After the USA had destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs and other countries (UK,France, USSR etc.) had acquired those weapons, it became clear they couldn’t be used in wars. That resulted in the M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine: an attack was to be followed by retaliation from which no recovery was possible. The USA however tried to circumvent that (Reagan’s star wars and the present anti-missile programs).

Fact is that a French president, general de Gaulle, once remarked “No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.” (New York Times Magazine (12 May 1968)).

Any country with resources coveted by NATO countries would be irresponsible to its citizens, when not having a nuclear deterrent – see what happened to Iraq, Libya.