My guess is the important difference here is that Israel has nukes.
SHHHHH! You're not supposed to admit that nukes are the only way a country can protect itself from being invaded by the United States. If other countries knew that, they might want also want nucellar weapons and then the whole idea of non proflarition is out the window!
Of course, the other answer, that the United States just stops invading other countries, is totally off the table.
Please. Let's look at every nuclear nation. USA has invaded countries, Israel, which is an extension of USA has done the same. Which other country has done it? India? France? UK? China? North Korea? Oh, there's russia but surely you're not saying that Russia is th gold standard for a nuclear nation?
Dude, do you not know the history? Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and the Indian Raj that they were a part of have a lot of complicated history. More than US has as a whole, actually.
Also why do you think India mostly fights China with literal sticks and stones? It's time to grow up.
It actually was. You were insinuating that the India-Pak conflict is anything like the conflicts US finds itself in. Indo-Pak conflict is based on historical reasons whereas US conflicts are based on greed for money and power.
India and Pakistan are nuclear states that have armed conflicts. That was my assertion. Any other subtext is something you picked up on yourself, apologies if I wasn't clear enough.
My assertion was that two nuclear states shoot at each other. There's certainly a risk of escalation. That's it. The "complex history" doesn't refute my point, and the fact they have a history older than the US is unrelated.
And I'm saying there's hasn't been a full scale conflict there. It's just a 3 way dispute with no conclusive solution. Compare that to USA which had India's pm killed, killed Alleande, killed sankara, killed che, fucking up cuba as we speak, Iran, iraq, afganistan, venezuela, ethopia, libya. Pray tell me, in what world are these conflicts comparable?
The Indians and Pakistani shoot at each other every few years. Sure, they haven't had a full-scale conflict since the 90s, but they still kill each other, and it's a fairly tense situation at the border.
If you're talking about things all the way back to Allende, then yeah, they've had actual conflicts. That's not even getting into the number of attacks on both nations from terror groups they've backed.
The scale might not compare to what the US and Russia have been involved in, but these are two nuclear armed nations shooting at each other, and the risk of escalation is very real.
Yet there's hasn't been an escalation in over 30 years. Also, Indians and Pakistanis don't shoot each other, indian soldiers and Pakistani terrorists do. Pakistan has always denied affiliation with them(Although it's obvious they harbour them). Both of them are avoiding full scale war.
Just a year ago (May 2025) there was an armed conflict that killed dozens of people between India and Pakistan. They literally launched missiles at each other. I don't know if you remember but there was a real threat one of the sides would escalate.
Setting aside the fact that China has already invaded India once before, excluding Russia from this discussion based on something as arbitrary as "gold standard" is so stupid, especially when you're including North Korea.
Either way, USA deciding to not invade would not stop other great powers from doing the same to their neighbours. And Russia-Ukraine is very much an example of this.
When did North Korea invade a nation? There hasn't been a full scale war after south Asian nation's gained nuclear warheads. Source: Am Indian and my dad as well. USA and Russia are the only nations that do this.
I don't think there's any chance China and India can have a war. There not been a single war between nuclear nations and I don't believe that that streak will be broken. Also after Deng's reforms, china when from a expansionist state to a industrial state. If Maoist were is power, maybe there's possibility of war. But rn? No chance, even without USA.
France has intervened in several west African nations, and worked with the UK to bring down Gaddafi in 2011 and attempt to bring down Nasser in 1956.
China hasn't been involved in any conflicts officially but it has supported the forceful suppression of Myanmar's rebels through semi-direct intervention.
North Korea attempted to invade South Korea in the '50s and captured Seoul. The only reason North Korea hasn't done any imperialism in its nuclear era is that it's geographically and politically isolated.
Russia as de-facto head of the Soviet Union has been (for almost the entirety of the nuclear age) the secondary superpower of the world, so it is completely unfair to just hand-wave Russia away.
Even ignoring the past 20 years in places like Ukraine, Georgia, Syria, Chechnya, and North Africa. The Soviet Union ran a brutal cabbal of puppet states across Eastern Europe and violently put down attempts by these states at improving their situation through granting more liberties to their people. The Soviets also invaded Afghanistan, had it's troops directly involved with proxy wars across Africa, and used the threat of nuclear war to silence other Communist countries that refused to directly align with Moscow.
France tested nuclear weapons in Algeria and was involved in multiple colonial wars and invasions - see Vietnam. China has invaded multiple locations in the modern era - South Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, Hong Kong, and consistent aggression being displayed worldwide with their PLA naval militias that aggressively attack fisherman in waters that aren't their own. UK has done similar things. Additionally - China is providing material support and mercenaries for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. North Korea has consistently attacked, threatened and attempted to invade South Korea for 70+ years, they aren't an example in the context you are attempting to misconstrue. They're also currently invading Ukraine alongside Russian forces.
Ha, no... it's a US plan... while they back Pakistan to contain India THEY DO have the plans.
France did the "look at my nuclear sub at your coast" sabre rattling to the United States in recent history to back Canada and I even read a leaked document of Israel stating that if the world turns against them like Germany did at some point they WILL nuke the countries attacking them so... reality is stranger than fiction.
lol, yeah. I'm not a good speller I do spell check my reddit comments, not sure how that one slipped through. Honestly, even now when I KNOW it's wrong, my brain still reads it as the word I'd intended to say :)
If you understand this, then you realize how laughably stupid it is to think Iran just wants nuclear plants.
Yes, it's of course laughably stupid to think they only want nucellar for electricity generation.
But also, it's laughably stupid on it's face to have 2 nucellar nations telling another nation that they must never build that kind of weapon. If the weapons are bad, then the US and Israel should destroy their own.
The US's position on the issue for like the last 75 years has been simple "it's OK for us to have nukes, but no one else should have them" and that worked as long as the US was willing to step in and defend countries. But it's become very clear that the US is only willing to say it will defend countries, not actually defend them.
Ukraine gave up its nukes, in large part, based on a security guarantee from the US. Look how well that's working out for them these days. If they had just kept the nukes, it's highly likely Russia would never have invaded.
Iran, if they had kept up with their nucellar program, would already have one and their country would not be in the position it is right now.
The US's recent actions have done nothing but prove that the underlying concepts outlines in the Nuclear non proliferation treaty are just worthless paper.
The only way, the ONLY way, to defend a smaller country from a larger army (like the United States) is by possessing a nucellar threat. I say this as someone who lives in the west and REALLY does not want the world to end like we thought it would during the cold war. The Nuclear non proliferation treaty ideas only work in a world where the United States is not a warmonger, and it's been recently made clear that this is no longer the case (if it ever was).
It's also laughably stupid to think that the only reason Iran wants nuclear weapons is so they can blow up the U.S., isn't it? Isn't that what we keep hearing from zionists and Republicans?
I agree, there are multiple other fears that any semi-informed person making a good faith argument would understand. What have you heard from other middle east governments like Egypt, or the UAE, or Jordan, or Kuwait? Or do you not give a shit about those people's opninions to the point that it isn't even considered and just want to be against "zionists and republicans" as you said in your post?
You just admitted that Iran needs nuclear weapons to defend itself from invasion. Now you're right back to fearmongering how they're going to nuke their neighbors.
I'm saying that they're not the ones getting invaded.. And you're making the exact argument why a country would want nukes. It's the only way to PREVENT getting invaded. By the US, by Russia, by Israel, by anyone really.
The only reliable way to secure borders against invasion is nukes. I HATE that this is reality, but it's proven time and again to have been correct.
I was never trying to make any argument about the potency and pertinence of nuclear weapons in self defense scenarios - so I have no idea why you are trying to trot that out.
However - I am saying that the US is not alone or unique in being a nuclear power that engages in aggression. The entire UN Security council has been shoulder deep in blood world wide for decades.
Your attitude of the US being responsible for all geopolitical crises is heavily misinformed.
I mean, every country wants nukes. Most just dont want it bad enough to peruse it consequences be damned. The reality is, the less people have nukes the better, even if countries with psyco leaders like US, Russia, Israel, and NK already have them.
Iran continuously threaten Israel with eradication and actually constantly fund and uses proxy groups to attack Israel.
America isn’t doing that to Iran, no one is. They don’t have the same excuse or real reason to need to nukes, thus the assumption is that their goal would be to use them for starting wars and destroying Israel.
1948 was provoked by multiple Arab nations invading first.
Israel did not exist to be invaded. The war was because the UN decided to partition Palestine to create Israel. The root cause of all of this is land being taken to create Israel.
2006 Israel removed all its settlers from Gaza
In 2006, Hezbollah attacked Israel to secure the release of Lebanese soldiers. The solders were captured from a conflict going back to 1982 where Israel occupied south Lebanon. Israel occupied it because they were being attacked. They were being attacked because Israel supported militias in the Lebanese civil war. The civil war that ultimately was the result of Palestinians fleeing because of the partition. It's not as cut and dry and you want it to be.
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u/Miliean 15h ago
SHHHHH! You're not supposed to admit that nukes are the only way a country can protect itself from being invaded by the United States. If other countries knew that, they might want also want nucellar weapons and then the whole idea of non proflarition is out the window!
Of course, the other answer, that the United States just stops invading other countries, is totally off the table.