> proliferation will all lead to an increased likelihood of nuclear war
Again, the unstated implication is that the US has a moral right to shepherd the rest of the world to the correct moral conclusion to this situation. The rest of the world is just too damn ignorant to figure out how to not murder everyone with nukes, so the US has to have the hard job of controlling the nuclear stockpiles of the world. It's tough having that moral high ground, but someone's got to do it.
The fact of the matter is that knowledge cannot be suppressed. The ability to create and operate nuclear weapons is not something that is going to be a controlled secrete for very long - if it is at all. The current policy of the US asserting its power over the rest of the world is only going to ensure that when this knowledge is common, it will most certainly be used to ensure the end of the US power.
There are a few issues with your assumption that, and this is coming from an immigrant of former USSR.
1. It's not the nation-states that posses nuclear weapons that are the most dangerous, it is a possibility of an extremist group getting nuclear weapons. Countries has something to fear, a small criminal/terrorist organization does not.
2. US and Russia has similar nuclear stockpiles, how come economic distribution is different between the two? Nuclear weapons does not make you a "super-power", economy does.
Example: Germany has no nuclear weapons yet are an economic power.
Again, the unstated implication is that the US has a moral right to shepherd the rest of the world to the correct moral conclusion to this situation. The rest of the world is just too damn ignorant to figure out how to not murder everyone with nukes, so the US has to have the hard job of controlling the nuclear stockpiles of the world. It's tough having that moral high ground, but someone's got to do it.
The US has committed crimes of war with nuclear weapons against civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...
The fact of the matter is that knowledge cannot be suppressed. The ability to create and operate nuclear weapons is not something that is going to be a controlled secrete for very long - if it is at all. The current policy of the US asserting its power over the rest of the world is only going to ensure that when this knowledge is common, it will most certainly be used to ensure the end of the US power.