Nuclear deal

UPenn lists them as one of the top security think tanks. I already noted that they are frequently used as sources for top news sources, and collaborate with top universities in International and Govermental studies.

When I asked if that doesn't qualify as experts then who would, you said you could provide equally credentialled sources who say the opposite.

If you want additional sources that are non-SIPRI:

Reuters/ Jane's Intelligence: www.reuters.com/article/us-india-nuclear/india-nuke-enrichment-plant-expansion-operational-in-2015-ihs-idUSKBN0EV0JN20140620

Carnegie Endowment: carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/30/pakistan-s-nuclear-force-structure-in-2025-pub-63912

Science Advances: advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/10/eaay5478#:~:text=As%20shown%20in%20Fig.,1%2C%203%E2%80%935).&text=Pakistan%20is%20developing%20capabilities%20for%20sea%2Dbased%20nuclear%20weapons.

If these aren't good, let me know and I'll find more. It's a pretty well accepted fact among proliferation experts.

Thanks, @NaturalBornTraveller

@chummer
Admittedly, I don't have a list of "think tanks" available, but I know that they are there. (Maybe not in Danish or English language, but they are there.)
Most think tanks are heavily political (that's where they get their money)

Link 1 is from 2014. (It's an old article, and I like Reuters, but this is old, and not valid to the current political system)
Link 2 is from 2016 and states in one point "alarmists estimate that by 2025" (I stopped reading the link after this. This isn't objective journalism, this is speculation)
Link 3 (a lot of words such as "may", "perhaps" and "assumed are used") I might read this article again, but my first impression, is that is it just a "case of scenario".

But still, I beg to question #12.
Are those countries increasing their nuclear arsenal?

1. It is an inefficient weapon?
2. More lethal, and destructive weapon technology are around?
3. Too expensive to manufacture. (Drones and bombs are cheaper.)
4. Those countries, knows that global warming is a serious thread.

I think NaturalBornTraveller is conflating nuclear weapons with nuclear energy. Some argue nuclear power plants are obsolete or at least not the future of energy production.
Nuclear weapons are a different story though. They continue to be the most powerful deterrent and destructive force known to mankind. So naturally any country would love to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons, but obviously the countries that already have them don't want any new club members. Whether you're Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Australia or South Korea, if you try to develop nuclear weapons you will make a swarm of enemies.

But Iran is different, it was already a pariah state with limited economic ties with the west. The political situation inside Iran is a mixture of Saudi Arabia/North Korea/ Venezuela, and the dominant political faction believes in pursuing nuclear weapons at all costs. They advocate a North Korean model, total suppression of freedoms, a state of constant conflict with neighbor countries, absolute reliance on China and Russia to provide the bare minimums for the citizens, and nuclear weapons that ensure the country will never be attacked directly.

The nuclear deal recognizes that there's another faction in Iran that advocates a different model, which is closer to that of many Arab states: Iran would still be an Islamic dictatorship but with normalized relations or at least reduced tensions with the west and no nuclear weapons.

@wvwvwvw on the contrary, I believe nuclear weapons are a thing of the past.
Nuclear energy might (possible?) be the current, cleanest form of sustainable power resource that we have?

I disagree with the rest of #23. Why do you compare Iran with any of those countries? They are not the same.

@NaturalBornTraveller So if you were a nuclear state you'd give up all your nuclear weapons and replace them with what exactly? and if you were Armenia, and the world offered you nuclear weapons free of charge, you'd say no thanks?

Huge aircraft carriers are an example of something that is becoming obsolete or at least they're not very useful for most countries. Many countries would prefer to have advanced missiles and drones instead of huge military ships.

#25 Most countries would prefer to have access to the open sea. Because that's were all the trading happens. Trading = Money

@NaturalBornTraveller If countries were increasing their nuclear stockpiles in 2014, it still goes counter to your argument that there is no value in nuclear weaponry. It'd just be arguing over the details.

I will say again: it's commonly accepted among policy and security experts that those four countries are increasing their nuclear arsenals. I don't know any that have said those four countries are reducing their arsenals.

If you want more sources:
fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/
www.hoover.org/research/troubled-transition-emerging-nuclear-forces-india-and-pakistan

And it's troubling to every non-proliferation expert out there. India, Pakistan and China have border disputes with one another. All three countries have had violent skirmishes with at least one of those other two; India and Pakistan have mobilized troops at the border not that long ago, and had open combat against one another a little more than 20 years ago.

Nuclear weapons are sought for many reasons. In particular. I refer to the following passage from Hoover's:

Finally, India’s approach to nuclear weapons is still fundamentally conservative. Viewing nuclear weapons mainly as political instruments for deterring blackmail and an adversary’s nuclear use, New Delhi treats its strategic capabilities primarily as instruments of dissuasion. As a result, it has concentrated on building secure second-strike reserves against both Pakistan and China, and at a slower rate than both. While India possesses a large inventory of weapon-grade and reactor-grade plutonium, these resources have not been used to build the largest weapon stockpile that India is capable of. Pakistan, in contrast, views its nuclear weapons far more expansively: they serve to deter threats and/or nuclear and conventional attacks by India (and increasingly the United States); they also function as military instruments of war at the tactical and operational levels, mainly to threaten escalation to strategic levels in order to force war termination after a conventional conflict has already begun; and, most problematically, they finally serve as a license for pursuing sub-conventional conflicts against India through the use of terrorist proxies on the assumption that the pervasive threat of Pakistani nuclear use would prevent any meaningful military retaliation by New Delhi, while at the same time functioning as instruments for catalyzing international intervention to pressure India should Pakistan’s expectations about New Delhi’s restraint prove to be fallacious.7 Consequently, Pakistan has concentrated on enlarging its inventory of both highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium and using both to build the largest and most diverse stockpile of nuclear weapons that Pakistan is capable of, although this effort—just like its Indian counterpart—is riddled with the usual inefficiencies that are endemic to South Asia.

In any event, the strong belief in India and Pakistan (and in China) that they are still some ways from achieving the kind of nuclear capabilities required to protect their national interests ensures that all three states will likely continue to expand their nuclear arsenals for many years to come, even if the other established nuclear powers continue to pursue progressive reductions in stockpile size in the interim.

to make a big nuclear soda for Godzilla to charge up his atomic breath

In general, I think Iran will continue to build weapons of mass destruction.

idk