Not necessarily, but you're positing a world in which the widescale adoption of nuclear power has no effects at all, and I think that's an unreasonable assumption. Right now we don't see it as a big deal to restrict nuclear exports because we see nuclear as some dangerous fringe technology rather than as the default energy source for a 21st century civilization.
No I'm not. I'm saying that if the US went highly nuclear that it does not directly follow that the rest of the world would also. I'm saying it is a bad assumption to make.
> Right now we don't see it as a big deal to restrict nuclear exports
It still is a big deal, but it was even a bigger deal 20-30 years ago (the timeframe we are talking about). As a good example, less than 10 years ago I was working on a project that involved nuclear technologies and a university partner. I was not allowed to talk specifics to any of the international students that were _directly_ working on the project (you bet they were smart enough to figure out what they were making). While nothing was classified, it still fell under ITAR and the FBI was talking to me several times a year. Nuclear technology exports are still a very big deal.
I agree that it does not directly or necessarily follow. But I think it would be more likely.
> Nuclear technology exports are still a very big deal.
Sorry, I think my comment came across the exact opposite of what I meant.
When I said "we don't see it as a big deal to restrict nuclear exports", what I meant was, when we restrict the export of nuclear technology, we don't see it as an unfair imposition on other countries to deprive them of nuclear energy the same way we might see depriving them of food or natural gas. In other words, exporting nuclear technology is a big deal; depriving the rest of the world of nuclear energy is not a big deal. Sorry for the confusing phrasing.
Right now, American voters and policymakers don't think of nuclear energy as the primary power source for a modern civilization. When we have those annoying ITAR regulations that you had to follow, everybody thinks that's perfectly reasonable because nuclear technology is spooky and scary mad science that nobody actually needs anyway. That's not the same attitude we would have if we switched to wholesale nuclear energy in the 1970's.
Am I saying export laws would necessarily be less stringent in this scenario? No, but there are probabilities between 0 and 1, and you seem to be implying that since the probability is <1, it must be 0.
Iran under the shah, for instance, got a small-scale kit for reprocessing plutonium. High enriched uranium wound up in research reactors all over the place. It's nice stuff, makes it very easy to get a critical mass in a small space.
But that still doesn't mean that fears of proliferation would have disappeared if we had a larger reliance on nuclear power.
Those countries weren't said as examples of countries without nuclear power. They are examples of countries that have it but still likely wouldn't have had any exports from the US. I thought the Pakistan example made this abundantly clear. Maybe I confused people by including Brazil, but there was pressure on them during the cold war.