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This is my list off the top of my head. My son and I were talking about this yesterday.The list of current Nuclear powers:1. The United States - 19452. Russia - 1950ish3. China - 1950ish4. UK - Consonant with the US5. France - Late 40's6. Israel - late 60's7. India - 19988. Pakistan - 19989. North Korea - 2005Of the Nuclear Powers, the vast majority of warheads belong to The US and Russia with several thousand each. All the rest have less than 100 warheads apiece. It is also a given that Germany could have nukes in about 4-6 months from a standing start. they already have stockpiles of fissile material and weapon de, they just have to put them together. Israel has never acknowledged posessing nukes but it is probably the worst kept nuclear secret in the world. Lastly, Iran is agreesively pursuing nuclear development.Here is a site that lists some other powers: New Nations in the Nuclear Family
Thanks – that's an interesting list. It begs a lot of questions, like: how did Israel acquire such knowledge in the 1960s? France in the 40s? Did the U.S. readily share the technology with Britain or was there any desire to keep it secret under the rationale that the fewer who knew, the better? It also raises the issue of inevitability. Isn't the prevention of nuclear proliferation a bit like building a deck of cards higher and higher, knowing that it will eventually all fall down anyway?
Britain got the Bomb as part of the bi-lateral agreement that transferred British technical to the US for the Manhattan Project. Many of the scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project were British. I believe Britain gave nuclear technology to France although I am not 100% sure there. The US gave the Bomb to Israel, there are credible stories of the US giving Israel enough material from the Savannah River plant for ten Bombs with plans for how to make warheads. Apparently since then they have built more I have heard warhead numbers as high as 100.I forgot to mention South Africa on my list. Though unacknowledged, it is thought that SA constructed several bombs in the last years of Apartheid but never test fired one. As far as I know, no one knows what happened to the bombs when Apartheid fell apart.Nuclear non-proliferation is actually pretty easy if the nuclear powers would cooperate. The key to non-proliferation is controlling the fuel cycle. You cannot just dig up uranium and make a bomb, it takes a certain uranium isotope to be fissionable. That is why Iran's acquisition of centrifuge cascades is such a big deal. It is possible to power a reactor with unrefined uranium but impossible to build a bomb. If Iran only wanted nuclear power why would they not be content with purchasing the fuel from Russia as the Russians offered?
I thought Israel go their nuclear technology, or at least the technology to build a reactor, from France?
To the best of my knowledge, which is admittedly not encyclopedic in this area, Israel got the majority of their nuclear know-how from the Johnson adminstration after the 1967 Six-Day. This was to help give Israel a deterrent aginst further Arb aggression. Obviously it did not work as the Arabs attacked again in 1973.
I think the complaints of the perceived enemies of Israel are legitimate when it comes to nuclear capabilities and American military support (although I think this support is exagerrated as of late).No one wants Iran to get the bomb (although N. Korea getting it worries me more), but can we really blame them when they say "Well Israel has one. Why can't we?" We DO NOT have a legitimate argument against that type of logic.
No one wants Iran to get the bomb (although N. Korea getting it worries me more), but can we really blame them when they say “Well Israel has one. Why can't we?” We DO NOT have a legitimate argument against that type of logic.
Sure we do, Israel has never made the claim that another nation should be wiped off the map as Iran has done with Israel or N Korea has said with S Korea. That is a critical difference.
Actually, I think I remember hearing that it was Pakistan that gave the technology to N Korea. It was A.Q. Khan the father of the Pakistani bomb who sold the technology to N Korea. That is confirmed by this article at Global Security A.Q. Khan.
