eli5: Why can’t countries that want to build Nukes build Nukes? Especially since several countries built them, some 75+ years ago
In: Engineering
There are two answers to this.
– They don’t have the technology to do so. Not every country is technologically advanced as the US, UK, Russia, etc. Some countries have been trying for a long time to perfect the technology to do it, but unsuccessfully.
– It’s not to the benefit of the globe that there are more nuclear powers. There are only 9 countries in the world that have Nuclear weapons, as far as we know. Imagine what would happen if more countries did? If some of the countries in the middle east had them. We could end up in a nuclear war. It’s bad enough that North Korea and some other countries have them. So the United Nations and some of its member countries have worked hard to make it so other countries don’t develop them, sometimes turning to violence. The world doesn’t want more nuclear countries. We recognize the potential for much violence if that happens. So we keep it from happening.
They can, given some time and money. Actually the hardest part is refining nuclear material sufficiently for use in weapons. After that building a functional (if not optimal) bomb is pretty easy.
But you can’t go buy any of the equipment off the shelf, you have to do it all in your own. And usually people quickly figure out you are trying and do everything they can to stop you.
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