WWII delayed: how long until each power gets Nukes?

Asking for WWII to be delayed with Hitler in power is somewhat ASB. But assume that Mussolini isn't alienated from the West over Abbysinia, or that the French grow a pair and stop the remillitarization of the Rhine, or that Ribbentop and Molotov fail to reach a solid accord, or that Britian demonstrates convincingly that Poland really is a red line or else that it fails to gurantee Poland and forces it to give up the corridor and upper Silesia.

For whatever reason, immediate war is delayed though all sides arm up.

In 1938 German physicists discovered nuclear fission- and communicated this discovery to (mostly) Jewish collegues who had fled the Nazi regime. Those collegues had mostly found asylum in England and communicated the possibilities to whitehall. similiar awareness to the potential occurs in Paris during the phoney war. How long before:

a. each governments become convinced that nuclear physics can actually produce a city killer?
b. each government devotes the necessary resources towards producing it?
c. a functioning device is tested by each side?
d. a strategically relevant stockpile is produced?

Does the U.S join the nuclear race in the absence of open war in Europe? If Germany wins the nuclear race what does it do? If the British wins the nuclear race what does it do?

Now let us suppose that the 1933 crisis in Germany ends in a millitary coup. the New regime is authoritarian, anti-socialist, anti-democratic and mildly anti-semitic but not much more than Dolfuss. No "german physics", no organized street violence against jews, no racial purity laws, and relatively few political refugees who aren't active communists or socialists. Some purging of the universities of soft science (philosophy, history, etc) professors who are considered "unpatriotic" but the hard sciences are left alone. It is also more cautious on foreign policy- it rearms more slowly, and following the remillitarization of the Rhineland it avoids foreign adventures until the fortifications in the West are completed, around 1942.

How much does this delay leakage of the fission discovery to the West? Is a conservative german Junta going to realize the potential of Nuclear weapons more or less than the Nazis? Does such a Junta have a chance of beating the allies to the punch- and if so, how much do they try to get away with and how much will the West, and Stalin, allow them to get away with once Nuclear capacity is demonstrated?

Rudolf Peierls was a Professor in at the University of Birmingham by 1937 and already working in the field so even if Frisch doesn't move there as in OTL Britain has the nucleus of a research team and in OTL started work as soon as the implications of the successful fission by Otto Hahn in Sweden had filtered through to the government with the MAUD committee being set up in 1940 so I don't think that TL of events would be altered much. However it took Britain 5 years between 1947 and 1952 to develop a British bomb in OTL and that was after the Manhattan Project had proved it's viability. So it would probably be the late 40's until you'll see a British bomb.

At absolute latest, I would say around 1960. More probably we're looking at a bomb in the late-40s, early-50s.

Thoresby said:

Rudolf Peierls was a Professor in at the University of Birmingham by 1937 and already working in the field so even if Frisch doesn't move there as in OTL Britain has the nucleus of a research team and in OTL started work as soon as the implications of the successful fission by Otto Hahn in Sweden had filtered through to the government with the MAUD committee being set up in 1940 so I don't think that TL of events would be altered much. However it took Britain 5 years between 1947 and 1952 to develop a British bomb in OTL and that was after the Manhattan Project had proved it's viability. So it would probably be the late 40's until you'll see a British bomb.

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but would he have stayed in Britian in 1934 after his studies if Schleiser had seized power in 1933 rather than Hitler?

ObssesedNuker said:

At absolute latest, I would say around 1960. More probably we're looking at a bomb in the late-40s, early-50s.

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What's the main bottleneck? funding, industrial plant or political commitment to providing centralized direction?

yboxman said:

What's the main bottleneck? funding, industrial plant or political commitment to providing centralized direction?

Click to expand...

Yes.
These factors are massively intertwined. If you want to go the enriched uranium route, you need massive amounts of enriching devices (gaseous diffusion, centrifuges, whatever) drawing as much power as a major nation had then in total generating capacity. Also Teflon, LOTS of it. Also tonnes of uranium hexafloride, which is really, really nasty stuff.

All of that requires buckets of money to build infrastructure that has little to no use for other purposes. Then, even more buckets of money to run it.

If you go the Pu route, you need lots of reactors to breed some Pu, and then you need to extract the Pu from highly radioactive fuel rods.

Also, implosion bombs (required for Pu, just a really good idea for U), requires fancy machining of radioactive metal, AND really tricky timing on the explosives.

If all you want is a bomb every couple of years, an experimental Candu reactor and a bunch of money is a good start... (yes, Im looking at you, India).

I wonder if it wouldn't have taken until the seventies or even eighties. Certainly the technology was there as early as the forties, but you need enough motivation to actually invest the massive amounts of funding and effort to build them. If the Cold War analogue following WWII features as much hostility as OTL, then you will see the political will to build nukes, but do the powers that be in the military see a use for such a weapon or do they see it as an impractically difficult to make weapon that won't really make the real difference in a conventional war?

Well, you have a number of potential PODs here, and the

yboxman said:

For whatever reason, immediate war is delayed though all sides arm up.

Does the U.S join the nuclear race in the absence of open war in Europe? If Germany wins the nuclear race what does it do? If the British wins the nuclear race what does it do?

Click to expand...

Well, you have a number of potential PODs here, and the big question is how long in this alternate 1930s-40s does it take before a balloon goes up - somewhere?

It's worth keeping in mind, I think, that physics were - generally - open source in the 1930s (and, by extension, this different 1940s, at least to a degree) so if research starts yielding interesting possibilities in one or more countries, it is not going to be unknown - the knowledge will percolate. Censorship, even in "a" Nazi Germany if there is one, is not going to be to wartime standards.

However "different" Germany may be, it still remains the most militarized state in Europe, correct? That is going to give a lot of people pause, and whether Germany is as overtly anti-semitic as it was historically, there are still going to be a lot of bright people looking to emigrate, and the US is definitely an attractive place to emigrate to... Einstein, for example, had left Europe for the US temporarily as early as 1931, and for good in 1933; there were many more, besides. This is a 1933 cartoon:



So if the basics of the physics is percolating by the end of the 1930s, and Europe and Asia are both either at war (limited or otherwise) or on the road to war, then the major powers are all going to be looking for an edge - radar, biochem, physics research, etc.

The problem there is to do Big Science at the same time as a given nation is arming/re-arming/mobilizing for conventional warfare takes resources, and the one country that has anything really to spare is the US.

Which, after all, was able to develop not one but two weapon systems and not one but two delivery systems, simultaneously, and while at war - historically. Obviously, the realities of 1933-40 helped, of course, as did the various Allied efforts, but still...

When it comes to economic, industrial, and human resources, the US has plenty to spare in the 1940s; the other powers do not.

My SWAG is the US develops at least one type of weapon and the aircraft to deliver it by the mid-to-late 1940s; the British, maybe the Germans, follow in the early 1950s; the Soviets and French, since they each had a lot to do in terms of conventional rearmament, maybe by the mid-1950s, in the absence of a hot war.

The above, of course, is absent any effort by one power or the other to prevent its rivals from getting to that point, of course.

Best,

yboxman said:

but would he have stayed in Britian in 1934 after his studies if Schleiser had seized power in 1933 rather than Hitler?

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Then you are hitting the problem of so many butterflies that it's almost impossible to tell. Certainly Britain had a large and developed physics community and several great universities, that said Germany had a disproportionate number of the great minds at this point all of whom the Nazi's drove away at one point or another.

yboxman said:

What's the main bottleneck? funding, industrial plant or political commitment to providing centralized direction?

Click to expand...

As Dathi THorfinnsson says all of the above. Political Commitment provides funding which in turn provides industrial plant which produces bombs.

Another interesting potential is France. Throughout the OTL 20's France was spending more on it's military than the US, Germany or Britain and in sheer amount spend was the leading military power*, it also had a very well developed physics community with the Paris Group being the second after Hahn to perform fission. Finally with a big scary Germany next door it had a motive to acquire a wonder weapon. So there is fair chance France could be the first to acquire a nuke. I would certainly put it ahead of a isolationist USA which barely spent anything on it's military.

*okay a lot of it was wasted on the Maginot Line and the British Empire was boosted ahead of France by the Dominions spending.

Dathi THorfinnsson said:

Yes.
These factors are massively intertwined. If you want to go the enriched uranium route, you need massive amounts of enriching devices (gaseous diffusion, centrifuges, whatever) drawing as much power as a major nation had then in total generating capacity. Also Teflon, LOTS of it. Also tonnes of uranium hexafloride, which is really, really nasty stuff.

All of that requires buckets of money to build infrastructure that has little to no use for other purposes. Then, even more buckets of money to run it.

If you go the Pu route, you need lots of reactors to breed some Pu, and then you need to extract the Pu from highly radioactive fuel rods.

Also, implosion bombs (required for Pu, just a really good idea for U), requires fancy machining of radioactive metal, AND really tricky timing on the explosives.

If all you want is a bomb every couple of years, an experimental Candu reactor and a bunch of money is a good start... (yes, Im looking at you, India).

Click to expand...

So the Uranium route would probably have been technically unfeasible since it would have required too much electrical generating capacity from anyone outside the U.S (and the Soviets but they were way behind in the physics and precision machinary).

I'm going to assume that the plutonium route was technically feasible- heck, if Israel could get it done in the late 1960s, with a fraction of the population, industrial plant and electrical generating capacity of interwar Britain or Germany then it probably could have been done by them in the 1940s given sufficient political will and lack of a distracting war.

So lets assume the powers that be in Berlin and London give up on Uranium after a year or so. Would they view the plutonium route as a path worth pursuing?


Here's the thing- the U.S really did go all the way on the Manhatan project. It poured buckets of money, 100,000 laborers, many of them specialists, and invetigated every possible enrichment route. And, starting after both Germany and the UK it beat them both to the punch by a mile.

But was that the only way to get the job done within a reasonable time frame?, say by 1945?

Deferring the war until the 1950s is probably too unlikely. The dynamic caused by German minorities in Poland and Czecholslovakia, the political instability in Austria, Stalin's great purges, Russo-Japanese tensions in the far East, and the West's belated rearmament in response to the Rhineland re-millitarization is just too unstable. Someone (germany) will see an opportunity, or an advantage slipping awa,y and unleash the dogs of war... unless, possibly, they are absolutely sure they have a war winning wunderweapon just over the horizon and that they are ahead of the race.

I guess you can see I'm gunning for a particular outcome, namely WWII starting in the mid 1940s with Germany in posession of half a dozen or so Nukes and Britain a few months possesing only a first testable device (and a shitload of Anthrax). Is this even remotely possible? How about

If not does "Big science" provide a sufficient incentive for Germany to delay the war in the face of Soviet recovery?

P.S. If I ever apply the idea of a nuclear WWII to a scenario it will be for the "mound of spring" TL which has WWI ends with entente victory a year and a half early with:
a. no U.S intervention, league of nations, or adoption of right of self determination as a basis for international affairs.
b. a survivng, albeit attenuated and unstable AH empire
c. an aborted Russian revolution and a semi-reformed Tsarist regime dominated by a Junta of WWI generals. Poland ruled in personal union with Russia la-mode Hungary vs Vienna.
d. Revanchsit H&L dictatorship in Germany gradually devolving into reassertion of monarchial power and rule by commitee after the two dictators die of old age in the 1930s. Germany loses memel and AL but no territories to Russian dominated Poland, its armed forces are limited to a far smaller extent, and it is saddled with far smaller reperations... but both the Rhineland and East Prussia are demillitarized and it faces a certain two front war with the Russo-French alliance if it seeks to unilaterally revise restrictions or unify with germans in AH.
e. a much weaker KMT in China, and an eventual semi-formal and semi-stable division into British, Japanese, Russian and french spheres of influence where each backs "their" respective warlord.
f. a Japan which avoids the worst of the China quagmire and is focused on the Tsarist threat to the north
g. A British empire with somewhat more robust imperial institutions geared towards the dominions, colonies and India being bound in a more protectionist trade block and providing more resources towards common defence.
h. possibly French democracy being overthrown in 1936 with Petain as a figurehead and the millitary calling most of the shots.
i. Mussolini achieving more limited power in 1929 and a probably more limited second Abyssinian war (Ogaden war?), no sanctions, and a delayed breach with the Western powers.
i. Partioned Turkey and Persia with semi independent ottoman rump states in Syria (Dejmal Pasha), Central Anatolia (Chaos) and North-central Iraq (Mustafa Kemal).
j. And incidentially an earlier and larger Israel as an autonomous London based Corporate entity.

For Germany some of these changes (less devastated economy after WWI, less constraints on millitary spending but stronger international constaraints limiting expansion and chance of victory in conventional war, more rational leadership) make a nuclear breakout more likely- but is it actually plausible?

On Uranium enrichment:

- The first method (and the one used for the Hiroshima bomb) was electromagnetic. It is easily the most power-intensive.

- Diffusion was the most common in the post-war period. It's still very energy intensive, but had the advantage of being simpler than centrifuge.

- Centrifuge is easily the most energy efficient method, and is much more viable for small-scale operations. It was demonstrated in the 1940s, but because it was relatively complex, it wasn't seriously developed until the 1960s.

Actually, the US - once a threat presented itself - spent

Thoresby said:

I would certainly put it ahead of a isolationist USA which barely spent anything on it's military.

Click to expand...

Actually, the US - once a threat presented itself - spent money like water; even in 1937, although it spent a much smaller percentage of its GDP than the other powers, was - in real dollars - spending a lot.

Bottom line, in terms of shares of the relative war potential of the powers in 1937, the numbers (Bairoch via Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers) were:

US - 41.7 percent
GE - 14.4 percent
SU - 14 percent
UK - 10.2 percent
FR - 4.2 percent
JE - 3.5 percent
IT - 2.5 percent
Rest of world - 9.5 percent

As another example, in 1938, the US produced 26.4 million tons of steel, and this was with two-thirds of American steel plants actually being idle; the figures for Germany was 20.7 million tons, the Soviet Union was 16.5 million tons, and Japan was 6 million tons - yet all three of the later were at capacity, and going flat out.

In 1938, even though the percentage of GDP being spent on defense in the US was much less than that of the other powers, the actual dollars were, for example, significantly in excess of France - the US spent $1.1 billion on defense, while France spent $919 million. In 1930, the US had actually spent more ($699 million) than France ($498 million) and the UK ($512 million), and (obviously) much more than Germany ($162 million), Japan ($218 million), and Italy ($266 million). The Soviet Union actually spent more, $722 million, than any of the powers.

The end result is that in the late 1930s and early 1940s the US could fund both a rearmament/mobilization program, and whatever variants of Big Science were needed for the future; the other powers could not do both - some, like Italy, could not even re-equip their existing forces with modern equipment.

Best,

TFSmith121 said:

Actually, the US - once a threat presented itself - spent money like water; even in 1937, although it spent a much smaller percentage of its GDP than the other powers, was - in real dollars - spending a lot.

Bottom line, in terms of shares of the relative war potential of the powers in 1937, the numbers (Bairoch via Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers) were:

US - 41.7 percent
GE - 14.4 percent
SU - 14 percent
UK - 10.2 percent
FR - 4.2 percent
JE - 3.5 percent
IT - 2.5 percent
Rest of world - 9.5 percent

As another example, in 1938, the US produced 26.4 million tons of steel, and this was with two-thirds of American steel plants actually being idle; the figures for Germany was 20.7 million tons, the Soviet Union was 16.5 million tons, and Japan was 6 million tons - yet all three of the later were at capacity, and going flat out.

In 1938, even though the percentage of GDP being spent on defense in the US was much less than that of the other powers, the actual dollars were, for example, significantly in excess of France - the US spent $1.1 billion on defense, while France spent $919 million. In 1930, the US had actually spent more ($699 million) than France ($498 million) and the UK ($512 million), and (obviously) much more than Germany ($162 million), Japan ($218 million), and Italy ($266 million). The Soviet Union actually spent more, $722 million, than any of the powers.

The end result is that in the late 1930s and early 1940s the US could fund both a rearmament/mobilization program, and whatever variants of Big Science were needed for the future; the other powers could not do both - some, like Italy, could not even re-equip their existing forces with modern equipment.

Best,

Click to expand...

like I said, if I use the scenario it will be in "mound of spring" and both absolute and relative war production potential of Britain, Germany and especially Russia will be higher (France not so much) Vs the U.S and Japan.

But yes, if the U.S has the political will it can rearm, supply it's allies and develop big science with relatively little effort and much more quickly than any other power. But would it? In the midst of the great depression with no immediate threat on the horizon?

If:
a. Germany does no go on a expansion bonanza but contents itself with remillitarizing the rhineland in 1936, and then, following the death of Ludendorf seems to somewhat moderate and liberalize.
b. Japan is not a threat and does not invade China. too focused on propping up "it's" warlords in Northern China and manchuria against Russia and Russian backed warlords.

I mean, I'm trying to imagine Roosovelt passing an appropriations bill for the Manhattan project with no war in Europe or the Far East. Would congress allow it?

TFSmith121 said:

Actually, the US - once a threat presented itself - spent money like water; even in 1937, although it spent a much smaller percentage of its GDP than the other powers, was - in real dollars - spending a lot.

Bottom line, in terms of shares of the relative war potential of the powers in 1937, the numbers (Bairoch via Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers) were:

US - 41.7 percent
GE - 14.4 percent
SU - 14 percent
UK - 10.2 percent
FR - 4.2 percent
JE - 3.5 percent
IT - 2.5 percent
Rest of world - 9.5 percent

As another example, in 1938, the US produced 26.4 million tons of steel, and this was with two-thirds of American steel plants actually being idle; the figures for Germany was 20.7 million tons, the Soviet Union was 16.5 million tons, and Japan was 6 million tons - yet all three of the later were at capacity, and going flat out.

Click to expand...

Obviously the US had enormous potential capacity but I was referring to actual military spending in which a nuclear program could be hidden.

TFSmith121 said:

In 1938, even though the percentage of GDP being spent on defense in the US was much less than that of the other powers, the actual dollars were, for example, significantly in excess of France - the US spent $1.1 billion on defense, while France spent $919 million. In 1930, the US had actually spent more ($699 million) than France ($498 million) and the UK ($512 million), and (obviously) much more than Germany ($162 million), Japan ($218 million), and Italy ($266 million). The Soviet Union actually spent more, $722 million, than any of the powers.

The end result is that in the late 1930s and early 1940s the US could fund both a rearmament/mobilization program, and whatever variants of Big Science were needed for the future; the other powers could not do both - some, like Italy, could not even re-equip their existing forces with modern equipment.

Click to expand...

Now that's interesting, I don't have the source to hand but it it was a book about inter-war France and it said that based on "visible" defense spending France alone was the number one military power with the possible exception of the Soviet Union but as this was quite an old book (pre 1990) there were no clear Soviet figures so they had been left out.

Thoresby said:

Now that's interesting, I don't have the source to hand but it it was a book about inter-war France and it said that based on "visible" defense spending France alone was the number one military power with the possible exception of the Soviet Union but as this was quite an old book (pre 1990) there were no clear Soviet figures so they had been left out.

Click to expand...

Possibly it was referring to LAND forces. Nearly all of the U.S defense spending prior to 1941 went into the navy. To a lesser extent this was true for Britain, Japan and even Italy. France and the USSR pretty much gave up on naval competition after WWI.

Well, it really depends on when something goes hot...

yboxman said:

like I said, if I use the scenario it will be in "mound of spring" and both absolute and relative war production potential of Britain, Germany and especially Russia will be higher (France not so much) Vs the U.S and Japan.

But yes, if the U.S has the political will it can rearm, supply it's allies and develop big science with relatively little effort and much more quickly than any other power. But would it? In the midst of the great depression with no immediate threat on the horizon?

If:
a. Germany does no go on a expansion bonanza but contents itself with remillitarizing the rhineland in 1936, and then, following the death of Ludendorf seems to somewhat moderate and liberalize.
b. Japan is not a threat and does not invade China. too focused on propping up "it's" warlords in Northern China and manchuria against Russia and Russian backed warlords.

I mean, I'm trying to imagine Roosovelt passing an appropriations bill for the Manhattan project with no war in Europe or the Far East. Would congress allow it?

Click to expand...

Well, it really depends on when something goes hot...obviously, historically the Fall of France in 1940 opened the floodgates, and given the rapidity of how the US managed the MANHATTAN project(s) historically (and the concurrent B-29 and B-32 programs), basically it takes a hot war somewhere that can not be ignored and something similar is presumably in the works.

It's also worth noting that even during the Depression, the US was building up to the treaty limits - there was support in Congress, FDR wanted it, and the Administration could protray shipbuilding, for example, as part of the Recovery.

In terms of airpower, this was also the era of the YB-17, B-15, and B-19, so the Army was seriously considering strategic bombardment.

The 1930s also saw efforts towards industrial mobilization; the Industrial College of the Army, the Air Corps Tactical School, NACA, and the like were all funded. The US was planning for mobilization throughout the 1930s, and industrial and scientific mobilization were part and parcel of those efforts.

And again, almost all the foundational science is going to be open source, and people like Conant, Bush, Einstein, and the rest are going to be well informed about what is happpening in European circles, and vice versa.

Best,

Given the needs of the Germans et al in terms of conventional

Thoresby said:

Obviously the US had enormous potential capacity but I was referring to actual military spending in which a nuclear program could be hidden.



Now that's interesting, I don't have the source to hand but it it was a book about inter-war France and it said that based on "visible" defense spending France alone was the number one military power with the possible exception of the Soviet Union but as this was quite an old book (pre 1990) there were no clear Soviet figures so they had been left out.

Click to expand...

Given the needs of the Germans et al in terms of conventional re-armament, I don't see it; bottom line, the only industrialized economy that really had much in the way of surplus capacity - certainly in regards to being able to rearm AND research something the size of an atomic weapons program - is the US.

The UK could try, but something else - new aircraft, ships, radar, something - is probably going to fall by the wayside; I don't think the Soviets and Germans can even afford to try. The Germans have to arm, period, and the Soviets began their rearmament effort in the late 1920s early 1930s, which means that by the end of the 1930s, most of what they had in inventory was obsolescent.

It's not quite the zero sum game for all the players that trying to do something similar in wartime would be, but it is close...

Certainly for the Europeans, who don't have the added benefit of being on the other side of two oceans from the Eastern Hemisphere, as the Americans do.

Best,

yboxman said:

And, starting after both Germany and the UK it beat them both to the punch by a mile.

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Well yeah that's hardly surprising considering that the British sent the US a report on their work up to that point, which they then had to keep prodding them to actually read and act upon IIRC, and then shared all of their research so far agreeing to a joint project since they didn't have the funds to do it themselves, plus having some other rather pressing distractions.

With no war, you will see reactors for steam generation for Navy ships first

Simon said:

Well yeah that's hardly surprising considering that the British sent the US a report on their work up to that point, which they then had to keep prodding them to actually read and act upon IIRC, and then shared all of their research so far agreeing to a joint project since they didn't have the funds to do it themselves, plus having some other rather pressing distractions.

Click to expand...

which would seem to argue that industrial capacity and lack of competition with other needs is not the all in all in a nuclear arms race- the stridency of the German(Jewish) refugees who reached England was much louder, earlier and more up to date with developments within Germany, inteligence assets and pentration of the German nuclear program was greater and so was the sense of urgency.

absent a hot was would the UK share nuclear intelligence with the U.S? I doubt it.

TFSmith121 said:

Given the needs of the Germans et al in terms of conventional re-armament, I don't see it; bottom line, the only industrialized economy that really had much in the way of surplus capacity - certainly in regards to being able to rearm AND research something the size of an atomic weapons program - is the US.

The UK could try, but something else - new aircraft, ships, radar, something - is probably going to fall by the wayside; I don't think the Soviets and Germans can even afford to try. The Germans have to arm, period, and the Soviets began their rearmament effort in the late 1920s early 1930s, which means that by the end of the 1930s, most of what they had in inventory was obsolescent.

It's not quite the zero sum game for all the players that trying to do something similar in wartime would be, but it is close...

Certainly for the Europeans, who don't have the added benefit of being on the other side of two oceans from the Eastern Hemisphere, as the Americans do.

Best,

Click to expand...

So the implication of what you are saying is that a Euro nuclear arms race in the 1940s is only credible if there is no rearmament for a conventional conflict... in other words if Germany remains constrained by a tighter Anglo-French-Russian(?) alliance.

How well could each state hide the sums being devoted to nuclear arms development?

How long would the other states avoid going to conventional war, or applying sanctions (blockade?) once it became clear a nuclear arms race was on?

And if, one way or the other, the U.S develops and tests a nuclear weapon before any of the other powers WITHOUT being drawn into a East Hemisphere conflict, and possibly without one openly erupting then what would the U.S actually do with it?

Play global policeman and prevent/end potential conflicts? try to prevent the other powers from developing their own programs on pain of nuclear obliteration (given that it didn't Vs Stalin this seems unlikely)? Or happily withdraw deeper into isolation and spend LESS money on conventional forces la mode "Darwin's world"?

looking at the costs, the manhattan project cost 23 billion 2007 US dollar over 4 years, every european country except the micro states can afford that - the real bottleneck are available scientist, quality and quantity.

my guess is late 40s for a first test, afterwards everyone rushes to build their own bombs.