# What would happen if a stable democracy decided to start a nuclear weapons programme? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 27, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942 "2012-09-27T00:19:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/41 "2012-09-28T16:37:12Z")
There is documentary evidence – the South African documents – which you actually admit is evidence, but not “proof”. There is lots of other evidence in the form of testimony by people who were in a position to know what they are talking about. So, what is “enough” evidence? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/42 "2012-09-28T16:45:52Z")
There is a lot of CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence. It’s not a FACT. What’s so hard to understand? I’ve already told you would would be ‘enough’ evidence as far as I’m concerned. I think we’ve hijacked this thread enough on this tangent, to be honest, and I’m tired of saying the same things over and over again. My original point, way back up thread, was that pretty much all of the paragraph I quoted from Hail Ants was either an exaggeration or basically wrong…and that this same stuff keeps coming up in every thread that deals with Israel even peripherally. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/43 "2012-09-28T16:55:21Z")
You (and I) have no more, or less, evidence that Israel has nukes than pratically every single country on that list. You have press reports of what individuals have said, what spokemen for governments have said, and documents some of them have released. We all know the press gets things wrong, we all know that people lie, we all know that governments lie, and we all know that documents have been made up to support any number of lies. What makes Israel so special that you accept all those other countries as having nukes as a fact, but you don’t for Israel? I will grant you may have some special knowledge of American nukes because of where your dad worked. I too have some (extremely limited) special knowledge about American nukes because I know an engineer who works on certain aspects of warhead design. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/44 "2012-09-28T17:00:12Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I had an advantage. I saw a documentary about the last shipment of it out of Mexico some moths back. WHAT… is the airspeed of a plutonium laden moth!?! ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/45 "2012-09-28T17:01:13Z")
… ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/46 "2012-09-28T17:01:33Z")
_sigh_ [QUOTE=Boyo Jim] What makes Israel so special that you accept all those other countries as having nukes as a fact, but you don’t for Israel? [/QUOTE] Because there is more than circumstantial evidence that they have them, of course. In most cases, the countries in question have physically tested a weapon…which, aside from even wilder speculation, Israel hasn’t done. In addition, all of the other nuclear armed countries I’m aware of freely admit they have the things. And they have visible programs developing the things. Hell, we even know that Iran has such a program, and they have gone out of their way to attempt to conceal it. > [@](#): > > I will grant you may have some special knowledge of American nukes because of where your dad worked. I too have some (extremely limited) special knowledge about American nukes because I know an engineer who works on certain aspects of warhead design. It takes no special knowledge. There is video footage of above ground tests from all three countries, there is the less than tenuous evidence that WE DROPPED TWO OF THE THINGS ON JAPANESE CITIES, there is the fact that you, I or anyone can freaking go on tours of old silos in at least 2 of the 3 countries you mentioned (and I’d be willing to bet you can in France as well). It’s a mountain of SOLID evidence…no special knowledge required. Then we have Israel…where all we have is speculation and conjecture. Some facts that may POINT to the possibility of such weapons, but nothing, absolutely nada solid. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/47 "2012-09-28T17:13:05Z")
So… nothing. All this is evidence is a least second-hand to YOU, because you have just seen what is reported in the press. So, you too know that these countries have nuclear weapons because “everybody else knows”. But that is not good enough for Israel. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/48 "2012-09-28T17:14:41Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > WHAT… is the airspeed of a plutonium laden moth!?! Sorry about the typo. I meant Mothra. I don’t know what Mothra weighs with or without Mexico’s uranium. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/49 "2012-09-28T17:29:33Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > **Gray Ghost** , or others, am I wrong in thinking that a country couldn’t test a nuclear weapon without the US and several other countries being aware of it? So if say Taiwan has nuclear weapons has it never tested them or are there ways for them to test what they have in a manner that the US, China etc. couldn’t detect? To your first question, the technology for detecting tests, and improved methodology for distinguishing tests from normal seismic events is getting better. See, e.g., [this portion](http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~richards/my_papers/Richards&Kim2009SciAm.pdf) of a 2009 article in Scientific American, _Advances in Monitoring Nuclear Weapon Testing._ FT(excerpt): > [@](#): > > The main difficulty arises from the great variety and number of earthquakes, chemical explosions and other nonnuclear phenomena generating seismic signals every day. Any good monitoring network cannot avoid detecting those signals. Worldwide, for instance, more than 600 earthquakes a day eventually find their way into an international summary report, and mining operations in industrialized countries explode millions of tons of blasting agents a year. In all, about 25 seismic events above a magnitude of four take place every day, and that number goes up by a factor of about 10 for each drop of one unit in magnitude (say, from 25 to 250 events a day for a drop in magnitude from four to three). > > At most locations on Earth, magnitude 4 corresponds to an explosive yield of less than a kiloton for an underground explosive device packed inside a small cavity in hard rock, from which seismic signals radiate efficiently. In other locations the rock is softer and more of the energy from the explosion is absorbed, reducing its measured seismic magnitude. Some policy makers have worried that a country might try to reduce the seismic signal by modifying the immediate environment of the test. For example, a large cavity hollowed out of rock could partly muffle the > seismic waves from a blast, but for any militarily useful test explosion the cavity would have to be so big it would collapse or attract attention in other ways—for example, the excavated material would have to be concealed from satellites. The risk of discovery would be very high. > > In practice, with seismic monitoring alone, **all nuclear explosions down to yields of one kiloton can be detected with 90 percent reliability by examining between about 50 and 100 seismic events a day.** [Emphasis added] To detect nuclear explosions with lower yields, the number of seismic events that must be examined goes up. Even one kiloton, however, is quite small for a nuclear explosion, and according to a 2002 report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a test of that size would be of little use to a testing country attempting to make larger nuclear weapons—particularly if the country had little prior experience with nuclear testing. The article further talks about a 1997 event in the Kara Sea that was suspected of being a Russian test, which would have violated the test ban. Further analysis indicated the signal was of natural origin. Finally, the article mentions detection of the North Korean suspected fizzles from 2006 and 2009; not just seismic detection but atmospheric sampling revealed radionuclides consistent with a fission device detonation. (And who knows what level of complexity beyond that?) I am not a geologist or geophysicist. I have talked with those who are in the oil and gas industry. It’s not at all clear to me that an offshore test (so as to be as far from shore based seismographs as possible), conducted below the seabed and below relatively seismically-opaque layers such as the [pre-salt layer](http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/waisberg1/) off of Brazil, would be all that detectable. Take a drill ship and drill a test bore into the middle of a seamount in the middle of the ocean. Place device deep in test bore and cement in the hole. Is the world going to be able to detect such a test? Especially if the test was a small one and if you do the test in an already-seismically active area? So, I am not as confident as the authors, though perhaps I should be, if I knew more about the subject. The state of the art seems to have advanced beyond [1997 concerns about monitoring](http://www1.ucsc.edu/oncampus/currents/97-01-06/lay.htm), evoked by a professor of earth sciences at UCSC , Dr. Thorne Lay. FTA: > [@](#): > > The seismological challenges alone, says Lay, are daunting. > > While the treaty calls for a total ban on nuclear testing, there is a threshold beneath which the seismic network will be unable to detect tiny events, Lay says. However, much of the research by network designers is driven by the U.S. objective of detecting explosions as small as a few kilotons “evasively tested,” meaning that the testers devise some way to prevent the explosion from vibrating the surrounding rock as strongly. Suspending the device within a large subterranean cavity is one such technique. To unveil all such explosions, says Lay, “We’d have to be able to look everywhere in the world for a magnitude 2.5 event, detect it, and discriminate between an earthquake, nuclear test, mining blast, or some other event. That’s a staggering objective.” > > Initially at least, the CTBT’s International Monitoring System will have as its goal the worldwide detection of all events of magnitude 4 or greater–equivalent to the seismic waves triggered by a one-kiloton device fully coupled with the ground around it. Lay terms this a “major advance” over current capabilities. > > The ultimate goal, says [Dr. Stephen] Bratt [Director of the CTBT International Data Center], is to make it as difficult as possible for a nuclear event to slip through the monitoring system’s cracks. If the seismic network has a 90 percent probability of detecting a magnitude 4 event, it might have a 50-50 chance to hear an explosion at some lower threshold–perhaps enough to deter potential violators. If the testers set off the explosion in a large cavity, they increase the odds that telltale radionuclides will escape into the atmosphere from cracks in the ground. “These all are risks that an evader must evaluate,” Bratt says. “We’ll be making it very risky for someone to attempt to evade and be successful.” FWIW, if we discount the [1979 Vela Incident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident) as Israel’s responsibility, then to the best of my knowledge, Israel has never detonated any of its putative nuclear weapons. Yet, we all still think they have them (sorry,\*\* XT\*\*), and assume they will work when fired. So, I don’t think that a—to pick on them again—Taiwanese weapon would need to be tested, especially if they were working off of a known design/engineering drawings/notes. Much testing could be done to validate weapon parameters without needing to detonate the device. Things like explosives and initiator timing, structure changes of either HEU or Plutonium under very high pressures, sensitivity testing etc: a gazillion things that an expert in nuclear weapons—I’m certainly not one—would like to know to optimize their design. Or to eliminate potential deliberate errors in the acquired plans, assuming they didn’t start from a clean sheet of paper. They’d want to know these things if they wanted to make multistage weapons. Or to make their weapons safe from accident or unauthorized use, and available to be used in a military context. Will the device survive the stresses of an IRBM launch? Will it blow up if a bomb goes off next to the magazine or the magazine catches fire? How close can I store it next to its brothers without inadvertent criticality accidents? What will a lightning strike, or just too much RF, do to the bomb circuitry? And so on. For a country like Taiwan, although in a seismically active area, but surrounded by countries with seismographs, (Never mind any hydrophones placed within the Straits of Formosa.) I’d think it difficult for them to detonate a test nuclear weapon nearby without anyone finding out. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/50 "2012-09-28T17:39:18Z")
> [@XT](#): > > It’s not a matter of US approval, there is a nuclear test ban treaty which, iirc, all nuclear armed countries are on board with. The US itself can’t test the things, even if we give ourselves approval. :p. Not true. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has technically never come into force, because it has not been ratified by several signatories, including China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, and the United States, while India, Pakistan, and North Korea are not even signatories, and have in fact conducted tests since the CTBT was written. (Those three, plus Israel, are also the countries officially outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty.) By treaty terms, all eight of those countries–having participated in the negotiations, and having established reactors at the time–have to get on board before it’s official. So the CTBT has been adhered to by the signatories, since 1996, as a voluntary policy matter. If a US President wanted to set a new policy direction, he certainly could. The Partial Test Ban Treaty, dating to the Kennedy era and still in force, banned tests in the atmosphere, in space, or underwater, but permitted underground testing. China, France, and North Korea never signed this one. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/51 "2012-09-28T17:59:51Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > These are absolute facts: Israel had: > [ul] > [li]Access to fissionable materials (South Africa & the US)[/li][li]The technical expertise & personnel to refine nuclear material and build nuclear warheads.[/li][li]A very strong motivation to do so.[/li][li]No outside forces willing/able to stop them.[/li][/ul] > All circumstantial evidence sure, but pretty damn convincing none the less. The best estimates I’ve read is that Israel has a stockpile of probably about 300 warheads, mostly small to medium tactical yield, but also at least a dozen +1MT thermo city busters. And they certainly have the attack aircraft & IRBMs to arm them on. We also have photographic evidence of bomb assemblies thanks to Vanunu. These and Vanunu’s statements have been verified by US and British nuclear scientists. And of course Vanunu’s kidnapping by Mossad and conviction for espionage and treason adds his believability. And we have 1,200 declassified pages of the Vanunu trial transcripts (but not the full transcripts). They clearly confirm that Vanunu was convicted for releasing real information. We have French government documents describing the facility at Dimona. How it was intentionally designed as a plutonium breeder reactor. We also have French documents detailing the transfer of weapon design information. We have British government documents detailing the transfer of key materials for nuclear enrichment and bomb construction. We have evidence of Israelis importing key nuclear components from the US such as the krytons Milchan was convicted of illegally exporting to Israel. From '65 through '69 the US was allowed to annually inspect Dimona. The eventual conclusion was that plutonium was being extracted. We have the South African documentation regarding technology and perhaps weapon transfers. We have the Cohen research, which includes confirmation via interview with people involved in the program. And finally we have two Israeli prime ministers Peres and Olmert who have both accidentally confirmed the existence of the program in interviews, like when Olmert in an interview said that Iran was trying to build nuclear weapons like “America, France Israel, and Russia.” Of course he backed off of that. But the Israeli opposition, who would explicitly know about a program chastised Olmert for confirming the program. And the interesting thing is how all of these actively support one another. Weaponizing material from the type of plant we know the French built, would require precisely the type of material the British helped them acquire. Vanunu’s description would require precisely the krytons that Milchan sold to Peres. Likewise the Vanunu design is a derivative of the design the French provided them. And so on. This isn’t a bunch of unrelated information. We have a pretty good idea of how many weapons Israel might have, their nature, their construction, their material components, how they were derived and so forth. It is a false equivalency to compare the Iraqi mobile trailers and the Israeli program. We may be wrong about some of the details in the Israeli program, but its basic existence is really not in dispute. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/52 "2012-09-28T18:21:45Z")
Has anyone ever considered the entire thing may be a hoax by mossad to try to make arab countries think Israel has a nuclear program? I am not advocating that idea, I am just wondering if it’s been cosniderd or put forward by anyone reputable. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/53 "2012-09-28T19:01:00Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > Has anyone ever considered the entire thing may be a hoax by mossad to try to make arab countries think Israel has a nuclear program? > > I am not advocating that idea, I am just wondering if it’s been cosniderd or put forward by anyone reputable. It is a non-zero possibility. **XT** is right about that. And certainly Saddam played that game pretty well. But we just have way too much evidence (circumstantial or not) to give it too much credence. We can say with high degrees of confidence that Israel has weapons grade plutonium. They have the reactor and all the equipment necessary to separate it. We can say with high degrees of confidence they have warheads to put the plutonium in. We have photos of those, and detailed descriptions that match up. We have undeniable proof that they have delivery systems including the full three prongs (planes and land based ballistic missiles and submarine launch systems). The idea that they never actually separated the plutonium, or put the material into the warheads, or put the warheads on the delivery systems… well it seems unlikely at the least. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942/54 "2012-09-28T19:44:20Z")
My point was that it’s not a fact…it’s still speculation. And getting back to the OP and my original point, Israel is a poor example of what the OP was getting at because IF Israel developed nuclear weapons they kept it secret (to this day) from not only the international community but their own people as well. Also, since Israel never signed the NNPT, they could have developed the things if they had chosen to without violating or backing out of the treaty. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-a-stable-democracy-decided-to-start-a-nuclear-weapons-programme/635942.md?page=2)