What is so difficult about developing nuclear weapons that makes some countries incapable of making them?
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The type of uranium and/or plutonium that you need for a good explosion from a bomb is the kind that’s unstable, because although the atom’s nucleus has exactly the number of protons that make it “uranium”, it has a few “extra” neutrons in there, making it unstable.
There are many [isotopes of uranium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_uranium) (uranium with different numbers of neutrons in there), and basically if you mine the uranium ore you get a mix, and you have to extract the uranium 235 isotope from the mix. Which, it’s all uranium so it reacts chemically exactly the same, can’t use chemistry to separate it. It’s slightly heavier than the other kinds of uranium (because of a couple extra neutrons) but I mean you’re talking a minuscule difference. So you can try to separate it by centrifuge but it’s a LONG process and a very complex centrifuge device.
As the others have said, it’s also very radioactive and that makes it extremely hazardous and polluting to work with, and if you finally get enough kilos to make a bomb, then you need an ICBM or long range cruise missile to deliver it, and those aren’t easy to build either.
None of this stuff is easy to build *in secret*, the facilities are rather large, the missile flight testing is conspicuous, and so on.
And then, as a smaller country let’s say you build a few, then what? There are anti-missile defense systems, look at how many missiles and drones Ukraine is shooting down each day. If you only have “a few” they won’t get past missile defense systems. You need thousands, to overwhelm an enemy country’s defenses, to have a few actually penetrate and detonate.
It’s kinda like, a small country building ONE aircraft carrier. ONE. After years and years of enormous expenses (for a small country). What could they do with it?
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