Nuclear Teeth or Colonial Leash
John Mearsheimer’s view on nuclear deterrence is blunt. And he is absolutely right. He argues that in a world dominated by military powers, small or regional states without nuclear weapons leave themselves open to destruction. Iran, in his analysis, faces a clear strategic choice of either arming itself to the teeth or be attacked. This pattern is familiar, and nothing new to see here. The US has regime changed more than 50 countries to date since WWII.
Iraq gave up its nuclear program. It was invaded, ransacked, destroyed, and it’s leader hanged . Libya gave up its weapons program. It was bombed back to the stone ages and its leadership killed. Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in the 1990s. It lost territory and was invaded. These are not coincidences. They form a pattern Mearsheimer points to as proof that disarmament invites disaster.
North Korea chose another path. There was no messing about, they built and tested nuclear weapons. They have preserved themselves, remain isolated but intact. The United States talks tough but hasn’t invaded. That, Mearsheimer argues, is the power of deterrence in action.
He doesn’t justify these realities, but describes them with clarity and facts. In his view, nuclear weapons are the only reliable defense against foreign intervention in an international system where laws and treaties are weak, and force still rules.
Iran has watched this pattern for decades. Its leaders likely see what happened to others who trusted the West. Mearsheimer believes they understand the lesson. Nuclear weapons are not just a symbol of power, as they are the ultimate shield against being overrun or dismantled.
He is very blunt and does not make moral appeals, sticks to a honest, strategic and unadorned point. In an anarchic international order, survival comes first. For states that find themselves in Washington’s crosshairs, the lesson is you either with them or cannon fodder. There shouldn’t any doubts about this, If you want to live, if you want to survive the bullies, the gangsters, the mafioso, you arm yourself. If you disarm, you die, you are breakfast.
So, John Mearsheimer’s core argument, is that in an anarchic world, only power guarantees survival. This applies to Africa with painful clarity. What’s there not to understand? If you don’t have nuclear weapons, your sovereignty depends on the whims of stronger states. Ask Libya. When Gaddafi was fooled to give up his weapons program. He was first praised, buttered on both sides, then bombed, and killed. A thriving country with free healthcare, free education, low cost of living, using its resources for the benefit of its citizens was destroyed. And you can also the Iraquis. Saddam was hanged after weapons he didn’t even have became the excuse for invasion.
(Zimbabwe’s Globalist Order Puppets)
The same logic applies to Africa’s so-called internal affairs. In 2017, Zimbabwe’s government was flipped in a coup disguised as a “resignation.” The man who took over, Mnangagwa, was no outsider. He was part of Mugabe’s inner circle, who knew the security architecture of Zimbabwe in and out. But unlike Mugabe, he was a known quantity to Western capitals, especially London. The British Foreign Office celebrated his rise. That coup unbenkown to the citizens, wasn’t a people’s revolution. The seamless operation was a palace switch pushed from the outside and dressed up for the media. Mugabe had long outlived his usefulness to the global order. The replacement was smoother, quieter, and friendlier to foreign interests.
(Shamelessly selling their people in 2025)
Yet across the continent, leaders still cling to the idea that outside powers can offer security guarantees. They go to Washington, Brussels, London, and Paris asking for support, investment, military partnerships. Everyone in Zimbabwe’s political leadership is back parading themselves with the British Establishment, without shame. Puppetry of the highest order on display. But Mearsheimer’s law doesn’t change. No nukes means no real independence. You’re asking wolves to guard your sheep.
North Korea, on the other hand, barely trades, barely travels, and barely speaks. But it sleeps. No one invades. No one drops bombs. Because it has what matters: a credible threat. One that can’t be ignored, and has costs that are too much to challenge.
Africa has brains and resources. What it doesn’t have is deterrence, why, because their revolutions were infiltrated, hijacked, turned into an illusion of independence and liberation that never was. Until that changes, the continent stays open season. Zimbabwe is a prime example of the failure to decouple and to decolonise. Back in the imperialist’s fols, not as a partners, nor as equals. Just a client, a pawn, and a target for extraction.
(Penuel The Black Pen sit down with Mpho Dagada)
Before handing power to the most celebrated puppet, Nelson Mandela, and the ANC in 1994, the apartheid regime in South Africa dismantled its nuclear arsenal. Of course this had nothing to do with goodwill or commitment to disarmament. The white power structure did not want a black-majority government to control nuclear weapons. They wanted to make sure that once political power changed hands, military power, especially the kind that could challenge global dominance, was off the table.
Six nuclear warheads had been built in secret with the help of Israeli and Western technical cooperation. As the end of apartheid approached, those warheads were dismantled, the program buried, and the facilities shut down. The documents were classified. There was no chance of a black African controlling nuclear weapons , post-apartheid South Africa would be free in name, but not in force.
It was a controlled handover that allowed the illusion of political liberation. Strategic power was not handed over. What has remained of South Africa is a model post-colony, celebrated abroad, pacified at home, and fully under the watch of the same powers that once backed the regime it replaced.
In this dog eat dog world, survival is earned. And until Africa goes nuclear, it survives on the whims of others. It’s exposed.
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