by Cheryl Rofer
Not everyone mentioned the drawbacks of nuclear weapons, but if you’re a small country that is thinking of acquiring them, you'd better think about them as well as the prestige and ability to scare your neighbors. Nuclear weapons draw an opprobrium that conventional weapons don’t. There is the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which nobody mentioned explicitly. All nations except India, Israel and Pakistan have ratified it, and there is some cost to withdrawing.
Deichman’s first point, internal security, implies the additional costs that appropriate security requires.
Eddie’s Nigerian rebels don’t realize that they are being played, a danger if you have a wealthy patron.
The Armchair Generalist mentions the danger of materials being intercepted by members of the Proliferation Security Initiative and, thus, the possibility of being discovered before a bomb is completed. For this reason, his small country keeps its capability indigenous.
James suggests that a few nukes won’t deter the superpowers.
ZenPundit points out that nuclear weapons are not cost-effective for most states.
The reason most states do not is that nuclear weapons programs are expensive investments ( in terms of money, talent and geopolitical friction) that do not offer a reasonable return for most states, partly because they would be militarily insignificant in light of existing American and Russian nuclear arsenals. Thus some countries like Brazil and Taiwan have abandoned nuclear weapons programs and others like South Africa, Ukraine and Kazakhstan have actually disarmed by surrendering or dismantling what weapons they had constructed or inherited.
In the comment thread there, Dave Schuler says
I don’t think there’s a strategic reason for any country to have a handful of nuclear weapons and an excellent reason not to: rather than being a deterrent I think it invites a beheading first strike.
Fester agrees with Dave.
Under my scenario, one to five nuclear weapons are not particularly useful for security enhancement as the weapons are not yet a credible minimal deterrant but are an invitation for a combination of pre-emptive/preventive strikes, significant isolation, and staggering amounts of over-confidence.
Reasons not to even try include the expense (financial and political), the danger of being discovered, that they’re not really a deterrent to the big guys, and that they make you a target (military and political). If you’ve got a helper or a patron, can you trust them?
Anything else that can go wrong?
Next I’ll try to get into the meat of things, how that little country might go about letting the world know. (Or should it keep it all a secret?)