Japan, obviously, for a variety of reasons, doesn’t have nukes, but it seems pretty clear they could have an arsenal that’s functional as a deterrent in months, if not weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sweden’s current doctrine is similar to that (though now being a formal member of NATO takes some pressure off that backup option).
Japan is what's called a threshold/latent nuclear power. These are countries with the ability to build nuclear weapons immediately, but haven't turned the switch yet.
Taiwan, Iran, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Brazil, Mexico, and South Korea are other threshold powers, and Saudi and the UAE are pressing for plutonium enrichment capabilities in the next few years as well.
Generally speaking, a country with a space program and a civilian fuel enrichment program can be safely assumed to be a latent nuclear power.
My understanding is it requires building enrichment facilitates, and processing materials. Is this not a multi-year effort?
https://world-nuclear.org/focus/fukushima-daiichi-accident/j...
At the end of 2018 there was 9 tonnes of separated reactor-grade plutonium (about 66% fissile) stored domestically, plus a total of 36.6 t in the UK and France. That total of 45.6 t was a modest decrease from an estimated 47.3 t at the end of 2017.
Despite the name, "weapons grade plutonium" is not actually required to make a weapon. Japan could manufacture weapons of modest yield (comparable to those used against it in World War II) on a short timeline from reactor grade plutonium if it were willing to ignore the political reaction.
See this for a relatively brief technical explanation of using reactor-grade plutonium in weapons: "Reactor-Grade Plutonium Can be Used to Make Powerful and Reliable Nuclear Weapons" https://rlg.fas.org/980826-pu.htm
This is a much longer book discussion (PDF) of the same issue: "Reactor-Grade Plutonium and Weapons: Exploding The Myths" https://npolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Reactor-Grade...
If you have a strong civilian nuclear power program, the ramp up time is minimal (weeks to months), as fast breeder reactors are a dual use technology.
If the country also has a domestic space program, you can safely assume they are also working on building IRBM capabilities
I assume they haven’t actually tested a precision guided reentry vehicle, but that’s all they’re missing on the missile side.
My guess with minimal knowledge in the field is, weeks if they have a shut down FBR plant, months if they have a decommed FBR Plant. I feel like building a new one to 'ramp up' would either require more time or perhaps multiple smaller reactor projects working in parallel might do the job...
In all honesty, it feels like everyone's arming for something big - from UAE all the way to the US and China, every country is in the process of buying startups and firms working on dual use technology.
Every country seems to have some sort of a 5-10 year roadmap to modernize defense technology and logistics by 2035, yet I never saw this level of concentrated effort globally after 1989.
[0] - https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/Japan-nuclear-resear...
That said, I sincerely hope my prediction is just paranoia and that I'm wrong.
It's UAE and Saudi's deal flow that got me worried recently. I'm seeing those guys everywhere in the defense tech space now, and if Saudi and UAE are stockpiling, then every other semi-competent regional power is as well.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24823846
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia_and_weapons_of_ma...
Imran Khan leaned pro-Qatar, which irked KSA, especially because IK turned down joining Saudi's coalition in Yemen.
It was around this time that KSA began charting it's own independent course, just like UAE.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24823846
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia_and_weapons_of_ma...
Is it really that obvious to develop now?
Also UK, even if they've outsourced production and maintenance of them to the US, or something like that.
I'm also liking the idea of the mexican cartels having their own nukes.
Hrrm. Lemme sniff some more cocaine...(snort)
Waht to target? Hrrm...You'll see, tee hee hee!
According to Wilhelm Agrell’s book “Svenska förintelsevapen”, the foundation for one such legend is as follows: There was a chunk of plutonium in a lab somewhere, acquired from the UK, I think. When the nuke program was ramped down, it was decided that this chunk should be transferred to a certain laboratory in Norway. However, getting the bureaucratic stars aligned to do this “by the book” turned out to be a major headache, to the point that some exasperated manager eventually packed the stuff in his briefcase, drove to Norway in his own car and handed it over personally, thus breaking every rule in the book and a few not yet written, but at least getting rid of the cumbersome thing from his lab!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/science/ukraine-nuclear-w...
I bet Ukraine is regretting their decision right now.
I live in Kazakhstan which also gave up its USSR nuclear legacy and it was the only sane way to go.
What Ukraine should have done back then is get better guarantees for this deal. Not some sketchy "Memorandums" which bind to nothing.
It has a lot of nuclear physicists and rocket scientists. My uncle was a Ukrainian ICBM scientist!
IMO, a quintessential American foreign policy error is to measure the worth of others based only on purchasing power of imports; and then, even when they go past that 0th level of the expanding brain meme onto the value of human capital, the only human capital they value is traditional Western human capital.
Anyway, the engagement on this platform over foreign policy issues is great. I’m literally a product of foreign policy. Nearly everyone I know is affected by foreign policy. It’s valuable to have an opinion about this stuff.
And no way to finance them.
> they probably would be sanctioned like Iran pretty wild assumption
Ukraine gave up nukes because we thought it was the right thing to do. Obviously, no other country will do that in the future.
Technically it could be done, I guess. But probably Ukrainians did not want to live in isolation. I mean, the whole USSR collapse was about indulging in the "western values". Jeans, bubblegum, Arnold Schwarzenegger, all cool stuff.
> Obviously, no other country will do that in the future.
We will see when US will collapse and states will separate. I don't think that all of them would keep nuclear weapons.
They did have a choice. A choice between short-term prosperity and guaranteed long-term security. They chose prosperity because Russia didn't feel like a threat back in the early 1990s. Russia under Gorbachev and Yeltsin felt like the beginning of a democratic era for that country. The mood was extremely optimistic and hopeful.
The error Ukrainians made was tragic. They should have learned that historical patterns repeat. You do not want to be a country between Germany and Russia without a mutual defense treaty with a superpower (which I recognize that you noted in your post), or nukes.
They had a shitload of nukes. That gives you a lot of choices. They just sadly chose wrong thinking that the world is better of with them not having them. Should have kept a few.
Not sure how world should treat it post this war (barring it won't turn into WW 3), but never, ever as equal, always expect treachery. Enough lessons at this point.
So this will be mutual.
China and some other countries, on the other hand, are considered trustworthy partners who play by rules.
So if they had them Russia would not have attacked.
I'm not advocating large scale nuclear war but a doctrine like france has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion
The ability to launch them was only something Moscow could do (they might have been able to reverse engineer control and remove safeguards and the might not). They needed to have tritium replaced every 12 years and IIRC many of the nuclear forced remained loyal to Russia.
That's their bargaining position at the time and that's before we add the international pressure to get rid of them.
The space program had a lot of Ukrainians too.
Not even North Korea does that kind of shit. Reconciling was a pipe dream.
But this shoot down had so much going on, it was for all intents and purposes, intentional. The level of aggression shown by that captain, the violations of territorial waters ans deviations from standard practice. He attacked everything that moved and the climate in which his behaviour was tolerated is also a factor. He wanted to shoot a plane down. His colleagues had given him a nickname and his superiors had concerns about the recklessness.
The final settlements reflects the indefensible behaviour.
How is NATO working out at the moment with war at its doorstep and a series of threats, provocations and violations? I don’t see any sign that NATO is winning.
I am not sure what NATO should be winning. We are not currently, formally at war, so to me that seems like winning enough. If NATO is not winning, then who is?
To those that doubt this because of the risk, it won't be an outright invasion to start. It'll be a provocation with plausible deniability to test and undermine NATO's resolve and unity. Like a "little green men" scenario from 2014. A low stakes experiment with low risk and high reward. Simultaneously will be attempts to push support for far-left and far-right political ideas, for example by using migrants as a weapon and social media disinformation.
Why? What do you think would be different now?
Do you think Ukraine would have used them against Russia in response to a ground invasion that has used only conventional weapons thus far?
And chemical. And has violated most other rules of warfare (as does every other war). Rape, genocide and murder of civilians is a bit too common in this conflict.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/06/russia-accused...
Russia having nukes is also a big reason NATO is tiptoeing around to avoid offending Putin too severely.
To this day the UK relies on the US for missiles (Trident are what the missiles are called, not the actual submarines).
the idea was to build 100 tactical weapons
They would not have been put on top of ICBMs. Delivery would have been by aircraft or even artillery.
Less complex, but a different set of engineering problems. Sort of like how genetic engineering is more complex than basic woodworking, even though expertise in the former doesn't make mastering the latter massively easier.
see also https://msbgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/nearby/index.htm...
Why is it easier?
This also made sure that no future American administration could slide back into isolation. Our wars are your wars.
[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-triggers-germanys-nucl...
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/poland-general-russia-nuclear-krasz...
And it is still not too late to do something about this, but the clock is running out fast. Luckily, every single one of us can help it by making that clock run slower with donations directly to the Ukrainian military effort (not some wishy-washy "non-combat humanitarian aid" stuff). Every dollar spent on buying drones for Ukraine to blow up Russian tanks with buys that many more minutes on that clock.
As far as knowing what it's all about - I am a Russian citizen, I was born in Russia and lived most of my life there; I know full well what it's about, thank you very much. I've read military fiction about invading Ukraine (where Russians were, of course, the good guys) as far back as 2008 ("Эпоха мертворожденных), and I've heard others joking and sharing wishful thoughts about the same back in 1990s. If anything, what Western audiences often don't understand is that this isn't some kind of new thinking that first emerged in 2014, or even in 2004 during the Orange Revolution. The notion of restoring the historical "greater Russia", which unambiguously includes most of Ukraine, has been a staple of Russian imperial politics since the dissolution of the USSR - and open unabashed imperialism is very popular in Russia.
(That word "imperial", by the way, is not some kind of political slur, either - "имперец" is what the adherents literally call themselves, because they are proud of it. So, yeah, Russia is the textbook imperialist invader. And imperialism is bad, without a doubt.)
Now, that all doesn't mean that Ukraine cannot and doesn't do bad things of its own. But that is not why it got invaded, so it's all irrelevant.
And it's even more irrelevant in the original context of my post. Regardless of the why, the point is this: Ukraine surrendered its nukes in exchange for security guarantees wrt its sovereignty and territorial integrity. This was hailed as as an exemplar act and a major milestone for nuclear non-proliferation. Then Ukraine got invaded - by one of the countries that provided those guarantees, no less! - and meanwhile other countries who signed that agreement and convinced Ukraine to sign it are unwilling to actually intervene to the degree necessary to secure its territorial integrity, effectively reneging on their promise. Now, Ukraine is at the risk of being completely overrun and fully occupied. And on the other hand, we have North Korea, which developed its own nukes from scratch, and, despite constant state of confrontation with US, has never been invaded or even bombed since. For any other small country watching all this from the sidelines, what is the obvious takeaway? Why, it's that international security guarantees aren't worth shit, and that a larger country can always steamroll over your conventional military, but nukes are an effective deterrent.
Thoughts?
As for the rest: the failure to uphold the commitments made in the Budapest Memorandum contributed to the deterioration of relations between Ukraine and Russia, leading to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The Minsk agreements were then pursued as a diplomatic effort to address and resolve the resulting crisis.
Regardless of any of that, it was between pro-Russians in eastern Ukraine vs. the Ukrainian government. The conflict in eastern Ukraine involved clashes between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatist groups. These groups, often referred to as "separatists" or "rebels" declared independence in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and established self-proclaimed republics. Amidst the conflict, efforts were made to negotiate ceasefires and peace agreements. The Minsk agreements, as mentioned earlier, were one such attempt to bring about a cessation of hostilities and a political resolution to the conflict. However, the ceasefire has been repeatedly violated, and the conflict remains unresolved. Might I add that the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine has been repeatedly violated by both Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatist groups. Both sides have been accused of violating the terms of the ceasefire agreements outlined in the Minsk accords. You can read more about it.
For the record, Donbass is often used as a term to refer to the eastern regions of Ukraine, particularly Donetsk and Luhansk, where the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatist groups has been ongoing since 2014. Those regions are where pro-Russian sentiment is significant.
The Court held, on the basis of the vast body of evidence before it, that Russia had effective control over all areas in the hands of separatists from 11 May 2014 on account of its military presence in eastern Ukraine and the decisive degree of influence it enjoyed over these areas as a result of its military, political and economic support to the “DPR” and the “LPR”. In particular, the Court found it established beyond any reasonable doubt that there had been Russian military personnel present in an active capacity in Donbass from April 2014 and that there had been a large-scale deployment of Russian troops from, at the very latest, August 2014. It further found that the respondent State had a significant influence on the separatists’ military strategy. Several prominent separatists in command positions were senior members of the Russian military acting under Russian instructions, including the person who had had formal overall command of the armed forces of the “DPR” and the “LPR”. Further, Russia had provided weapons and other military equipment to separatists on a significant scale (including the Buk-missile used to shoot down flight MH17). Russia had carried out artillery attacks upon requests from the separatists and provided other military support. There was also clear evidence of political support, including at international level, being provided to the “DPR” and the “LPR” and the Russian Federation had played a significant role in their financing enabling their economic survival.
By the time of the 11 May 2014 “referendums”, the separatist operation as a whole had been managed and coordinated by the Russian Federation. The threshold for establishing Russian jurisdiction in respect of allegations concerning events which took place within these areas after 11 May 2014 had therefore been passed. That finding meant that the acts and omissions of the separatists were automatically attributable to the Russian Federation. /---/ In the absence of any evidence demonstrating that the dependence of the entities on Russia had decreased since 2014, the jurisdiction of the respondent State continued as at the date of the hearing on 26 January 2022.In the extreme case of NATO breaking up, you should expect most central European countries will get nukes to deter Russia.
If US becomes more uncertain as a security backstop, Japan, Philippines and Vietnam will seek nukes because they have no choice if they wish to be assured security against China.
Small countries are observing Western appeasement and the US political right's betrayal of Ukraine and wondering if it'll happen to them. Remember the assurances Clinton gave them if they renounced nukes? Words and signed paper count for little.
Everyone cares about themselves, where the lesson is increasingly: if you do not have nuclear weapons, someone will, possibly very soon, destroy you.
I clearly stated that equilibrium is only attainable if everyone has access to nuclear weapons - as in every single sovereign nation - or no one.
I prefer an equilibrium of the latter kind.
[0] https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority...
Maybe consider real humans while evaluating game theory?
This is how you get nuclear war, or at least the normalisation of tactical nukes on the battlefield [1]. It's the world we're heading towards, given the direction American deterrence credibility has been heading.
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/11/18/the-war...
The problem with your idea is accidents[1] and madmen. In a world where equipment always functions properly and humans aren't capable of forming groups like ISIS, then sure.
e: Seriously.. I have the most insider information about this and a bad initial condition due to someone not finding the link makes no one interested to ask about the insider information book that I bought specifically for dopamine hits when someone happens to discuss things about these topics
The other newspaper article enclosed in the nuclear book is about italy with stuff underlined. There's also notes and calculations, now that I looked in some other pages. And a poem.
[0] - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/docum...
I'm curious what was highlighted about Italy, and what the calculations were.
I'd definetly recommend contacting a Science Historian. You might have a pretty cool piece of actual Swedish history.
[0] - https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolf_Persson_(k%C3%A4rnfysik...
Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against his own people as well as a neighbouring country he was trying to invade.
There is an easy fix for that. Don't sell chemical weapons to dictators so you don't need to lament later that "Oh, but, but, they used our product against people!".
Yup, what do you expected? killing people is the only purpose for that stuff.
Afganistan invasion happened when everyone was so enraged by 9/11 they weren't thinking straight. "Never forget" was a thing for around a decade.
"Everyone" being 'the USA'.
British involvement was so unpopular it lead to the largest protests in British history.
London alone saw 1 million people (1 in 60 of the UK population) take to the streets to protest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_prot...
Indeed. To be clear, I'm a UK citizen, I lived through those protests, and to me all the events of 9/11 bore the same sense of unreality as a blockbuster film — I didn't even know about the specific existence of the Twin Towers until seeing pictures of them on fire, and my first trip to the USA wouldn't happen until the end of 2014.
However: in this context, the USA's opinion was sufficient even in isolation, as they are both a nuclear power and were the main force involved in the invasion — if the American government wanted to use nukes, they'd have used nukes, with or without the rest of us. And I don't think the threat of possible Afghan nukes would have slowed them down, rather I think it would have turned the tragic failure to nation build after the invasion, into a real life (though probably geographically limited) equivalent to Fallout.
Fortunately they kept that option off the battlefield, opting for non-nuclear alternatives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_MOAB
There's a big difference between the two wars.
The game theory of nukes doesn't work if irrational actor have control of them.
There are also lot of examples of authoritarian dictators committing warcrimes in that part of the world. And all it takes it one to cause large amounts of damage, if they have a nuke.
"might" is a scary word when you're talking about nuclear weapons.
Ukraine proved you should keep them.
1. The worry of invasion
2. The worry of implosion
South Africa in the 1990s was at a very risk of imploding into civil war. Access to nuclear weapons would have made this risk of implosion even worse.
This was a similar worry most of the world had about Ukraine and Kazakhstan after the USSR collapsed - look at what happened to Tajikistan, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the 1990s. Hell, there was even an attempted coup in Moscow in the 1990s.
The fewer countries that have nuclear weapons, the easier it is to decrease the chances of the next conflict (war or civil war) using nuclear weapons.
And I would posit that the aim of limiting countries with nuclear weapons is simplistic. If a nuclear power decides to terrorize a non-nuclear, but industrially advanced neighbor, the victim is likely to acquire a nuclear capability, one way or another, either now or in the future. It hasn't happened yet with Ukraine, but I believe it is inevitable.
Furthermore, that nuclear capability will come with a (justified) grudge. I would certainly want to vaporize my bully.
The end result is that the probability of nuclear conflict has increased, not decreased.
- civilian deaths in Donbas during 2014-2021 from Ukraine military action? - Coup - legislation measures for gross restriction of Russian language usage
Calling data you do not like Russian propaganda is weak.
Ukraine had huge arms and aerospace industry. They would have capacity to replace detonator units. See [0][1][3], they designed and built quite a lot of ICBMs. Saying they would not have control over missiles they designed and manufactured does not make sense.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartron
A major worry at the time was that individuals in Ukraine could sell those weapons and the know how to the highest bidders.
It wasn't an unlikely prospect - China, Pakistan, and India all bought defense IP from individuals in Ukraine during the collapse of the USSR and before post-Soviet states governance were formalized (eg. China and India can now manufacture Aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and turbofan jet engines because of IP they bought using questionable methods in Ukraine in the 1990s)
China's Jet Turbine Program - https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/documents/R...
As well as this co-investigation by the SIPRI and Reuters [0] into Ukrainian defense IP sales to China.
What are the "accusations" of mine that you would call wild? I can give citations for all that are needed. I just sometimes don't on HN because citations take time.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/ukraine-crisis-threatens...