This is an amazing and thought provoking point. Nation states seem to go through two major phases on the road to a high level of development; the first is Peace

This is an amazing and thought provoking point. Nation states seem to go through two major phases on the road to a high level of development; the first is Peace & Health where violent conflict declines and some basic health/education/etc. infrastructure can be put into place. The second is Economy where the economy liberalizes and local producers gradually become smarter and more productive and climb the value chain through exports. Possessing nuclear weapons is a powerful Peace hack. Once you have them no one can really invade you without the threat of suffering massive collateral damage. If we want to talk about the raw numbers of people getting out of extreme poverty, it follows that India and China acquiring a nuclear deterrent specifically had the biggest impact as their populations are so large.