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A prediction… My prediction is 10-15 years from now, due to Trump’s foreign policy realignment or other more local factors, several additional nations will have nuclear weapons as part of either a substitute for the illusion of being under the US nuclear umbrella, or as part of a “tous azimuts” defence policy. Poland, Japan, South Korea, plus Taiwan & Ukraine if they survive long enough. I imagine if Taiwan is occupied by China, Australia will take the plunge as well.
The domestic discussion is most advanced in Poland & Ukraine for obvious reasons, others are only just mumbling about it currently. I can also imagine a Pan-European nuclear weapons programme as well (a great idea, but being Pan-European, it will take 30 years before they even agree where the HQ should be located).
This would make the world a somewhat safer place.
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Taiwan is likely going to gradually enter China’s sphere of influence and be absorbed by China by growing economic ties, rising trade, cultural changes inside Taiwan, pro-China Taiwanese political movements, and the inevitable gradual retreat of the US Navy from the First Island Chain, especially after USA starts producing its own advanced semiconductor chips. There will probably be no quick kinetic takeover, just a slow absorption and realignment over many decades, perhaps with some kind of bloodless coup at the end of the process.
Japan is the more interesting question – and I do not know what will happen there.
You missed out Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Brazil. Do you think any of those aspire to MAD ?
Having nukes doesn’t make the world safer, not having nut jobs in charge of basket case countries is what makes it better.
In the meantime, once a credible ABM is developed, preferably orbital, then might get peace.
Have to agree with Shlomo. The PRC is playing the long game. An invasion would be costly, very risky and might end-up with the PRC getting a wasteland for their efforts. I don’t believe they are building-up their military (esp. navy) for any particular reason but just as part of becoming a mega-power.
My guesses for going nuclear are… Japan and South Korea doing it on the QT (maybe have already), Germany (when they dump the Greens), Sweden and absolutely Poland and Australia. The AUKUS deal with the Aussies getting nuclear-powered boats is a softener. Australia is in a peculiar position of having a small population yet the need to be able to project power a long way. For other reasons I would add Brazil.
All of the above I’m happy with (apart from maybe Brazil). But what about Saudi Arabia? Iran because nukes are the only way they can remain a credible military power. Especially after the debacle of their recent strikes on Israel. The Saudis because a nuclear Iran would rightly scare them. Note the Saudis are prowling around getting in on the Tempest program. They are keen to develop an indiginous arms industry.
Runcie,
We crossed-over. I considered Nigeria but… The place is hopelessly corrupt. I could see that ending the way of the Zambian Space Program. Look it up.
Perry,
I forgot to add that I think your timescale is off. I’d say 5-10 years. Some of the countries you mentioned could do it even earlier if they really wanted to…
My wife is Chinese An invasion of Taiwan is inevitable Chinese are nationalists And the Chinese leaders are out of their mind The future big intern difficulties in China must have a solution Adventurism is always a solution A very stupid one but a solution anyway
I’d like to see a big push on building anti-missile technology, including uses of lasers, etc.
STEM graduates will have lots to do.
This is hardly a “prediction” as some nations (the United States, Britain, Russia, France, the People’s Republic of China, Israel, India…..) already have nuclear weapons, and others, such as Islamic Republic of Iran, are hard at work developing nuclear weapons.
It, the spread of nuclear weapons, is nothing to do with President Trump and would continue regardless of whether he was elected in 2016 or 2024 – indeed had the 2020 Presidential election not been rigged it is quite possible that President Trump would have prevented the Islamic Republic of Iran gaining nuclear weapons – sadly it is probably too late now, with the Iranian bases now buried deep into mountains and-so-on. The “Biden” (really Obama) regime produced by the rigged election of 2020 gave the Islamic Republic of Iran vast amounts of money – these resources were, of course, used for the Iranian military build up – but whether that this was the intention of the Obama “Biden” regime (whether they wanted Iran to have nuclear weapons) I do not know.
The Taiwan case is interesting – given geography and expanding People’s Republic of China conventional military forces, especially conventional swarms of missiles and drones and short range (if a couple of hundred miles or so is really “short range”) attack craft, it is increasingly unlikely that the United States could win a conventional war in Taiwan – and would any American President (any-American-President) risk global thermonuclear war over a conventional PRC attack on Taiwan? Going nuclear before China?
Ukraine will not have nuclear weapons any more than it will be a member of NATO or the European Union – that ship sailed long ago – like Russia the long term survival of Ukraine depends on reversing the demographic decline caused by “Progressive” policies (Mr Putin pretends to be a social conservative, but in practice he is NOT one – and Mr Zelensky does not even pretend to be an opponent of the “Progressive” policies that were destroying Ukraine long before 2022). Japan is under terrible internal pressure from an establishment (which appears to include almost all political parties) that is determined to wipe out the Japanese and replace them with other people – a policy that is already many years old in Western Europe.
South Korea is in a similar demographic crises – and nuclear weapons will not help South Korea deal with the real threat to its existence (which is the same threat that so many other nations face) lack-of-babies.
In any case the South Korean Parliament is already under the de facto control of the People’s Republic of China – but the Western establishment elite are so consumed by their Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) that they have not even noticed what has happened in South Korea – or indeed noticed what has happened in so many other countries.
Australia and New Zealand.
Australia has a leftist government which is about as likely to build nuclear weapons as I am to be the first man to land on Mars. Although Perry is quite correct – People’s Republic of China forces have stretched out to Australia and New Zealand, sending warships to make the point that after-half-a-century-of-cuts-in-military-spending there is nothing Australia can do about the People’s Republic of China military forces.
New Zealand? The spirit is willing – but the military forces are just not there.
If present “Progressive” policies continue, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Ukraine and-so-on are unlikely to exist in a few years time – demography will doom them.
Western Europe is under a similar threat – but the nations of Europe are responding in different ways.
Germany is interesting – the new Chancellor (formally of BlackRock – but also the head of the CDU – in coalition with the SPD) has decided on a “guns and butter” approach – having campaigned on keeping a limit on government spending and debt, he has decided instead to greatly increase military spending (using Russia as the justification – but allegedly having corporate motives, military contracts), but also to go for an orgy of “infrastructure” spending as-well. In this he has the full support of his SPD partners (no surprise there).
And the expanding non German population of Germany?
It seems that the CDU promises to save the German people were not sincere (were just designed to make people vote CDU rather than AfD) and that the new Chancellor of Germany is, in practice, comfortable with a future that will not have German people in it.
As for the liberals (the FDP) who wanted some restraint in government spending – they will not even be in the new German Parliament having got just under the 5% threshold in voting.
The German philosopher Herder caused great debate in the 19th and 20th centuries with his claim that, in the future, the Hungarians would cease to exist.
Ironically it appears to be possible that the Hungarians will outlive the Germans.
And, no, nuclear weapons will not help.
As for the United Kingdom – how do nuclear weapons help with such things as the demographic crises (the British people not having enough babies to replace themselves) or with such cultural conflicts as that between the Reform Party Member of Parliament, Rupert Lowe, and the Chairman of his Political Party over whether Islamic halal method of animal slaughter be banned? Of course, this is just part of a much wider cultural conflict – “the issue is not really the issue” as that old leftist Saul Alinsky used to say.
As Vice President Vance correctly pointed out, the real threats to Western nations, including the United Kingdom, are internal – the demographic crises, the cultural conflict with emerging populations (driven by natural increase, births, not just immigration – and “assimilation – at least over generations” has proved to be an illusion, as the host culture is too weak, and lacking in self confidence, to be attractive to the new people), and the endless attacks on Freedom of Speech and other basic liberties.
Nuking Moscow will solve none of these problems, and Russia very much has its own problems (and, if one strips away the rhetoric and looks at reality – the problems of Russia are actually very similar to those of Western Europe and other Western nations, it also has a demographic crises, an emerging cultural conflict along ethnic lines, and a government, Mr Putin, whose response to dissent is to put people in prison rather than to listen-and-change-basic-policy).
These really are world wide problems.
Even in far off Australia the real problems are such things as government suppression of Freedom of Speech and other basic liberties (“if we do not allow people to talk about the problems – the problems do not exist” is the establishment attitude), and increasing numbers of hostile people in Australian cities who are not shy about using violence against people who do not share their religious beliefs (hostile people whose ancestors Australian governments, very foolishly, allowed in from the 1970s onwards).
There may be things that nuclear weapons help with – perhaps deterring some future attack from the People’s Republic of China, but the real present problems of the various Western nations (if the West even exists anymore) are not helped by threats of nuclear conflict.
Lastly there is a matter of scale – the United States can, at least for now, afford the sort of scale of nuclear weapons that would be a real threat to the existence of such powers as the People’s Republic of China.
Australia and so on CAN NOT.
A few atomic bombs (even if the Australian government liked the idea – which I do not believe it does) would not threaten the existence of the PRC. Only full scale thermonuclear war would threaten the existence of the People’s Republic of China.
So the United States remains now, and in “10 to 15 years time” the only game in town – if (a very big “if”) the Administration of Donald J. Trump manages to prevent de facto bankruptcy in the United States and its economic and social collapse.
Sadly the odds are not good. The real problem is not “Trump’s foreign policy realignment” (whatever Perry thinks that might be) – the real problem is that cutting “waste and corruption” will just not be enough to prevent the collapse of the United States.
Centuries ago Roger Sherman (the only person to sign all the Founding documents of the United States) warned, repeatedly warned, that all the high talk of “liberty” and “rights” would be utterly worthless if government spending got out of control and the money was debased (so that, to finance the government and allied interests spending, it became just fiat money – not actual gold and silver) – sadly his warnings have proved true.
Government spending has got out of control (it has been out of control for many decades) and the entire monetary and financial system has been corrupted – and, again, just cutting “waste and fraud” is not, on its own, going to prevent collapse.
It would be worth annihilating every human being in Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or any muslim country to prevent those countries getting nuclear weapons.
That is because we should only tolerate nuclear weapons in the hands of those who would be slow to use them.
How long would Israel last if Iran had the abilty to drop The Big One on them? And the Iranians would not be deterred by the risk of being sent to Heaven themselves in retaliation.
James Strong at 2:27pm, “…any Muslim country”.
Does this include the UK and France?
Which will happen faster, one of the Muslim countries we might be thinking of gets nukes or an already nuclear power becomes Muslim?
Are there any ICBMs in Minnesota…it’s close to being a Muslim government! (tongue in cheek emoji here…if I knew how to do that!)
The two greatest weapons in the Donald-defeating armoury are the US national debt (now around USD36 trillion) and 20 January 2029.
Pakistan have had nukes for over 25 years.
GregWA,
You using a recnt(ish) Windows machine? Press “Win”+”;” and you get the emoji menu. Select your emoji, left-click. Simples. 😀
Paul,
The terrifying thing about nukes isn’t that the USA or Russia have about 5000 each but that a truly useful deterrent can be done with a few dozen with the right delivery platform. The whole kaboodle will cost about as much as a decent air-wing*. Completely clobber 10-20 cities in a country and they is perma-fucked. And that is for a biggish place. Imagine the UK without London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow?
The demographic thing is… Well, I dunno. Though I suspect credit-bubble finance will get us first! 😉
*My vague understanding is that something like a Trident D5 costs roughly the same as a highish end strike fighter. And they have up to twelve MIRVs. OK, you got all the support infrastructure but then all modern weaponry has a long-shaft compared to the pointy end. What Nukes give you is immense bang for buck. They also have a tremendous psychological value because they have only ever been used once (and that at the edge of human memory) and that ended a war.
I recently came across some 1980s pamphlets ‘Leeds and the Bomb’ and ‘Hull and the Bomb’* about what the impact of nuclear war would be if either city got hit with nuclear weapons, in particular a 1 MT bomb. While they were a product of left-wing councils with pacifist inclinations at the time, but a lot of the information seems to be from UK or US government sources from the time. They are very depressing. You don’t have to be a CND supporter or anything like that to be sobered what kind of destruction and horror would ensue. Kind of feel the same about the film Threads. Yes, a lot of the cast were CND supporters, but it is hard to argue against the idea that nuclear war-torn Sheffield would be anything but apocalyptic (the director claimed Ronald Reagan- who had seen and praised a similar American film The Day After – saw the film and was impressed by it).
*I was born in Hull and grew up and now moved back to Leeds so they were of particular interest.
Of course it’s a prediction FFS, I am mentioning specific countries, so telling me other countries already have nukes is a waste of pixels. Jesus. Moreover if you use your head, this is not unrelated to global political realities changing in the last few weeks. The fact there is no longer an illusion of deterrence via an American Nuclear Umbrella for anyone outside the USA is what has changed.
That’s a bit like asking how does having improvements to aircraft engine reliability help with issues like germs developing antibiotics resistance in Havering.
Martin,
Threads is actually very good. And yes, Ronnie was a “fan”.
I know well a Japanese woman who is terrified about nukes. She once attempted to get a Geiger counter onto a flight from Tokyo to London! Like many it’s the radiation that gets her goat. That misses the point. The point is that a nuke can cause enormous physical destruction from blast and fire very quickly. It is not something that can be “endured” like the London Blitz. It is a catastrophic event in the mathematical sense of a sudden discontinuity. Perhaps only Operations Gomorrah (Hamburg) and Meetinghouse (Tokyo) are comparable. Everything over a wide area stops working immediately. Water, power, comms – the whole nine-yards all at once. Threads shows that.
It also shows the way nuclear war would probably escalate. The Tom Lehrer idea that, “We’ll all go together when we go!” is almost comforting compared to that. It isn’t a Dr Strangelove apocalypse but many small ones of increasing size.
I would love in principle to “Ban the Bomb” but even as a kid in the ’80s when the wimmin were camped at Greenham Common I knew that was bollocks. It would work in a World of total justified trust where nobody was ever malicious or told a fib. But surely that utopia would be one where we could have Death Stars and not worry? Because that would be a World without evil – a very dull Heaven.
I got the impression politics in Taiwan was heading in quite the opposite direction.
Just read the Wikipedia summary of Threads. Wow…if I’m ever feeling too darn happy and the fear of world wide plague isn’t enough to bring me back to normal, maybe I’ll watch it! 😁
Thanks NickM for the Windows emoji tutorial.
I agree. It’s one of the most depressing and bleak films I’ve seen, and therefore succeeds.
You get the vibe that while the mass death caused by the bomb immediately is dreadful, the survivors are left with a worse fate in most cases than the dead.
I think nuclear weapons are horrific, but now Pandora’s box has been opened it can’t be closed. I’m not against arms control per se – the Cold War arsenal sizes of USA/USSR got to absurd levels – but outright abolition is not genuinely possible. Even if you got rid of all the warheads, the knowledge of how to build more wouldn’t disappear.
As JD Vance has pointed out – only partly in jest – there is a very real chance that the first Muslim Majority country to have a nuclear weapon may well be the United Kingdom. Sharia Law Courts are popping up all over London and many other places in the UK and other Western Countries as well. Assimilation has catastrophically failed.
Many of the same conventional/mainstream conservatives (including about 50% of the Republican Senators and Republican Congressmen in USA) who claim that Russian control of the Donbas is an existential threat to the West, shudder at the mere suggestion of mass remigration. This is one of many reasons why it is difficult for me to take the conventional political right seriously anymore.
There is a high probability that demographic transition is going to permanently annihilate thousands of years of western civilization (because real solutions are considered impolite by the conventional political right) and polite society tells me I’m supposed to deem Russian control of the Donbas to be a bigger threat.
I should have added that one of the key problems leading to the demographic transition is the birth rates. The unassimilable have much higher birth rates than the host populations, whether in France, UK, or other countries. Feminism is part of the issue here, of course, but that is another impolite thing to say and the conservatives who have had their hands on the levers of power for decades will scold you for publicly suggesting real policy changes to fix the demographic decline. It’s all so tiresome. And there probably is no light at the end of the tunnel thanks to what passes for good manners these days.
You and Vance seem unaware Pakistan has had nuclear weapons since 1998 😀
Fair enough, forgot about that. I was wrong on that specific aspect.
History tells us that humans are violent creatures and often have wars, and that all available technologies are used sooner rather than later. It was sooner in the case of nuclear weapons.
Full scale nuclear war will happen one day, in 5 years, 50 years, 500 years, 5000 years. Who knows?
What can happen will happen.
Yeah, me too…how could I forget our friends the Pakis!
So the Sheffield of The Full Monty, then.
Sheffield, a city on the move!
@pete
History tells us that humans are violent creatures and often have wars, and that all available technologies are used sooner rather than later. It was sooner in the case of nuclear weapons.
Yeah, but hasn’t been since, and that first use was before the MAD doctrine which is surely the only reason the USA has restrained themselves. Were it not for MAD I think Vietnam would have been very different. The unrestrained belligerence of some in the American government then was verging on the insane.
Full scale nuclear war will happen one day, in 5 years, 50 years, 500 years, 5000 years. Who knows?
I really don’t think we should worry about what will happen in 50 years. 5 years yes, 5000, no. And frankly none of the countries Perry mentions could have a nuclear weapon with a suitable delivery system in five years. I think in 10-15 years? Probably not either. But who the hell knows what the world will look like in five years never mind fifteen. They are actually quite hard to build. TBH, I actually think in five years cyber war will be a much more significant threat. And I might add that for sure this is a very good reason to build anti ballistic missile technology which is what we should have been doing for the past forty years.
As to specific countries: Poland has perhaps the strongest reason to do so, but without a lot of help from the UK or France (which I don’t think they’d get) they would find it extremely challenging. Japan, I think they would be better placed but I suspect the Japanese public would not support this. South Korea, I think are the most likely to build one, but that is a very volatile situation and Trump is extremely vested in it, so I think the pressure not to do so would be huge, especially since it would very quickly escalate what with the unstable little rocket man next door. Taiwan, I’m going to skip Taiwan since my thoughts on that would require about ten thousand words and would be controversial enough that I’d spend the next week defending them. Ukraine, they can barely make their own small arms never mind something like that. Australia maybe, but I’m not convinced they have the resources to do it. And even so, were Australia a nuclear power I wouldn’t not be particularly concerned, in fact it might be a good thing.
What can happen will happen.
Well if that were true at some point all the nations of the world would gather in a big circle singing Kumbaya and agree to beat their swords into plowshares. I think that is not likely, so evidently some things that could happen won’t happen, not in any timeframe we should be thinking about anyway.
“You [Shlomo] and Vance seem unaware Pakistan has had nuclear weapons since 1998…”
I suspect the new vice-president is unaware of many things, not least understanding that his job is to shut up and stand by to be sworn in on AIRFORCE TWO at a moment’s notice.
To briefly address the main point of the original post.
Anything is indeed possible, but I think it’s unlikely that Trump is going to realign American foreign policy in any lasting sense. A lot of Trump’s public pronouncements are brash tactics intended to alter the terms of public debate in order to give him a stronger position in negotiations whether with NATO, Ukraine, Russia, Europe, etc. This is similar to when Trump claimed that “the USA will own Gaza” – obviously not going to happen, but intended to present another alternative to force Egypt, Jordan and others to come to the negotiating table in a more genuine manner.
I could be wrong, but I suspect Trump will make relatively minor changes in terms of America’s security posture in Europe. Some minor changes, but not anything like a wholesale transformation. At the end of Trump’s term I predict USA will be paying a slightly lower percentage of Europe’s National Security than at the beginning but not a lot less and still US tax dollars will be financing a very large share of Europe’s overall National Security.
After Trump leaves the White House his replacement whether Democrat or Republican is likely to reverse any minor changes Trump has made during his term, and the same old scam of American Taxpayers paying for the National Security of Europe will continue for at least the next couple decades if not longer.
As I mentioned in another thread, I think there is also a 25% chance that the above is wrong and that there actually is a real wholesale transformation of American foreign policy afoot and that this is the beginning of an American realignment away from Europe in a significant way. I doubt it, but it is possible.
Shlomo’s grasp of Greater China geopolitics is about as strong as his grasp of Pakistan’s military capabilities.
Taiwan is decoupling from Mainland China rapidly thanks to the aggressive stance of the CCP and the visible decline of freedoms in Hong Kong (along with the economy).
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a risk because it would provide a nationalism-stoking distraction from the mess Xi has made in the past five years.
On the other hand Xi is currently purging his own appointees from the PLA which suggests he has little faith in his control of China’s armed forces.
In the very long term one would hope China reunifies following the death of the CCP and a move away from fascist despotism. As long as that move is peaceful, which history suggests is unlikely.
Things change year to year, there is volatility in any long term gradual process. My comment was not about a short term or even medium term outlook.
My comment was about how the matter will be resolved in the long term. Yes everyone knows that invasion is a distraction from the internal mess inside China. Invasion is possible but unlikely. Invasion becomes a more realistic possibility if there is a real threat to the power of the CCP or Xi A permanent decoupling is possible but unlikely. What’s most likely is what I outlined in my original comment – gradual absorption and integration. This process will take decades. China and the CCP are patient.
The apparently impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a bit like climate change. Dire predictions are made by so-called experts every decade and nothing ever happens because the underlying process is misunderstood by westerners. Taiwanese and Chinese have thousands of years of genetic, political, and cultural commonality. Look at how this sort of dispute within a people has typically resolved over human history. Long term unity and integration is not inevitable but it is the most likely eventual outcome.
Like Hong Kong.
Again, I believe Shlomo is on the money.
This process will take decades. China and the CCP are patient.
Absolutely. The CCP are in charge. This is not the China of Mao. This is a dictarorship by a party, an organisation, a structure. It is not limited by the life-span of an individual or their cares or whims.
Unlike building up an army, which can be done relatively swiftly, building a navy is slower and far more complex. It is a truism that naval strategy is build strategy. At vast expense, China is assembling a large war-fighting navy with the industrial infrastructure to substantially outbuild USA in a lengthy war. This does not mean war is inevitable, but looking at China put its money where it mouth is, it looks pretty damn likely to me. And I don’t think China will settle for dominating the near Pacific.
Doesn’t this depend on what China mostly wants from Taiwan?
If China wants the people and industry and economy and income of Taiwan, I think it looks to gradually subsume it. The ability to subsume it will come from it being made obvious that China COULD invade and destroy and conquer, which will make it seem inevitable that it will be Chinese, and so Taiwan will bend.
If China simply wants to retake the land that it considers its own, it might well simply invade and flatten and destroy.
But I think an intact Taiwan is much more valuable to China.
“This would make the world a somewhat safer place” – no it clearly would not.
So, Paul, would Russia have been more or less likely to launch a full scale invasion of a nuclear-armed Ukraine? Would China be more or less likely to invade a nuclear-armed Taiwan?
I think they are more driven by nationalist notions of restoring China to its rightful Imperial greatness after the century of humiliation rather than anything else. Defeating USA in a war would certainly tick a lot of boxes on that score.