> that most countries that want to become nuclear powers aren't able to do it
How do you know this?
The thing is that most countries don’t want to become nuclear powers because there is a carefully setup and maintained set of incentives against it. This involves both carrots (you get good things if you don’t want nukes) and sticks (bad things happen to you if you do want nukes).
This set of incentives failed a few times and that is how we got nuclear proliferation. Almost everyone who wanted nukes enough despite this set of incentives were able to do it.
I can't know for sure of course. But it seems reasonable to me to think that at least most of the dictators would want to have nukes to keep their hold on power. And there are many.
The problem is that many things are correlated. The possibility that one has the capacity (in all its forms) to achieve such a project while at the same time harboring such socially hostile goals is like zero.
The calculus is not simply 95% brain drain so 5% not drain so 5% will behave in this way. There is correlation between being in each group.
I have the same optimistic belief as you, but I wonder if the world really works like that. Meta employees (who are by definition smart enough to get the job) haven't all quit after reading the studies that show that Instagram usage results in teen depression and suicides.
Or perhaps that supports your point. The smart people with fluid morality are vacuumed up by the Metas of the world, leaving none that would build a nuke for a third world dictator.
