The National Interest - The Next Wave of Nuclear Proliferation? October 14, 2025 By: Andreas Umland

 The National Interest 

The Next Wave of Nuclear Proliferation?

October 14, 2025

By: Andreas Umland

For smaller powers, the Russia-Ukraine War’s lesson may be that their security will depend on nuclear deterrence.

The expansionist ambitions of the three most powerful countries in the world—China, the United States, and Russia—are undermining the current world order. Since its founding, the People’s Republic has expressed interest in Taiwan; Beijing may now be on the verge of attempting to conquer the island. Somewhat less seriously, in January, the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump announced his intention to incorporate Canada and Greenland into the United States.

The most consequential driver of the erosion of the post-war order over the past eleven years is Russian behavior. Since 2014, Moscow has launched a campaign of land grabbing and, since 2022, an invasion with genocidal characteristics on Ukrainian territory. As a former Soviet republic, Ukraine was a founding member of the UN in 1945. It has been an official non-nuclear-weapon state under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since 1996.

For over three years, politicians and strategists from other revanchist powers have observed the course of Russia’s attack and gauged the reactions of other states and international organizations. Relatively weaker countries are learning from Ukraine’s experience that they cannot rely on international law, organizations, and solidarity, and they should not make the mistake, as Kyiv did, of trusting “security assurances,” “guarantees,” “friendship treaties,” “strategic partnerships,” and the like. Such agreements are of little significance, as demonstrated by the irrelevance of Ukraine’s respective agreements with Russia (1994, 1997), China (2013), and the United States (1994, 2008).

The standard solution to the security dilemma of smaller powers is to join defensive alliances, ideally ones that include at least one nuclear-weapon state. But as Tbilisi and Kyiv, among others, have learned the hard way, gaining full membership in a powerful defence alliance is neither easy nor risk-free. In response to Georgia and Ukraine’s applications for NATO membership in April 2008, the alliance told them that they would “become members.”

What followed, however, was neither their accession to NATO nor the start of a process of admission to the alliance, the Membership Action Plan (MAP). Instead, Georgia has been dismembered by Russia since 2008 and Ukraine since February 2014. The only consolation for the two countries may be that Moldova, also a post-Soviet republic, but a constitutionally neutral state with no ambitions to join NATO, has also been dismembered by Russia for more than 30 years. The fate of Finland, which has a long border with Russia, serves as a counterexample: Unlike Georgia and Ukraine, Finland successfully initiated a NATO accession process in 2022, culminating in its accession in 2023.

The examples of Finland and Moldova show that a former Russian colony’s intention to join NATO is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for a Russian invasion. All other things being equal, Georgia and Ukraine would probably have become targets of Russian expansionism, like Moldova, even without an aspiration to join NATO.