“A series of recent articles in the country’s press has ignited a debate on whether Sweden should make a fresh attempt to acquire the bomb — either alone or together with its new European allies in NATO,” reports the British newspaper The Times.
The idea has now entered the country’s political mainstream. However, scientists and experts are skeptical that Stockholm possesses the necessary technological and resource base to undertake such a project independently.
“A huge amount would need to be developed, including the entire infrastructure for producing the materials required for nuclear weapons, which would demand enormous investment. I think finding the necessary resources would be next to impossible,” the article quotes nuclear weapons expert Martin Goliath as saying.
Sweden is not the first NATO country to consider producing its own nuclear weapons. In German expert circles, discussions involving politicians about the hypothetical possibility of developing such weapons also surface from time to time.
I am not sure bird law allows hawks to own nuclear weapons.
Don’t be silly, birds aren’t real.
I’d bet against Sweden starting a nuclear weapons program, at least at a national level, but if they do, I have to say that this is going on the “why invading Ukraine has been pretry counterproductive in terms of Russia’s security” list.
you realize they had one in the past?
Eh.
Whats the harm in a little nuclear war here and there?
Maybe a small nuclear winter will offset all this global warming hullabaloo, keep things balanced.
It’s not about nuclear war. It’s about “we’ll glass Moscow if you invade us”. That’s the only language the Russians understand apparently
Good stuff, Ukraine has proven again that having a nuclear arsenal is really the only way to ensure a country’s security when faced wirh a hostile nuclear armed neighbor.
An even better example is North Korea.
Unless you are a country not favored by West, then having nuclear weapons is a big no-no.
WTF, this is literally why you chose to join NATO last year. Whether the US care to participate or not is secondary. I understand that is worrying, but it’s no reason to go all national.
I suspect there’s some pretty dumb neocon/neolib rhetoric behind this, mongering fear to garner more votes.
edit: I’m not against NATO stepping up its game sans USA (and who knows, maybe that requires national action as above). But I’m leery of Sweden’s current admin that is poisoned by far-right populism, just like in so many countries.
No.
The fact of the matter is that the complete and total abrogation of the Budapest memorandum, wherein Ukraine gave up shitloads of old Soviet nukes in the 90s in exchange for sovereignty and territorial integrity guarantees… and that the guarantees were demonstrably not worth the paper they were printed on, created the conditions for nuclear weapon development to make a broad resurgence.
Nuclear proliferation is back with a vengeance. It has become abundantly clear that nuclear weapons are the absolute final word in unilaterally assuring sovereignty and territorial integrity guarantees. This is also Sweden quietly saying “we don’t necessarily trust the US to pony up if the ruskies invade”.
The way this could have been stopped is if, way back in 2014, the US had gotten directly involved in the shadow invasion Russia perpetrated. It’s an open secret that it was 100% orchestrated by the Kremlin. Also, for me, that was a very sharp fall from grace for Merkel - she was so goddamn focused on getting Russian oil that she didn’t even consider the implications on nuclear proliferation and overall global stability, nor Russia’s negative influence on said stability
Why is is unreasonable to get nuclear weapons for smaller countries?
I am from Ukraine and we are the only country in the world that has given up nukes and look how that worked out.
I agree with you but tbh i feel like we should share those god damn nukes. It silly that every country should start their own programm. What a waste of money. U.S. and russia could give some to their “allies” but as we are more pawns and useful idiots they do not really trust us with these.
Yes, the best option would be a Baltics/Scandinavia/Poland/Ukraine/Moldova nuclear alliance.
Ukraine already has ballistic missiles that can reach ~1,000 Km. It’s not an ICBM, but the targets are Moscow, St Petersburg and Nishniy Novgorod, not Chukotka.
