Russia’s former president and current Security Council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev says the U.S.-Iran war may have produced exactly the opposite result from Washington’s stated objective: instead of discouraging nuclear proliferation, it may convince more states that only nuclear weapons can guarantee their survival.
In an interview with Iranian state media, Medvedev said that after the attack on Iran, a
“significant number of countries, including Middle Eastern countries,”
would seek nuclear weapons because recent events had demonstrated the deterrent value of possessing them. Importantly, he did not name specific countries.
But looking at current public debates, several names clearly stand out.
Saudi Arabia is the most obvious. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has repeatedly said Riyadh does not want a nuclear bomb, but that if Iran obtains one, Saudi Arabia will follow. The new U.S.-Saudi civilian nuclear agreement has already caused concern in Washington because it does not completely prohibit Saudi uranium enrichment or reprocessing.
Turkey is another serious candidate. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said earlier this year that changing international security conditions could force Turkey to reconsider the nuclear-weapons question. Turkish officials have not announced a weapons program, but the debate is no longer considered purely theoretical.
Outside the Middle East, the same discussion is spreading.
Japan’s defence minister recently called for moving beyond the traditional “taboo” surrounding debate over nuclear weapons, while similar conversations are reportedly growing in South Korea and Poland as doubts increase over whether U.S. security guarantees will always be sufficient.
This is the real strategic consequence Medvedev is highlighting.
For decades, Washington’s message was:
do not build nuclear weapons and international guarantees will protect you.
But countries have watched Iraq, Libya and now Iran and may draw a different lesson: states without nuclear weapons can be attacked; states possessing credible nuclear deterrence are treated very differently.
That does not mean Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Japan or South Korea are about to build bombs tomorrow.
But the fact that these discussions are moving from academic circles into government and defence debates is itself dangerous.
The U.S.-Iran war may therefore be remembered not only for what it destroyed — but for accelerating the return of nuclear weapons as the ultimate insurance policy of states.