Across the Nuclear Rubicon: The Quest for Nukes - Tracing the Origins & Raisons d'être of the Nuclear Weapons Programs of the World's 9 Nuclear Armed States

"Might a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings - nay to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke?" – Winston Churchill, the former British Prime Minister (and a huge fan of science fiction author H.G. Wells who first conceived the idea of atomic bomb in his 1914 novel, 'The World Set Free') in an article in 1924.

The pursuit of efforts to harness & weaponize the massive power of the atom clearly had European roots & underpinnings dating back to the discovery of radioactivity itself in the late 19th century, much like the advancement of warfare concepts and weapons technologies historically. However, the Nazi Germany's virtual head start with the world's first successful nuclear fission reaction in 1938, amid gathering war clouds over Europe, ensured that for the Western allies, America & Great Britain, the need to build the atomic bomb was clearly existential in nature and about survival against a tyrannical regime, which had already developed the world's first short range ballistic missile system, the V2 rocket; while looking to subjugate the entire world to its military might.

However, the end of Hitler and the Nazi regime in Europe and the success of Trinity and the unprecedented devastation of Hiroshima & Nagasaki effectively unleashed the atomic age for mankind as the Pandora's Nuclear Box had virtually been opened forever and the nuclear genie set free, which even Einstein himself regretted later.

The American monopoly on the A-Bomb, however, was ephemeral & short-lived, as the Soviet Union, too, quickly crossed the Nuclear Rubicon within less than half a decade with Stalin almost desperate to achieve nuclear parity with the U.S. in the quest for global dominance and overall power dynamics.

America's nuclear isolation and distancing from its traditional Euroepan allies post WW2, especially the U.K., and its unabashed nuclear saber-rattling with the creation of a massive retaliation nuclear doctrine and persistent nuclear bullying & threats against non-nuclear powers during the Eisenhower-era, inadvertently ensured further, subsequent nuclear proliferation to Europe and Asia.

Subsequently, multiple nations joined the nuclear bandwagon, with some doing it for the coveted, great power status on the world stage in the grand scheme of geopolitical power-plays; while some others did so simply for establishing parity with their already nuclear neighbours, in the name of nuclear deterrence, and some, simply did it for existential reasons, i.e., to ensure survival on the world map amid threats from great, nuclear armed states.

This is the story of the quest for nuclear weapons globally and it unravels the rationales & raisons d'êtres behind the decisions by the world's all 9 nuclear weapons armed states (P5+4) to cross the Nuclear Rubicon and develop their respective nuclear weapons cum deterrents and delivery systems subsequently...