> Does Pakistan has the same geopolitical influence as the US from the atomic bomb? Or France?
Or even the Russian Federation, which may be a better comparison: I think it was only the USA and the USSR (from whom modern Russia inherited all the weapons) who decided to fight over arsenal size well beyond the point of MAD, rather than keep to the cheapest deterrent against a first strike.
That said, IMO the USA's strategic dominance between the end of WW2 and the fall of the USSR was significantly influenced by them having nukes, even though they didn't use them and I think they had more than they needed for mere deterrence — it mattered then more than now.
The US and the USSR were both the biggest economic powers and the biggest industrial powers back then.
If anything, I think nukes actually reduced their strategic dominance because it prevented conventional conflicts because the fear of escalation and they couldn't use it nukes aggressively anyway (the US / China/ USSR love triangle in the 60-70 is a good example of that).
Or even the Russian Federation, which may be a better comparison: I think it was only the USA and the USSR (from whom modern Russia inherited all the weapons) who decided to fight over arsenal size well beyond the point of MAD, rather than keep to the cheapest deterrent against a first strike.
That said, IMO the USA's strategic dominance between the end of WW2 and the fall of the USSR was significantly influenced by them having nukes, even though they didn't use them and I think they had more than they needed for mere deterrence — it mattered then more than now.