# Poorest nation that could possibly pull off a successful nuclear-weapons program **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 13, 2019, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371 "2019-11-13T16:53:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/21 "2019-11-16T13:46:28Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > I read the whole fucking thing. Did you read my quote? The one that comes from the \*initial \*assessment, \*less than a month \*after the incident? The one that’s on the same page as all the evidence that the Carter government was politically motivated to deny an explosion occurred? The one that’s on the same page that talks about both the radioisotope \*and \*acoustic evidence it says doesn’t exist? The one that’s immediately after the words ‘_the American intelligence community had “high confidence” that the event was a low-yield nuclear explosion_’ _That_ quote? Yes, I read it. It didn’t seem any more significant than when I \*originally \*read it, _in the cite I posted in the first place_. Which was why I was wondering why you bothered to single it out, if you had read the rest of the “whole fucking thing”, which dealt with it quite handily. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/22 "2019-11-16T13:52:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Yes, I read it. It didn’t seem any more significant than when I \*originally \*read it, _in the cite I posted in the first place_. Which was why I was wondering why you bothered to single it out, if you had read the rest of the “whole fucking thing”, which dealt with it quite handily. That’s a matter of opinion. I think my quote casts doubt on the conclusion, but I am not a nuclear engineer, nor seismic expert. If you are, I would most likely defer to your knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/23 "2019-11-16T14:00:14Z")
I’m neither. Don’t have to be to read the whole story, and see where the preponderance of the evidence lies. Plus, like I said, it’s an open secret here. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/24 "2019-11-17T04:24:07Z")
There are a bunch of crypto- and pseudo-states in the vicinity of the former Soviet Union that might have a little bit of plutonium socked away “just in case”: Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Artsakh. A con man in Washington DC represented himself as a diplomat from “Ruthenia” and claimed to have a portion of whatever nuclear arms Moldova had when it gained independence (despite Modava being over 100 miles from any place that identifies itself as “Ruthenia”); this was about 30 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/25 "2019-11-17T06:44:21Z")
There is no reason Canada, say, could not design and build its own nuclear weapons. We have plenty of nuclear expertise; among other things, 60% of the baseload electrical supply of the province of Ontario is supplied by Canadian-designed nuclear power stations. And we could deliver them in boxes of Timbits. 🙂 But does it have to be a _nation-state_? Bill Bryson starts off his book _In a Sunburnt Country_ with a case that the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo could have [set off an amateur nuclear explosion](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2285/did-the-aum-shinrikyo-cult-detonate-an-atom-bomb-in-australia/) in Australia. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/26 "2019-11-17T18:40:13Z")
Perhaps the more interesting and moderately accurate account of what it takes is in Tom Clancy’s “The Sum of All Fears”. The book, not the movie. The hardest part is getting the refined uranium. The next hardest part is handling it to produce a weapon without making a fatal mistake - like overconcentrating it in one spot, or making the necessary shape of components. The third hardest part is knowing how to make it, as the book demonstrates. The basics are apparently all there; any decent collection of properly motivated scientists could do it. The refining (assuming the refined uranium does not just land in your lap - means having a source of ore and the industrial magnitude to refine it in volume. having a full-sized reactor to bake plutonium instead probably helps. None of this infrastructure is cheap, but it’s probably within the reach of almost any country if the ore can be obtained. The problem being, once the big powers catch wind of what the country is up to, they will likely pressure any source of uranium outside the borders to stop selling to it. The same goes with centrifuges to separate the uranium - a country could build this from scratch, or import them - if someone will sell them. I would guess if a country can have a big steel or similar sized industrial plant, they have the resources to refine uranium. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/27 "2019-11-17T20:50:45Z")
Perhaps the more interesting and moderately accurate account of what it takes is in Tom Clancy’s “The Sum of All Fears”. The book, not the movie. The hardest part is getting the refined uranium. The next hardest part is handling it to produce a weapon without making a fatal mistake - like overconcentrating it in one spot, or making the necessary shape of components. The third hardest part is knowing how to make it, as the book demonstrates. The basics are apparently all there; any decent collection of properly motivated scientists could do it. The refining (assuming the refined uranium does not just land in your lap - means having a source of ore and the industrial magnitude to refine it in volume. having a full-sized reactor to bake plutonium instead probably helps. None of this infrastructure is cheap, but it’s probably within the reach of almost any country if the ore can be obtained. The problem being, once the big powers catch wind of what the country is up to, they will likely pressure any source of uranium outside the borders to stop selling to it. The same goes with centrifuges to separate the uranium - a country could build this from scratch, or import them - if someone will sell them. I would guess if a country can have a big steel or similar sized industrial plant, they have the resources to refine uranium. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/28 "2019-11-17T22:23:15Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Perhaps the more interesting and moderately accurate account of what it takes is in Tom Clancy’s “The Sum of All Fears”. The book, not the movie. > > The hardest part is getting the refined uranium. The next hardest part is handling it to produce a weapon without making a fatal mistake - like overconcentrating it in one spot, or making the necessary shape of components. > > The third hardest part is knowing how to make it, as the book demonstrates. > > The basics are apparently all there; any decent collection of properly motivated scientists could do it. The refining (assuming the refined uranium does not just land in your lap - means having a source of ore and the industrial magnitude to refine it in volume. having a full-sized reactor to bake plutonium instead probably helps. None of this infrastructure is cheap, but it’s probably within the reach of almost any country if the ore can be obtained. The problem being, once the big powers catch wind of what the country is up to, they will likely pressure any source of uranium outside the borders to stop selling to it. The same goes with centrifuges to separate the uranium - a country could build this from scratch, or import them - if someone will sell them. I would guess if a country can have a big steel or similar sized industrial plant, they have the resources to refine uranium. That is also for the Nagasaki Fat-Man implosion-plutonium type of weapon. If a nation wanted to do gun-type uranium like the Little Boy, that would be far simpler - albeit riskier and more dangerous - but doable. Just put two pieces of U-235 in a metal tube, and fire one towards the other. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/29 "2019-11-17T22:53:33Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > That is also for the Nagasaki Fat-Man implosion-plutonium type of weapon. If a nation wanted to do gun-type uranium like the Little Boy, that would be far simpler - albeit riskier and more dangerous - but doable. Just put two pieces of U-235 in a metal tube, and fire one towards the other. Actually IIRC, the device in Sum of All Fears was constructed as a multi-stage fission-fusion-fission thermonuclear weapon. It just malfunctioned because the tritium booster was contaminated with a neutron-blocker and prevented the fusion secondary stage from working. Fat Man was an implosion-type, plutonium-fueled, single-stage fission weapon. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/30 "2019-11-18T00:35:15Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > But does it have to be a _nation-state_? Bill Bryson starts off his book _In a Sunburnt Country_ with a case that the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo could have [set off an amateur nuclear explosion](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2285/did-the-aum-shinrikyo-cult-detonate-an-atom-bomb-in-australia/) in Australia. I wouldn’t be surprised if Scientology had a few nukes stashed. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371/31 "2019-11-18T00:38:34Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > I wouldn’t be surprised if Scientology had a few nukes stashed. I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorest-nation-that-could-possibly-pull-off-a-successful-nuclear-weapons-program/843371.md?page=1)