Mr. MICHAEL NACHT (Dean, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley): We maintain a nuclear arsenal to reassure our friends that they are secure and therefore reduce the arguments in their governments that they should themselves have nuclear weapons.
On the positive side, many of the allies of the United States, including Japan and possibly Germany, have not become nuclear powers because the US has pledged to protect them, says Michael Nacht, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.