Civilization-level nuclear proliferation could produce stability rather than chaos

Evidence

While nuclear proliferation obviously involves risks, as Scott Sagan and others have pointed out, a world in which one or two core states in each of the major civilizations had nuclear weapons and no other states did could be a reasonably stable world. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 888

Categorization

• QUESTION: This provocative claim — that a world where a few core states per civilization have nukes might be STABLE — seems to contradict much conventional nonproliferation thinking. Worth tracing whether Huntington’s optimism here has been borne out or refuted.
• XREF: Connects to general deterrence theory and to debates about nuclear stability with multiple nuclear powers (India-Pakistan-China triangle).