Nuclear Permissions: Who Decides Who Gets to Be Scary

Nuclear Permissions: Who Decides Who Gets to Be Scary?

Israel has nuclear weapons. Iran cannot have them. Why?

Power Preservation, Not Security

Nuclear permissions aren’t about safety—they’re about maintaining 1940s hierarchies. Five countries that developed bombs first declared themselves permanent guardians. Everyone else needs permission.

The evidence:

• Israel: developed secretly, no consequences
• Iran: international oversight, faces sanctions
• North Korea: defied rules, won acceptance
• Pakistan/India: ignored treaties, got approval later

This isn’t security policy. It’s institutionalized favoritism that creates the instability it claims to prevent.

Iran’s nuclear pursuit is the rational response to Israeli nuclear monopoly. Any population facing existential disadvantage will seek equivalent deterrence. We’ve created a system that generates the very proliferation it opposes.

The Scholarly Question: Why Accept Arrangements That Guarantee Insecurity?

Game theory demonstrates asymmetric security arrangements incentivize defection. When one party has overwhelming advantage, cooperation becomes irrational for the disadvantaged.

Social psychology (Milgram, Zimbardo) shows how artificial authority structures generate compliance that contradicts moral intuition. People accept obviously unfair nuclear arrangements because “institutions” legitimize them.

Anthropological conflict studies prove sustainable peace requires perceived fairness. Nuclear permissions violate this fundamentally—permanent security for some, perpetual vulnerability for others.

Applied Golden Rule test: Would any nuclear power accept others determining their security capabilities? No. Yet this is exactly what the system demands.

We’ve substituted power preservation for peace promotion, then wonder why harmony remains elusive.

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From our proxy failure investigation.