I think Pakistan is the example you're looking for.

US spend a decade fighting in Afghanistan and 0 years in Pakistan despite UBL being in Pakistan.

North Korea is another example.

Osama Bin Laden could have turned up outside the White house to hand himself in and they still would have gone into Afghanistan and Iraq.

9/11 was used as an excuse to for these regime change wars. There are old videos where they were talking about doing this in the 2000s.

Well, it’s not really that simple. Plenty of countries are still sovereign without nuclear weapons.

And even nuclear armed nations aren’t exactly able to use their weapons to devastate an opponents military - see Ukraine and Russia.

Thats because they have friends with nukes (or thought they did).

Iran also has friends wit nukes: Russian and China. And China does care: it needs a secure oil supply.

Which country? Do you think Canada is sovereign? Do you think it will be able to defend itself if Trump gives the military an order to make them the 51st state by any means necessary?

Well, Afghanistan defended itself for a bit. As did Vietnam, as clear examples. Neither possess nuclear weapons.

Today countries as various as Brazil and Australia are independent, sovereign nations. Even Ukraine which was invaded by nuclear-armed Russia is still sovereign and fighting. Iran for that matter still has its sovereignty, they just lost some military assets.

Canada is sovereign because of its proximity and interconnection with US. If your economy is large enough, you can "nuke" your opponents by using mutually assured poverty.

But I largely agree, if you aren't a giant economy and you don't have nukes - then if the US or Russia accesses you of building nukes, you need to start building nukes ASAP.

> Do you think Canada is sovereign

Well the prime minister who was elected promising not to bend the knee to Trump has bent the knee to trump.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/06/20/Carney-Elbows-Down/

I was looking forward to an interesting argument, sadly it's just a very badly written opinion piece.

Ok and so now Canada isn’t a sovereign country? That would be astonishing news to Canadians everywhere! Can someone tell them??!

Taiwan has no nukes, and still has not been invaded by China.

Taiwan has a good friend with nukes though.

Most countries have good friends with nukes. Iran included.

Does Iran have friends or are they more like business relationships?

Even despite Trump, I think the US and many western countries have actual friends that would show up if bad things happened.

The US isn't nuking China over Taiwan, and China maintains an explicit "no first use" policy.

TSMC is an economic nuke and not just by accident. The Taiwanese intentionally tried with several industries it heavily subsidized to find one where it could make itself so valuable that other countries (with nukes) would be compelled to protect it (potentially with nukes).

I don't expect this to stay true for very long :(

Next would be manufacturing your own smartphones. Sad that not making weapons and enslaving your own populace makes you subject to external countries.

That is until some country proves that developing nukes means you no longer have a country.

It looks like it might even be Iran.