Priyanka Tiwari
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Suspense crime, Digital Desk : When Iran launched a barrage of over 300 drones and missiles at Israel in April, the world watched as air defense systems, aided by the U.S. and its allies, knocked nearly all of them out of the sky. While the attack failed to cause mass casualties, it may have inflicted a fatal blow on something far more critical to global stability: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
For over 50 years, the world has operated on a fragile but essential "grand bargain" enshrined in the NPT. In simple terms, countries without nuclear weapons promise not to build them. In return, the world's nuclear powers (like the United States) provide a "nuclear umbrella"—a security guarantee that they will protect non-nuclear allies from attack. The core, unwritten rule has always been that a nation without nukes would never dare launch a direct, massive assault on a nuclear-armed state or one under its protection.
Iran’s attack shattered this understanding.
As a non-nuclear state, Iran did the unthinkable: it directly attacked Israel, a nation widely presumed to have nuclear weapons and which enjoys the explicit protection of the United States. The global response, however, was not a powerful retaliation that reinforced the security guarantee. Instead, it was purely defensive. The U.S. helped stop the attack but did not inflict a punitive cost on Iran for launching it.
This has created what analysts are calling the "Iran precedent," and it sends a chilling message to the rest of the world: the NPT's security guarantee is hollow. The promise of protection from the world's superpowers may no longer be reliable.
If you are a country like South Korea, facing a nuclear North Korea, or Taiwan, living under the shadow of China, the lesson from Iran's attack is terrifying. It suggests that you are ultimately on your own. The logical, if dangerous, conclusion many nations may now draw is that the only true security is a home-grown nuclear arsenal.
This single event has dangerously weakened the incentive for countries to remain non-nuclear. It pushes nations like Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey closer to the conclusion that developing their own bombs is a rational act of self-preservation.
The foundation of the NPT wasn't destroyed by a nuclear bomb, but by the flight of conventional missiles and the deafening silence of a meaningful response. The result is a world where the risk of a nuclear arms race—a domino effect of proliferation—is now higher than it has been in decades. The treaty is not officially dead, but it is on life support, and the world has become a much more dangerous place.
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