Are nukes the ultimate insurance policy for regime survival?

In the aftermath of the recent US–Israel military strikes on Iran, which killed thousands, and Iran's retaliation on Middle Eastern countries, the question of nuclear deterrence has returned to the centre of global geopolitics. 

For decades, Western policymakers have framed Iran's nuclear ambitions as a destabilising threat to regional security and the idea of nuclear proliferation was put on the pedestal as the guarantor of global rules-based order. 

Yet from Tehran's perspective, the logic behind pursuing nuclear capability would be far more straightforward: survival. And the same logic may drive other regimes across the world to ensure their survival as well. 

The argument was articulated years ago by analyst Dilip Hiro, who described the strategic lesson Iranian leaders drew from the early 2000s. With Saddam Hussein's regime overthrown in Iraq while North Korea advanced its nuclear arsenal largely unchallenged, Tehran saw a stark pattern emerging.

"With Saddam's regime destroyed and North Korea armed and dangerous, Iran was the member of that 'axis' left exposed to the prospect of regime change," Hiro observed, "From the perspective of Iranian leaders, abandoning uranium enrichment under Western pressure would mean abandoning the pathway to nuclear capability altogether." 

He said, "The only effective way to deter Washington from overthrowing their regime is by developing — or, at least, threatening to develop — nuclear weaponry. Little wonder that they consider giving up the right to enrich uranium tantamount to giving up the right to protect their regime."

This interpretation is not confined to Iranian strategists only. Israel's leading military historian, Martin van Creveld, once offered a remarkably blunt assessment of the strategic logic facing Tehran. Even if Iran were pursuing nuclear weapons, he argued, Israel might not be the primary driver of that decision.

"Iran is now surrounded by American forces on all sides — in the Central Asian republics to the north, Afghanistan to the east, the Gulf to the south and Iraq to the west," van Creveld noted, "Wherever American power is projected, nuclear capability follows. The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all," he added. "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."

Since the Iranians, for one reason or another, did not make the bomb (yet), they may indeed be called crazy in van Creveld's words. However, we have seen this pattern emerge in North Korea, where nuclear arms ensure regime survival, and in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine that the cost of giving up its nuclear ambition means not only the collapse of the regime, but also the collapse of sovereignty itself. 

So as military pressure on Iran intensifies, the broader strategic question becomes unavoidable: In the contemporary international system, are nuclear weapons the ultimate safeguard for regime survival? Are we witnessing the dawn of another nuclear arms race? 

Nuclear weapons and strategic immunity

Few cases illustrate the regime-survival logic of nuclear weapons as clearly as North Korea.

For decades, Pyongyang has been among the most isolated regimes in the world, subject to crippling sanctions and repeated diplomatic pressure to dismantle its nuclear programme. Yet despite these constraints, the Kim dynasty remains firmly entrenched.

North Korea's strategic behaviour reflects a simple calculation: nuclear weapons are the only credible guarantee against external regime change.

And they are not the only example to frame nuclear weapons as the ultimate security guarantee. The same logic is evident among established nuclear powers.

Israel, which maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity, has long relied on its undeclared arsenal as the final layer of national defence. 

Russia offers another example. Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, the Kremlin has repeatedly signalled its willingness to consider nuclear escalation if the survival of the Russian state or the regime itself is threatened. These warnings serve a strategic purpose: they constrain the actions of NATO and prevent the conflict from escalating into direct great-power confrontation.

In practice, nuclear weapons create a powerful deterrent not only against invasion but also against coercive regime change, something many regimes are concerned about after the recent intervention in Venezuela. 

The fate of non-nuclear regimes

The strategic contrast becomes clearer when examining regimes that lacked nuclear deterrents.

Iraq, Libya, and Syria each attempted at various points to develop nuclear capabilities. Yet none succeeded in building an operational arsenal.

In Iraq's case, the nuclear programme was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in 1981 and dismantled further through United Nations inspections during the 1990s. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the justification rested on the claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction — a claim later proven false.

Libya's experience proved equally instructive. After abandoning its nuclear programme in 2003, the regime lost its ultimate deterrent. Less than a decade later, it collapsed under external intervention.

Syria's suspected nuclear reactor was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in 2007 before it could become operational.

In each case, the absence of nuclear deterrence left regimes vulnerable to external pressure and, ultimately, to regime collapse.

Ukraine provides another cautionary example. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kyiv inherited the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to surrender these weapons under the Budapest Memorandum in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Yet in 2014 Russia annexed Crimea, and in 2022 it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The episode has reignited debates over whether Kyiv's decision to relinquish its nuclear arsenal left the country strategically exposed. And when the Russian invasion finally happened, Ukraine was the one who had to pay the price. 

Deterrence in South Asia

The stabilising effects of nuclear deterrence can also be observed in South Asia.

India and Pakistan fought multiple wars in the decades following their independence. Yet since both countries conducted nuclear tests in 1998, large-scale conventional war between them has become increasingly unlikely.

Despite repeated crises, most notably the Kargil conflict in 1999 and subsequent military standoffs as late as May 2025, both states have demonstrated caution in avoiding escalation that could cross the nuclear threshold. 

The presence of nuclear weapons has therefore imposed a degree of strategic restraint on both sides.

Iran's strategic calculation

Against this backdrop, Iran's nuclear ambitions appear less surprising. Should the regime survive the ongoing attack, we should not be surprised if Iran indeed ends up developing nuclear weapons. 

From Tehran's perspective, the strategic environment is defined by several existential threats. The United States maintains extensive military capabilities across the Persian Gulf. Israel retains an apparent long-standing nuclear monopoly in the region. And recent decades have seen multiple Western interventions against regimes perceived as hostile.

The destruction of Iraq's regime in 2003 and Libya's collapse in 2011 reinforced the perception that states lacking nuclear deterrents remain vulnerable. And they are vulnerable themselves. After the 12-days War and the recent attacks, Iranians would not be wrong to assess that possessing nuclear weapons would have prevented such attacks. 

The main argument against developing nuclear weapons has been the fatwa of late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a speech the day after the 20 March 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Khamenei said, "We don't want a nuclear bomb. We are even opposed to having chemical weapons… These things don't agree with our principles." 

However, with him gone and the regime's survival at stake, that fatwa may be reinterpreted in accord with the needs of time. Even limited progress toward nuclear weapons capability can strengthen deterrence. Iran already possesses advanced enrichment technology and stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, which could potentially be further refined into weapons-grade material.

Military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities have set back the programme but may also have strengthened the regime's belief that nuclear weapons are necessary to deter future attacks. From the Iranian leadership's perspective, the logic is therefore clear: nuclear capability provides strategic insurance.

Should the regime survive the ongoing attack, we should not be surprised if Iran indeed ends up developing nuclear weapons. Photo: Collected

The return of the nuclear arms race

These dynamics are unfolding at a moment when the global nuclear order is undergoing profound change. For decades, international institutions such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and arms-control agreements between major powers helped limit the spread of nuclear weapons. Yet these mechanisms are increasingly under strain.

Relations among the major nuclear powers have deteriorated significantly. China is rapidly expanding and modernising its nuclear arsenal, with projections suggesting it could deploy around 1,000 warheads by 2030.

At the same time, the last major arms-control agreement between the United States and Russia is approaching expiration, raising concerns about a new era of strategic competition.

Meanwhile, North Korea continues to expand its nuclear capabilities, and nuclear threats have re-entered geopolitical discourse during the war in Ukraine.

The proliferation paradox

Ironically, efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation may sometimes contribute to it. Given the current anarchy across the world, we can safely say that nuclear weapons are back on the menu, and they will remain central to global security for decades to come.

And for policymakers and governments of countries located in vulnerable regions or under security threat, the challenge is profound. Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons requires credible security guarantees, effective diplomacy, and renewed commitment to international arms-control frameworks. 

Without such efforts, the logic of deterrence may continue to push additional states toward the nuclear threshold. And if that happens, the ultimate lesson of the nuclear age may become increasingly difficult to ignore — in a world defined by power politics, the nuclear bomb is still widely seen as the ultimate insurance policy for regime survival. 

Shadique Mahbub Islam is a journalist.