wanting above all to contain the Soviet Union, but lacking in confidence in the will of the American public and the credibility of extended deterrence, put their bet on allied self-interest to protect themselves if they have no other choice.

This policy is locked in by the end of September 1975, with a globally known sunset for NATO and the Far Eastern alliances of 1990.

How does the world of the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and beyond look?

Is a world with wide nuclear proliferation a multipolar, balanced, polite world?

Is Eurasia, Western Europe, and the northern hemisphere dead? Or Red?

Is the Soviet Union in 21st century? If not, is it because its a peaceful collapse like OTL (albeit with some violent aftermaths), or because its nuclear rubble?

If Germany is alive through the 1990s and 21st century, is it ever allowed to be re-unified?

I think that West Germany should be excluded from this rule since back then West Germany still had territorial claims on both Polish and Soviet territory, and as much as the US disliked Communism, it also disliked the memories of Nazism even more, most likely. The rest of this sounds reasonable enough, though it would probably be more realistic if it was done right after the end of the Cold War. Still, let's go with your scenario here.

In such a scenario, I suspect that the Soviet Union would still collapse and break up but instead of NATO membership, various Eastern European countries, such as Poland, could seek to have their own nuclear deterrents. Maybe they reach deals with the French and/or British to base nuclear weapons on their territory while they seek to build nuclear weapons of their own?

Japan might go nuclear and South Korea almost certainly will, as will Taiwan. This likely means no forcible Chinese reunification of Taiwan--ever! Not even in 2050 or in 2100!

I wonder if nuclear proliferation will become more widespread in the Middle East in this TL as well.

 

[raharris1973]

I think that West Germany should be excluded from this rule since back then West Germany still had territorial claims on both Polish and Soviet territory, and as much as the US disliked Communism, it also disliked the memories of Nazism even more, most likely.

Actually that was my reasoning for timing it right after the Helsinki Final Act, because that's when West Germany accepted the borders in Europe as final and set up diplomatic relations with East Germany. Whatever West Germany did to reassure on that score in the 2+4 talks at the end of the Cold War was just repetition of its moves in the 1970s.

 

[WolfBear]

Actually that was my reasoning for timing it right after the Helsinki Final Act, because that's when West Germany accepted the borders in Europe as final and set up diplomatic relations with East Germany. Whatever West Germany did to reassure on that score in the 2+4 talks at the end of the Cold War was just repetition of its moves in the 1970s.

AFAIK, West Germany's moves in the 1970s were provisional--as in, theoretically speaking, it could reverse course on them prior to German reunification, though admittedly it was very unlikely to ever actually do this. Still, the theoretical possibility for this was there.

 

[raharris1973]

This approach doesn't scale well to the international level. In a polite society of a gun-toting populace, if a misunderstanding of some sort happens and leads to a shoot-out (and it WILL happen from time to time, even if overall crime rates drop greatly), then a few lives may be lost, which is tragic, but not world ending. An equivalent incident with nuclear weapons could be literally world-ending, or civilization-ending at a minimum. Nuclear weapons are not like guns.

The more states have them, the more chance of something bad happening with those nukes, even if we're speaking only statistically.

Regarding your statement that "this approach doesn't scale well to the international level" and the associated implication that it does scale, at least relatively, well at the national society of individuals level.

Actually, I think the receipts are in, and they show this is 'bass ackwards' so to speak. A national society of individuals is not made more polite and less violent by being filled with better armed individuals. The good guy with a gun theory goes wrong more often than it goes right. In a state of assumed civil peace, the gun using criminal with an idea to use it will always have an offensive advantage over a gun owning defender who has one just in case but never knows the day and hour when they will need it.

But, although its a smaller data set, no nuclear armed states have attacked each other or been attacked with nuclear arms. Nuclear weapons were fired in anger exactly twice against a power that didn't have them in a globally endorsed war for unconditional surrender. Deterrence has worked for 80 or so years. Even if the number of nuclear armed states doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, we are still dealing with manageable and imaginable numbers of state actors, not the unwieldy number of thousands to millions of civilian actors we deal with in almost all civil societies. There are under 200 countries in the world, period. The great majority of them don't have any aggressive agenda or any hair-trigger paranoias of any sort. If they possessed a nuclear weapon, it wouldn't make them automatically adopt those psychological features/risk factors or desires.

A world of many nuclear powers may conjure up visions of some sort of nuclear 1914, triggered by some Sarajevo event, leading to world destruction, but for that to happen, the powers of the world need to be chain-ganged to each other in alliance commitments and with inflexible military plans that automatically commit them to launch off all their weapons inventories in a chain reaction once a local nuclear strike or exchange happens. But countries around the world are not bound by treaties exactly like those of 1914, and of the nuclear powers in the world, the only ones who have come close to having ready made plans (and arsenals) to destroy every potential rival in the world just in case, have been the US and maybe, Russia, all the minor nuclear powers have had a much less Schlieffen-esque, more sane deterrent policy, allowing their national leaderships to think about what they need to do. This whole idea is predicated on the premise that the US can restrain itself from doing anything insane on autopilot.

 

[lordhen]

Thoughts?

So countries who are friendly to the US, like Sweden, Switzerland and so on can have nukes, what about countries who are not friendly to the US, while they be punished for having nukes.

 

[Marduk]

So countries who are friendly to the US, like Sweden, Switzerland and so on can have nukes, what about countries who are not friendly to the US, while they be punished for having nukes.

Ironically those are countries that probably wouldn't have nukes due to cost and domestic red-green opposition even if the American president was yelling at them to build goddamn nukes you stupid pacifist fucks in the beginning of every call.

Not friendly ones? Like what? Russia? China? North Korea? Iran? Oh, wait...

But, although its a smaller data set, no nuclear armed states have attacked each other or been attacked with nuclear arms.

States is the key word here. I think that everyone agrees that if some of the near-nuclear states that aren't troublemakers and are stable would not damage, and possibly would improve world safety if they went nuclear. Japan, Germany, Italy, Australia, Poland, and so on. Some of them may be uninterested though anyway. Some on the top of the list of countries that you wouldn't want to have nukes already got them or are on their way to, like Pakistan, NK, Iran, so it's a moot point. The real nuclear proliferation worries have a name, which isn't mentioned because it's very unPC. Namely it's an Islam problem and failed state problem, and sometimes these factors combine. Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, those are countries that you would prefer to not trust with nukes, and even if you did, you wouldn't even completely trust them to keep the nukes out of the hands of their local crazies. Outside of that, you may also not want Mexico, Turkey, South Africa and Brazil to have them either, who knows where those might end up if some distraction happens.
So the irony is that the enemies of the West probably benefit more from the non-proliferation treaties than the West. In fact if i was the US president i would outright say that if Iran gets nukes, i'm scrapping the NPT completely and outright offering assistance to all NATO and other allied countries to get nukes because what's the fucking point of it then.

 

[stevep]

Regarding your statement that "this approach doesn't scale well to the international level" and the associated implication that it does scale, at least relatively, well at the national society of individuals level.

Actually, I think the receipts are in, and they show this is 'bass ackwards' so to speak. A national society of individuals is not made more polite and less violent by being filled with better armed individuals. The good guy with a gun theory goes wrong more often than it goes right. In a state of assumed civil peace, the gun using criminal with an idea to use it will always have an offensive advantage over a gun owning defender who has one just in case but never knows the day and hour when they will need it.

But, although its a smaller data set, no nuclear armed states have attacked each other or been attacked with nuclear arms. Nuclear weapons were fired in anger exactly twice against a power that didn't have them in a globally endorsed war for unconditional surrender. Deterrence has worked for 80 or so years. Even if the number of nuclear armed states doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, we are still dealing with manageable and imaginable numbers of state actors, not the unwieldy number of thousands to millions of civilian actors we deal with in almost all civil societies. There are under 200 countries in the world, period. The great majority of them don't have any aggressive agenda or any hair-trigger paranoias of any sort. If they possessed a nuclear weapon, it wouldn't make them automatically adopt those psychological features/risk factors or desires.

A world of many nuclear powers may conjure up visions of some sort of nuclear 1914, triggered by some Sarajevo event, leading to world destruction, but for that to happen, the powers of the world need to be chain-ganged to each other in alliance commitments and with inflexible military plans that automatically commit them to launch off all their weapons inventories in a chain reaction once a local nuclear strike or exchange happens. But countries around the world are not bound by treaties exactly like those of 1914, and of the nuclear powers in the world, the only ones who have come close to having ready made plans (and arsenals) to destroy every potential rival in the world just in case, have been the US and maybe, Russia, all the minor nuclear powers have had a much less Schlieffen-esque, more sane deterrent policy, allowing their national leaderships to think about what they need to do. This whole idea is predicated on the premise that the US can restrain itself from doing anything insane on autopilot.

There may not be alliances and if they did exist allies might not be willing to support an ally after a nuclear exchange starts. However just because the US decides to scrap its role in NATO that doesn't mean that alliance ceases to exist. It would be gravely weakened but most if not all of those states would probably feel a lot more secure in such a rump alliance than on their own. This could also 'solve' the German issue as W Germany would still be protected by the allies and there is likely to be a joint nuclear programme to share the burden between those nuclear states inside NATO - which might include say Italy and Canada for instance - and possibly also the conventional powers providing economic support. [Note that as others have said the US would be worried by a nuclear Mexico it probably would be also be less than happy with a nuclear Canada].

Also even if not alliances in place people can feel obliged to support another power or some accident could drag other powers in.

The other issue is regime change. Say the Shah of Iran manages to get a nuclear programme started how would many people including Israel and the US feel about this being adapted by the Ayatollahs!

 

[raharris1973]

Ironically those are countries that probably wouldn't have nukes due to cost and domestic red-green opposition even if the American president was yelling at them to build goddamn nukes you stupid pacifist fucks in the beginning of every call.

Not friendly ones? Like what? Russia? China? North Korea? Iran? Oh, wait...

States is the key word here. I think that everyone agrees that if some of the near-nuclear states that aren't troublemakers and are stable would not damage, and possibly would improve world safety if they went nuclear. Japan, Germany, Italy, Australia, Poland, and so on. Some of them may be uninterested though anyway. Some on the top of the list of countries that you wouldn't want to have nukes already got them or are on their way to, like Pakistan, NK, Iran, so it's a moot point. The real nuclear proliferation worries have a name, which isn't mentioned because it's very unPC. Namely it's an Islam problem and failed state problem, and sometimes these factors combine. Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, those are countries that you would prefer to not trust with nukes, and even if you did, you wouldn't even completely trust them to keep the nukes out of the hands of their local crazies. Outside of that, you may also not want Mexico, Turkey, South Africa and Brazil to have them either, who knows where those might end up if some distraction happens.
So the irony is that the enemies of the West probably benefit more from the non-proliferation treaties than the West. In fact if i was the US president i would outright say that if Iran gets nukes, i'm scrapping the NPT completely and outright offering assistance to all NATO and other allied countries to get nukes because what's the fucking point of it then.

That is kind of where my head was when I wrote this up.