History UsefulNotes / TheRestOfTheNuclearClub

Two months after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Swiss Federal government decided to start studies about a nuclear program. In the Fifties and Sixties, during the ColdWar, a Swiss officer, Étienne Primault, said Switzerland needed bombers able to fly to Moscow. Planes from France were bought to carry nuclear bombs, but it came to naught, and it was debated whether bombing enemy troops on the national territory was acceptable. This program was abandonated on 1969, under heavy diplomatic pressure, albeit the issue was still studied until 1988, when it was definitively decided to abandon nuclear weapons.

Furthermore, while the Pakistani nuclear project started in response to India's test, the ''deployment'' was a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets had been threatening Pakistan with nuclear attack since the whole Gary Powers incident;[[note]] Gary Powers' U2 spyplane took off from a Pakistan Air Force Base in Peshawar, where the Pakistanis had agreed to base U2s. After he was shot down, the Pakistani Ambassador to Moscow was called to the Soviet Foreign Ministry and was advised that any further flights would result in a nuclear attack on Peshawar and Islamabad.[[/note]] things would escalate after the Pakistanis started helping anti-Soviet militias in Afghanistan. Pakistan was no longer under a nuclear umbrella,[[note]] Until the early 1970's, Pakistan had been a member of a UK-sponsored military alliance called CENTO, and the UK did deploy nuclear weapons to Cyprus and Aden in support.[[/note]] encouraging many Western leaders to turn a blind eye to Pakistani nuclear ambitions.

In the 1980's, the Iraqis did have a nuclear program which went through two phases. The first "phase" began some time in the 1970s was based around the Osirak Reactor, which was dismantled with extreme prejudice by the [[UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles Israeli Air Force]] before it could get very far. From there, the second phase was a somewhat more distributed project based around uranium enrichment. Then the UsefulNotes/GulfWar happened and the program was utterly demolished by American air strikes. After that war, the program never amounted to anything more than, in the words of one military analyst, "a bunch of papers buried in a physicist's backyard."

* Both India and Pakistan had scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project (see a pattern?) as part of British India, and also the later British effort to develop an independent nuclear deterrent. The both had by the 1970's the industrial base and the monies to fund it. Relatively good administration was inherited from Britain as well.

After WWII, Spain was severely isolated in an international scale. As the last remaining fascist dictatorship in Western Europe, and an outspoken supporter of the Axis Powers during the war, UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco General Franco]] was reviled by both the European democratic powers and the communist countries. But Spain had an unexpected friend; the United States, who saw in Franco's rabid anticommunism a staunch ally against the [[DirtyCommunists Red Menace]].

After WWII, Spain was severely isolated in an international scale. As the last remaining fascist dictatorship in Western Europe, and an outspoken supporter of the Axis Powers, it was reviled by both the European democratic powers and the communist countries at the other side of the Iron Curtain. But Spain had an unexpected friend; the United States, who saw in [[UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco Franco]]'s rabid anticommunism a staunch ally against the [[DirtyCommunists Red Menace]].

The project would consist of two phases. The first phase, the obtention and processing of the nuclear materials, would pose no problem. At the time, Spain had the second-largest deposits of uranium and plutonium in Europe, and Spain's government had reached an agreement with France to help them build the first nuclear power plants in the country. Furthermore, Spain also benefitted of the previously mentioned program "Atoms for Peace", that provided nuclear experts under the authority of the Jand economic and material support.

The second phase, the process to create the bomb itself, Project Islero came to an standstill. The scientists of the Junta de Energia Nuclear didn't know how to build process the plutonium, let alone build the device itself. [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom And again the United States provided help, this time unintentionally]]. In 1966, a B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs crashed in the Spanish sea, close to the fishing village of Palomares. The Spanish engineers, lead by brilliant, US-educated nuclear expert Guillermo Velasco, managed to reverse-engineer the recovered remains of the bombs and realized the [[UsefulNotes/TypesOfNuclearWeapons Teller-Ulam process]] to cheaply process the required plutonium for thermonuclear reactions. Spain had everything it needed to become a nuclear power. Velasco estimated they could create an average of two bombs per year, a feat for a country that was in the middle of rebuilding its economy.

Fortunately, the project suffered several setbacks during the next decade. Firstly, the always cautious Franco realized that it was extremely hard to keep such a project secret, so he decided to continue working on the theoretical side while postponing the actual building of the bomb. Then the attitude of the western world towards nuclear power [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo did a 180º]], which culminated in the creation of the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which Spain didn't originally sign. Finally, the CIA discovered that Spain was storing plutonium and sent Secretary of State Kissinger to meet with [[UsefulNotes/TheFrancoRegime Carrero Blanco, the then-president of Spain]]. Carrero Blanco was an ardent anti-communist but he was just as anti-american; he wished for Spain to become an independent power. While the contents of the meeting have never been made public, rumour has it Blanco admitted that Spain was close to completing Project Islero and would not stop.

Kissinger left Spain on December 19th, 1973. Carrero Blanco was assassinated by [[WesternTerrorists ETA]] on December 20th. Even though the US denied all involvement, the Spanish minister of foreign affairs Gregorio López-Bravo pleaded with Franco to stop the project before the US decided to blockade the country or worse, something that would immediately destroy the rapidly growing Spanish economy. Franco never stopped dreaming about the Spanish nuclear arsenal, but froze the project. He reactivated it in 1976, only for the dictator to die in 1977. After some years of timid interest by the new democratic government, Project Islero was finally abandoned in 1981, when Spain accepted to submit all its nuclear endeavors to international inspection. Spain signed the NPT in 1987, oficially ending Franco's nuclear ambitions a decade after his death.

[[folder: Switzerland - ''Neutral Atoms'']]
Two months after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Swiss Federal government decided to start studies about a nuclear program. In the Fifties and Sixties, during the ColdWar, a Swiss officer, Étienne Primault, said Switzerland needed bombers able to fly to Moscow. Planes from France were bought to carry nuclear bombs, but it came to naught, and it was debated whether bombing enemy troops on the national territory was acceptable. This program was abandonated on 1969, under heavy diplomatic pressure, albeit the issue was still studied until 1988, when it was definitively decided to abandon nuclear weapons.
[[/folder]]

Their program was also hobbled from the start by the regime's own racist policies, rejecting Einstein's work as "Jewish science"; he and many other academics who could have advanced the Nazi program fled Germany, either because of fears of persecution due to their own Jewish roots, because they sympathised with their Jewish colleagues, or simply on general principle. This gives their failure to build anything remotely resembling a working bomb a sense of PoeticJustice to it -- they were undone by their own bigotry. When German nuclear physicists were debriefed after the war, it quickly became clear that the Nazi program had been a shambles and Hitler was never close to obtaining the Bomb. Nonetheless, the prospect of Nazis with Nukes remains a popular subject of speculative fiction.

South Korea's nuclear ambitions date back to the Syngman Rhee administration, but did not coalesce into anything substantial until 1972, under the Park Chung-hee military dictatorship. Code-named Project 890, Park sought to build upon South Korea's burgeoning civil nuclear infrastructure and expand military power independent of [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks American military protection.]] To that end, Park issued a mandate to develop a viable nuclear weapon by 1977. Reaching breakout capacity that quickly could not be accomplished alone, meaning South Korea would need to rely heavily on foreign industrial assistance to meet their timetable. By 1974, South Korea was looking to purchase reactors from Canada and reprocessing equipment from France, but was held up by Canadian and American pressure to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty which would make any nuclear weapons program extremely difficult to pursue. Intense diplomatic pressure through the next two years led Park to cancel the contract for the French reprocessing plant in order for the reactor sale to go through. Project 890 would be quietly be shut down by the end of 1976.

-->-- '''Bashar Al-Assad''', after [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Orchard Operation Orchard]]

-->-- '''Lee Teng-Hui''' during the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis]]

Virtually the same as Argentina, including the rivalry part. The military dictatorship pursued a nuclear weapons program covertly, but never got very far, and since the restoration of democracy, the program has been completely disbanded. The Brazilian government remains touchy about its refinement technology, though, leading to a bit of a spat with the IAEA monitoring a plant, but this isn't because anyone seriously suspects of an illegal program; it's just that the government (rightly or wrongly) believed that inspections would be tantamount to industrial spying on their secret centrifugal axis technology, based on electromagnetism. And it was all sorted out in the end, to everyone's satisfaction. Meanwhile Brazil's nuclear ''power'' program never slowed down, and now they're [[http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1525347/brazil-join-elite-club-nations-building-nuclear-powered-submarines building their first nuclear submarine.]]

In the 1980's, the Iraqis did have a nuclear program which went through two phases. The first "phase" began some time in the 1970s was based around the Osirak Reactor, which was dismantled with extreme prejudice by the Israeli Air Force before it could get very far. From there, the second phase was a somewhat more distributed project based around uranium enrichment. Then the UsefulNotes/GulfWar happened and the program was utterly demolished by American air strikes. After that war, the program never amounted to anything more than, in the words of one military analyst, "a bunch of papers buried in a physicist's backyard."

Muammar Gaddafi admitted to trying to develop nukes when he was briefly on the West's good side. It doesn't seem to have gotten much further than a feasibility study and some lab experiments before being abandoned as more trouble than it was worth.

During the Communist era, Nicolae Ceaucescu's StateSec, the Securitate, conducted Operation Danube, a program to try and create Romanian nuclear weapons, in an explicit violation of the NPT treaty. At the same time, the Romanian government funneled money and heavy water to other non-NPT compliant states such as India. The Romanian security services and foreign office were also extremely active in the anti-nuclear movement -- both civilian and governmental, internal and external -- while at the same time attempting to develop intermediate-range ballistic missiles, as well as chemical and biological weapons. It's not clear how far the program actually got before it was dismantled by the first post-revolutionary government in 1989, but Hungarian foreign minister Gyula Horn reported that Romanian officials actually threatened to build and use them if Hungary did not help them clamp down on the unrest in the Eastern Bloc.

Despite the country not having been at war since 1814, UsefulNotes/{{Sweden}} started a covert nuclear weapons program after WWII. It was effectively abandoned in the late 1960s and put on budgetary life support, but it was only officially abandoned in 1972 in favor of development of the [[CoolPlane Saab 37 Viggen]]. The reasoning behind Sweden's program was maintenance of its neutrality; since Sweden declined to join NATO, it could not expect to fall under the American military and nuclear umbrella. A Swedish Bomb would have probably been an effective deterrent to the Soviet Union trying to involve Stockholm in the Cold War.

Yugoslavia started a nuclear weapons program in TheFifties, but abandoned it after the thawing of Soviet-Yugoslav relations in TheSixties, and Yugoslavia subsequently became a firm proponent of non-proliferation. The program was revived again after India detonated its first bomb, only to be abandoned again in 1987 due to the Chernobyl disaster, financial trouble, and the country's [[BalkanizeMe impending breakup]]. During the BalkansWar, there were fears the Milosevic regime would restart these, but such fears ended up disproven.

* Of the nuclear club, the P-5 already had them and that was that. But China and the Soviet Union did suffer somewhat from the politicization of their programs, which may have negatively affected the design -- not by much, obviously, since they still work, but by enough. We can't know for sure, because weapons programs are secrets, but we can extrapolate through space programs; after all, an ICBM is not too different from an orbital launch vehicle. We know that Soviet rocket engineers were afraid of the political fallout from possible failure; many had served time in TheGulag and had no interest in going back. They preferred to use large numbers of small engines than small numbers of large ones (like NASA does), which would in theory reduce the chance of catastrophic failure but was also basically too heavy to get off the ground.

Israel being a nuclear power is frequently referred to as "[[OpenSecret the worst kept secret]] in nuclear politics". While the Israeli government refuses to officially admit that they have nuclear weapons, multiple leaks have confirmed to anyone interested that hell yes, they do. The program was first exposed by ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers The Times]]'', with the help of whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who helped work on the program. He was abducted in Rome by Mossad (in a HoneyTrap ploy which is an OldShame of ''The Times'', who were supposed to be protecting him) and faced nearly two decades of solitary confinement in Israel. Vanunu's conviction is a textbook case of InsaneTrollLogic, because he was imprisoned for revealing things that Israel continues to insist were lies.

Yugoslavia started a nuclear weapons program in TheFifties, but abandoned it after the thawing of Soviet-Yugoslav relations in TheSixties, and Yugoslavia subsequently became a firm proponent of non-proliferation. The program was revived again after India detonated its first bomb, only to be abandoned again in 1987 due to the Chernobyl disaster, financial trouble, and the country's [[BalkanizeMe impending breakup]].

[[folder: Japan – ''The Power of a Thousand Rising Suns'']]
Similar to Germany, UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program attempted to develop a nuclear weapon.]] Also similar to Germany, the program was pretty much doomed from the start, and it didn't get very far. Today, Japan ''does'' theoretically have the resources to produce nuclear weapons (see below) in a matter of months (or even less, according to some estimates) given its resources and status as an economic juggernaut. The very advanced rockets they use for launching unmanned spacecraft could be re-purposed into [=ICBMs=] in a matter of ''hours''. They've never pursued the idea for two reasons. One, [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks they're under the protection of the most powerful military in the world already.]] Two, as the only country ever to have nuclear weapons used against them, [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo the idea of a nuclear weapons program is abhorrent to them.]] There is occasionally some speculation that if North Korea's nuclear and missile programs reach the point of a truly viable weapon, Japan would be forced to field its own nuclear deterrent, but even then they'd likely consider their alliance with the United States to be sufficient.

The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster]] in 2011 has also left a sour taste in the mouth of many Japanese with regard to nuclear technology in general; there is a lot of political pressure to decommission all nuclear power plants in Japan. Should that happen, sourcing suitable material for a Japanese nuclear weapon would become incredibly difficult, as weapons-grade uranium and plutonium is normally bred in uranium reactors. However, the environmental damage caused by burning hundreds of thousands of tons of coal to make up the power generation shortfall, not to mention the sheer cost of importing the coal in the first place (Japan is very resource-poor when it comes to minerals such as coal), could force a re-think. Nonetheless, the appetite for a home-grown Japanese nuclear weapon is not great.
[[/folder]]

During UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra, South Africa developed a small number of nuclear weapons, probably no more than ten. The very isolation that drove them to develop the weapons also limited their means of delivery to the aging English Electric Canberra. It also limited their design options; all South African nukes were of the inefficient and dangerous but simple and dirt-cheap (for a nuke) [[UsefulNotes/TypesOfNuclearWeapons gun-type]], rather than the implosion-type all other nuclear powers use for most of their weapons. In 1979, an American satellite detected what may have been South African (or joint Israeli-South African) nuclear test, now known as the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident Vela Incident]]. Rumours of collaboration with Israel's nuclear program abound but have never been proven; such a relationship is unsurprising because both Israel and South Africa were "pariahs of the West" who weren't aligned with the communists ''or'' the Americans, and they were known to cooperate on conventional weapons development. All weapons were dismantled shortly before the end of Apartheid, and South Africa went on to help establish the African nuclear-weapon-free zone. It also remains the only nation to give up nuclear weapons over with it had full controll.

[[folder: Iraq – ''By The Rivers of Babylon'']]

[[folder: Sweden – ''Extra Neutral Neutrons'']]

* Japan, Germany, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Canada, South Korea, and the Netherlands all have the infrastructure in place for breakout capability. Germany, though, is seriously considering dismantling it, and Japan would have to be in really dire straits before [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo actually building a bomb]].

* Saudi Arabia barely has the infrastructure or the know-how, but it does have a lot of money, meaning it could buy its way into the breakout-capacity club or even buy pre-made warheads from other nations. There are fears that an Iranian bomb could provide the impetus for a Saudi nuclear program, and [[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24823846 reports suggest]] that the Saudis provided extensive funding to Pakistan for their program (possibly in exchange for Pakistani warheads to be delivered to the Saudis on demand). However, it's full of hardline Islamists who don't necessarily trust {{science|isbad}}.

[[UsefulNotes/PeaceThroughSuperiorFirepower The US]], [[UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithNukes Russia]], [[UsefulNotes/UltimateDefenceOfTheRealm the UK]], [[UsefulNotes/TheUltimateResistance France]], and [[UsefulNotes/TheDragonsTeeth China]] all have nuclear weapons and get to deal with all the attendant politics thereof. Since their development, nuclear weapons have been used in warfare by one nation only two times: the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates against UsefulNotes/{{Japan}} in the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9. The sheer destructive effectiveness of these weapons shocked the entire world, including the US itself, and since then the only nuclear detonations have been tests or demonstrations.

Israel being a nuclear power is frequently referred to as "[[OpenSecret the worst kept secret]] in nuclear politics". While the Israeli government refuses to officially admit that they have nuclear weapons, multiple leaks have confirmed to anyone interested that hell yes, they do. The program was first exposed by ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers The Times]]'', with the help of whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who helped work on the program. He was abducted in Rome by Mossad (in a HoneyTrap ploy which is an OldShame of ''The Times'', who were supposed to be protecting him) and faced nearly two decades of solitary confinement in Israel.

Taiwan refuses to confirm or deny rumors, but it has ''six'' operational power-generating nuclear reactors that could potentially be converted to producing weapons-grade plutonium,[[note]]The amount of plutonium-239 (the main ingredient in weapons-grade nuclear material) produced by a nuclear power plant is trivially small compared to the cost and effort that would be required to separate it from all the plutonium-240 that it it also produces. Fuel for a nuclear power plant contains 18%+ of Pu-240, whereas weapons-grade material contains <7%. It is possible to create a bomb with reactor-grade plutonium (the US did that in 1962), but a device of that nature would have a comparatively low yield (<20 kilotonnes)[[/note]] with two more under construction. ([[https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-01-10/taiwans-bomb Declassified documents from the US State Department show that Taiwan was sporadically pursuing a nuclear program from 1966 to 1988]]) ([[http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB20/docs/doc20.pdf including receiving assistance from Israel]]), despite constant attempts from the US government to prevent them from doing so. However, back when the United States still had official diplomatic relations with UsefulNotes/{{Taiwan}}, a lot of advanced physicists were sent there for an unspecified reason. There was also that one time during George W. Bush's presidency that a ship full of warheads and other stuff got "accidentally" shipped to Taiwan.

Taiwan refuses to confirm or deny rumors, but it has ''six'' operational power-generating nuclear reactors that could potentially be converted to producing weapons-grade plutonium,[[note]]The amount of plutonium-239 (the main ingredient in weapons-grade nuclear material) produced by a nuclear power plant is trivially small compared to the cost and effort that would be required to separate it from all the plutonium-240 that it it also produces. Fuel for a nuclear power plant contains 18%+ of Pu-240, whereas weapons-grade material contains <7%. It is possible to create a bomb with reactor-grade plutonium (the US did that in 1962), but a device of that nature would have a comparatively low yield (<20 kilotonnes)[[/note]] with two more under construction. Declassified documents from the US State Department show that Taiwan was sporadically pursuing a nuclear program from 1966 to 1980 ([[http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB20/docs/doc20.pdf with a little help from Israel]]), despite constant attempts from the US government to prevent them from doing so. However, back when the United States still had official diplomatic relations with UsefulNotes/{{Taiwan}}, a lot of advanced physicists were sent there for an unspecified reason. There was also that one time during George W. Bush's presidency that a ship full of warheads and other stuff got "accidentally" shipped to Taiwan.

[[folder: Argentina]]

[[folder: Iraq]]

[[folder: Yugoslavia - ''Balkanuclearization'']]

* Iran has the funds. They possibly have the industrial infrastructure, though the jury is still out on that. It is in the technical know-how most people feel that it will be decided, although the management issue might pose problems (since it's a highly politicized project, and Iran's government is highly factionalized). The U.S. seems only to want to prevent them from outright developing nukes; Israel seems to be unwilling to even let Iran get as far as breakout capacity.

* Saudi Arabia barely has the infrastructure or the know-how, but it does have a lot of money, meaning it could buy its way into the breakout-capacity club. There are fears that an Iranian bomb could provide the impetus for a Saudi nuclear program, and [[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24823846 reports suggest]] that the Saudis provided extensive funding to Pakistan for their program (possibly in exchange for Pakistani warheads to be delivered to the Saudis on demand). However, it's full of hardline Islamists who don't necessarily trust {{science|isbad}}.

UsefulNotes/{{Argentina}} developed a short-lived, secret program during its military dictatorship, but it never got very far, and all such work stopped completely when civilian government took power again. This was probably, in part, due to its rivalry with Brazil. How far they got is unknown, though there are persistent rumors that the British were worried enough about it to deploy an SSBN to the South Atlantic during the UsefulNotes/FalklandsWar.

[[UsefulNotes/NorthKoreansWithNodongs North Korea's]] ''Songun'' ("military first") policy calls for the development of nuclear weapons as a possible defense against the West. The country recently conducted two nuclear tests. The first one, conducted in 2006, was a fizzle, but a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WC-135_Constant_Phoenix WC-135]] confirmed that the test was nuclear. The second test was conducted in 2009 and was much more succesful, and confirmed North Korea's status as a full-fleged nuclear power, albeit one with the world's smallest arsenal, somewhere in the single digits. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_North_Korean_nuclear_test#Yield yield]] was somewhere between one and twenty kilotons, probably in the single digits (2 to 6 kilotons, comparable to India and Pakistan's first nuclear tests).

However, North Korea still faces serious challenges. For one thing, it doesn't have a lot of cash -- South Korea's military budget is more than the North's entire GDP. Secondly, while it has developed nuclear fission devices, it still needs to increase the yield to create a thermonuclear device. Similarly, while its rockets can put satellites in space, it needs to find a way of guiding them to targets, as well as miniaturizing warheads enough to deliver them via ICBM. Furthermore, though it has developed intermediate range missiles, such as the [=BM25=] Musudan, it is an open question whether or not they can develop a warhead small enough to mount on the missile. Some have estimated, however, that it may be able to create simple artillery, SCUD, or air-delivered fission bombs in fairly large quantities within the next ten years.