Do nuclear weapons make a country safer?

Does acquiring nuclear weapons make your country safer? It’s a difficult question. On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer looks back to the 1990s and a tale of two radically different nuclear—Ukraine and North Korea.

Ukraine inherited the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal after the Soviet collapse. They gave them up in 1994 in exchange for security assurances from the US, UK and Russia. But assurances aren't guarantees, and a decade later, Russia illegally annexed Crimea before launching its full-scale invasion in 2022. Meanwhile, North Korea abandoned diplomacy, pursued nuclear weapons, and lied to the world all along. Now it’s a global pariah, but the uncomfortable truth is nobody’s thinking of invading North Korea. So did Kyiv get played? Did Pyongyang make a smarter move? The contrast between Ukraine’s vulnerability and North Korea’s impunity seems stark. But the story is more complicated. Building nuclear weapons is a gamble, not a strategy. Watch Ian Explains to understand why and what it means for the growing nuclear threat in 2025.