This is why I mentioned France and UK's nuclear umbrella. It's effectively the power of having nuclear weapons without actually having them.

Ukraine had the unfortunate fact that they only got a promise of nonintervention rather than a security guarantee backed by arms when they gave up their nukes.

Either way, while not having nukes might not entirely prevent others from pushing harder to get nukes of their own, at the very least, I believe we shouldn't be the ones starting this trend. It only takes one country with an itchy trigger finger to normalize using nukes in armed conflicts, which is one step away from preemptive nuclear war.