Andrew cites James Fearon’s finding that nuclear-armed states becomes less aggressive internationally than they were before they acquired nuclear weapons, which is consistent with what Kenneth Waltz has said on the subject before:

Every country that has had nuclear weapons has behaved moderately. If you think of the Soviet Union and China, both behaved much more radically before they had nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, Andrew’s post has the title, “Would a Nuclear Iran Start More Wars?” While I understand it is not the intent of the post, this creates the impression that Iran has been in the business of starting international wars before now, and that isn’t the case. In order to believe in a crazed first-strike-launching Iranian government, one would need to account for how a very cautious regime interested above all in self-preservation would become much more aggressive and reckless once it acquired a nuclear weapon. Advocates of preventive war need to be able to argue that Iran’s government is demonstrably more reckless than the USSR or Maoist China when they were at their most confrontational, and the evidence isn’t there.