What is so difficult about developing nuclear weapons that makes some countries incapable of making them?

Question

What is so difficult about developing nuclear weapons that makes some countries incapable of making them?

In: 1394

Answer 1

There are two kinds of atomic bombs and they are each hard for their own different reasons.

1 – You can fairly easily make a “gun” style uranium bomb with enriched uranium, but enriching uranium is **very** difficult. it requires the development of a **massive** infrastructure of equipment that can take months to enrich enough uranium for a single bomb. If other nations are trying to stop you, this infrastructure is hard to hide and protect.

2 – On the other hand, it’s comparatively easy to produce plutonium in modest nuclear reactors (compared to enriching uranium), but plutonium can only be used in a much more advanced and complex “implosion” style weapon. An implosion bomb requires much more technical control in order to perfectly control the timing and shape of a spherical implosion.

**tl;dr enriching uranium is VERY hard, but a gun style bomb is fairly simple. Obtaining plutonium is comparatively easy, but building a reliable implosion bomb is VERY hard.**