[mweidner]

Is the idea to keep the world in balance via MAD? I could see that, though it's a dangerous gamble.

From Richard Rhode's "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", I got the impression that most scientists involved thought they could manage a US or UN monopoly on nukes after the war. General Groves attempted to buy up all of the world's uranium ore. Unfortunately, it is only high grade ore that is rare; many countries have low-grade ore.

[tokioyoyo]

Again quite arguable, but this is the real life scenario we’re living in. Nukes have made it hard to impossible for super major powers to go in direct conflict with each other.

[folkrav]

Except it's pretty well documented (and this is total conjecture, but if you ask me, there are probably are a bunch of undisclosed cases) to have had a good amount of close calls. With the fire-on-warning stance many powers have, it doesn't take an attack, but just enough of the appearance of it to trigger a response.

[dabinat]

I honestly don’t know how Iran can conclude anything after this war other than to go all-in on nukes. The US has proven any deal is worthless if it can just change its mind and renege on it whenever it wants.

Who’s invading North Korea? No-one.

[nielsbot]

Furthermore if Iran had nukes already, the Israel/US bombing of Iran and even the constant bullying of Israel's neighbors by Israel might not have happened.

[NewsaHackO]

No, but in a peace time, it's a lot easier to convince someone not to use nukes than in a war when the party who has nukes has its back against the wall.

[wongarsu]

Wouldn't deliberately going from a world without nuclear weapons to a world with MAD involve giving the tech to build nukes to your worst enemy?

If only the US or UN had nukes we would't have MAD. We mostly got here through espionage