Countries long sheltered by U.S. security guarantees are quietly moving toward nuclear options as confidence in American protection erodes. Nuclear armament debates have intensified even in Sweden and Germany - nations that seemed permanently anchored in the non-proliferation consensus - while Japan and South Korea explore nuclear-powered submarines as a stepping stone.

The trend is documented by Hal Brands, a Johns Hopkins professor and American Enterprise Institute fellow, in a major essay for Foreign Policy's Spring 2026 issue, as "Hvylya" reports.

Brands places the nuclear question within the broader context of a world where U.S. hegemony is either ending or turning predatory. In a self-help scenario - where all three great powers become aggressive revisionists - nuclear weapons become "the best guarantee of survival" for vulnerable states. The logic is straightforward: if no great power is committed to protecting your sovereignty, you protect it yourself.

The pressure is not hypothetical. Brands notes that worst-case planning has gained currency across multiple continents. Proxy wars are already raging across Libya and the Horn of Africa as several powers chase resources and strategic real estate. New defense partnerships are forming rapidly, such as the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia defense pact signed last year, which has already inflamed Indian anxieties and could drag in other regional players.

Japan's case is particularly revealing. Brands argues that if a relentless Chinese military buildup makes the first island chain - running from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines - indefensible, Tokyo may conclude that nuclear weapons are the only alternative to submission. Ukraine's example reinforces this calculus: it gave up its nuclear arsenal in the 1990s and was invaded three decades later.

The nuclear domino effect underscores a deeper irony in Brands's analysis. The belief that stability is normal and "rampant brutality the exception" is itself a product of decades of U.S. hegemony. Remove that hegemony, and the restraints that kept proliferation in check dissolve with it.

Also read: Carnegie expert explains why Russia's bond with China is now unbreakable.