Opinion | US attack on Iran shakes East Asia’s faith in non-proliferation norms

Amid the bombing of Iran, the region finds itself navigating a contested, multipolar nuclear order fraught with instability

Reading Time:4 minutes

Published: 5:30am, 30 Jun 2025

On June 22, the US military launched an attack on Iran, striking nuclear sites like the deeply buried Fordow enrichment plant with massive bunker-busting bombs. In tandem with an Israeli air campaign, this was the biggest Western military action against Tehran since 1979.

US President Donald Trump immediately hailed the raid as a “spectacular military success”, boasting on national television that Iran’s key enrichment installations had been “completely and totally obliterated”.

Some quickly interpreted the strike as a new policy doctrine. Matthew Kroenig, vice-president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Centre for Strategy and Security, argued in The Washington Post that the US strikes signal a bold new counterproliferation military force policy to deter nations from pursuing nuclear weapons.

This marked the first time US warplanes joined Israel in openly attacking a nuclear programme, using seven B-2 stealth bombers. The June operation shattered decades of precedent and set the stage for broader upheaval in global nuclear deterrence.

First, to Pyongyang, the strikes reinforced the government’s narrative regarding nuclear capabilities. On March 8, North Korean state media paraded the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, who inspected a “nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine”. Such a vessel, likely built with Russian help, would give North Korea a true sea-based second-strike capability.

Pyongyang and Moscow signed a mutual defence agreement in 2024, as North Korea traded its artillery and troops for advanced Russian weapons technology.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x