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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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I can't think of any example where a nuclear-armed nation has deliberately aided a non-armed nation's nuclear weapons development programs

My understanding is that Pakistan is widely considered to be the Saudis nuclear weapons program, and there's decent reason to believe Israel assisted with South Africa's development of nuclear weapons.

Pakistan

Note that the Saudis aren't a nuclear-armed nation for the purposes of the claim. That they're being funded to do so as a proxy for a non-nuclear power seems to be relevant to the discussion, but they aren't in the "nuclear club".

South Africa

This is a better example, but nobody has ever clarified what the specific "assistance" was: was Israel a nuclear-armed nation at the time, or was it a joint project to become such. I'd point to the US-UK cooperation in the Manhattan Project as perhaps an Ur-example of my claim: it was a joint project through the end of the war, but as soon as the Americans had the bomb, the British found it wasn't quite so "joint" anymore, and had to mostly redevelop it on their own.

Yes, good points all, and particularly to the US-UK cooperation.