What's your opinion about the capabilities and willingness of Eastern European NATO countries to gain nuclear weapons or at least covertly start bomb research and acquire possible delivery systems?
The Baltics have the Taiwan problem, roughly, but magnified by their lack of historical experience or interest in developing weapons. Estonia used to have an HEU production facility but it closed 35 years ago and was, to my understanding, staffed mostly by ethnic Russians in the Soviet days. None of the Baltics have any observable sources of SNM to make weapons either, nor do they have the research infrastructure you'd expect (major academic and government labs focused on shock physics, fundamental nuclear engineering, radiochemistry, etc). They would have to build an entire supporting industry from scratch to have any serious shot.
People talk about Poland, and this is also IMO far fetched but for harder reasons to summarize.
I didn’t write this article, but I think they are willing but are faced by the same constraints as Taiwan. Nukes sound great in theory, but are difficult in practice. That being said, I think countries like Poland and even Finland will be having serious conversations about it in the coming years
Interesting! Small states around the world must now feverishly and seriously consider nuclear options as the US nuke umbrella appears to be closing. IMO it was the primary rationale behind non proliferation. Trump has destabilized the post war security architecture.
What's your opinion about the capabilities and willingness of Eastern European NATO countries to gain nuclear weapons or at least covertly start bomb research and acquire possible delivery systems?
The Baltics have the Taiwan problem, roughly, but magnified by their lack of historical experience or interest in developing weapons. Estonia used to have an HEU production facility but it closed 35 years ago and was, to my understanding, staffed mostly by ethnic Russians in the Soviet days. None of the Baltics have any observable sources of SNM to make weapons either, nor do they have the research infrastructure you'd expect (major academic and government labs focused on shock physics, fundamental nuclear engineering, radiochemistry, etc). They would have to build an entire supporting industry from scratch to have any serious shot.
People talk about Poland, and this is also IMO far fetched but for harder reasons to summarize.
I didn’t write this article, but I think they are willing but are faced by the same constraints as Taiwan. Nukes sound great in theory, but are difficult in practice. That being said, I think countries like Poland and even Finland will be having serious conversations about it in the coming years
True. The first step for Europe could be nuclear armed France and UK extending their nuke umbrella beyond their borders.
Interesting! Small states around the world must now feverishly and seriously consider nuclear options as the US nuke umbrella appears to be closing. IMO it was the primary rationale behind non proliferation. Trump has destabilized the post war security architecture.