Apparently, in one important sense this isn’t true: they physically possessed the weapons, but not the capacity to do anything with them. [I have no personal knowledge on this—just something I bumped into today, but it seems credible] [EDIT: the point about non-upholding of protection agreements stands; I just wanted to clarify what “possess nuclear weapons” meant in this context]
Apparently, in one important sense this isn’t true: they physically possessed the weapons, but not the capacity to do anything with them.
That’s an important point.
However, I believe that a highly industrialized nation with modern nuclear weapons (but without the launch codes) would have had the capacity to do something with them. Using the weapons grade material (not only the fissible material, also the electronics etc) and using the weapons as prototypes for designing warheads should have had the potential to greatly accelerate a nuclear weapons program.
So, in a way this case is quite similar to Gaddafi’s—not giving up a functional nuclear arsenal (only South Africa has done that up to now, and I don’t think there will be a second case any time soon) but giving up the potential for a nuclear weapons program.
Apparently, in one important sense this isn’t true: they physically possessed the weapons, but not the capacity to do anything with them.
[I have no personal knowledge on this—just something I bumped into today, but it seems credible]
[EDIT: the point about non-upholding of protection agreements stands; I just wanted to clarify what “possess nuclear weapons” meant in this context]
That’s an important point.
However, I believe that a highly industrialized nation with modern nuclear weapons (but without the launch codes) would have had the capacity to do something with them. Using the weapons grade material (not only the fissible material, also the electronics etc) and using the weapons as prototypes for designing warheads should have had the potential to greatly accelerate a nuclear weapons program.
So, in a way this case is quite similar to Gaddafi’s—not giving up a functional nuclear arsenal (only South Africa has done that up to now, and I don’t think there will be a second case any time soon) but giving up the potential for a nuclear weapons program.