Carl Robichaud

Now, one of them is that the US and the Soviet Union essentially buy off some of these would-be proliferators with security guarantees and promises to protect them if they don't acquire nuclear weapons or lean on them in ways that make it unlikely that they would continue their pursuit of the bomb.

Another is that this system of international law and export controls springs up, and that increases the already high costs of pursuing nuclear weapons.

There are certainly financial costs, logistical costs, and reputational costs for countries that want to acquire these.

And so this system of law and export control raises those costs.

You also have a couple cases of counterproliferation through military action or sanctions that knocks off countries, programs that might have become a threat.

But I think an underrated part of the story is this set of norms that emerge against nuclear weapons and against nuclear proliferation.

And elites in many countries come to view nuclear weapons as immoral and as unnecessary, and come to see them as liabilities rather than assets.

I think that's an underrated part of the story.

So, it's really a multi-causal story, but where we are now, this is kind of the best case scenario for someone sitting in 1960 and looking at where this technology might go.

And I think we can continue to build on that.

Yeah, well, I think that North Korea and Pakistan drew that lesson and they live in a tough neighborhood and face some adversaries and decided that the only way they could achieve their security was to acquire nuclear weapons and they successfully crossed that line.

And they are sort of the exception that proves the rule because a lot of other countries weren't willing to

subject themselves to the types of sanctions and economic isolation in order to achieve the bomb.

So both Pakistan and North Korea paid a huge cost to acquire nuclear weapons.

And people look at sanctions and say, well, they didn't work here.

And to some extent, that's true, but I think those sanctions also had a deterrent effect for other countries that might have wanted to go in that direction.

And most countries have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and have adhered to it because they realized that while they probably could get a nuclear weapon, that would be very expensive economically, politically, et cetera, and would result in their isolation.

Yeah, I think it's a really short list.

And I think that that's evidence of the success of this international system that we've built over the years.

I think Iran is the only credible country that's on the verge.