This is a daft idea but not -- quite -- ASB.
OTL, Zambia's leader Kenneth Kaunda was remarkably well informed about the progress of South Africa's nuclear weapons program. Under Kaunda, from 1965 to 1980 Zambia was sheltering various black nationalist groups that were working to bring down the white dominated governments in the region -- Rhodesia, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola and of course South Africa. These groups seem to have kept Kaunda very well informed; for much of this period, he probably had better military intel than any other leader in black Africa. The key point is, he knew that South Africa had the bomb.
Second point: Kaunda thought the South African program was aimed at him. That's not quite as crazy as it sounds. From 1964 until the fall of Portuguese rule in Mozambique and Angola 11 years later, Zambia and Botswana were the two "frontline states" of black rule in southern Africa. Botswana, surrounded by white-ruled states on all sides, followed a moderate course and generally did not provoke its neighbors. But Zambia's policy of sheltering and supporting independence movements led it into several nasty low-intensity conflicts. The Portuguese and Rhodesians regularly raided across the borders -- in 1968 the Portuguese blew up Zambia's largest bridge, effectively cutting the country in two for six months -- and South Africa trained and funded an anti-Kaunda guerrilla movement in Zambia ("Operation Plathond") that killed people and blew stuff up for almost a decade. If you were Kaunda, you could reasonably ask yourself -- if they're not planning to nuke Zambia, what /are/ they doing with it?
OTL, Kaunda's reaction was to denounce the draft Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It went through the UN in 1968 and passed with almost universal approval; Zambia was one of just four votes against. Kaunda insisted that small states should be able to obtain nukes to deter attack by their larger neighbors...
...and there the matter rested; while Kaunda fulminated, he never actually tried to obtain a bomb.
Okay [handwave] let's assume a somewhat more paranoid and obsessive Kaunda. That's surely not hard -- it's not like paranoia and obsession were unheard of in that generation of African leaders. And let's say that, starting in 1968 *Kaunda decides to get his hands on a working nuclear weapon by 1980.
Is this remotely plausible? I think so -- just barely.
1) Zambia has uranium deposits. They're not high-grade, and OTL they've only just started to be exploited in the last few years, but they were first discovered in the 1950s.
In the alternative, Kaunda had excellent relations with Mobutu of the Congo (later Zaire), and the Congo had some of the world's best uranium deposits -- the metal for the Manhattan Project came from there.
2) Zambia could plausibly want to build a nuclear reactor. OTL Zambia was awash in electricity from the dam on the Zambezi, built in the 1950s. However, the turbines were on the Rhodesian side, and Ian Smith's government was forever threatening to pull the plug and plunge Zambia into darkness. Given the other stuff Rhodesia did -- from closing the rail line to shutting off the oil pipeline -- this was a perfectly credible threat. So Kaunda could plausibly announce in 1968 that he wanted a small peaceful nuclear reactor.
(Note that neighboring Congo had a small test reactor. It's still there, in fact, despite determined efforts by at least three US administrations to have it decommissioned.)
3) Actually building a weapon is the hard part. Zambia was -- still is -- a very poor country. In 1970 the population was around 5 million, of which less than 2% were university graduates.
On the other hand, Zambia had surprising strength in engineering and technical fields -- it had been a mining colony, after all. And the country's mineral wealth meant that it was one of the few African countries to consistently run a trade surplus (at least until mineral prices collapsed in the 1980s). So there would have been money to buy the necessary equipment.
Note that in those innocent days, it was much easier to get access to multipurpose equipment suitable for building a bomb, as witness the relative ease with which the South Africans and Israelis were able to do it.
Given easy access to fissionables, a steady flow of money, and twelve years of lead time, I don't think it's utterly implausible.
4) Another tricky bit would be keeping the Rhodesians and South Africans from getting wind of the project. Both of them had quite substantial intelligence networks in Zambia. But I'll wave a hand [handwave] and say that both governments simply refuse to believe that a kaffir could possibly do this.
Okay, so -- handwaves granted, Zambia detonates a small implosion-type device in March 1980, just a few weeks before neighboring Rhodesia-Zimbabwe is set to become the new Republic of Zimbabwe.
Now what?
Doug M.
OTL, Zambia's leader Kenneth Kaunda was remarkably well informed about the progress of South Africa's nuclear weapons program. Under Kaunda, from 1965 to 1980 Zambia was sheltering various black nationalist groups that were working to bring down the white dominated governments in the region -- Rhodesia, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola and of course South Africa. These groups seem to have kept Kaunda very well informed; for much of this period, he probably had better military intel than any other leader in black Africa. The key point is, he knew that South Africa had the bomb.
Second point: Kaunda thought the South African program was aimed at him. That's not quite as crazy as it sounds. From 1964 until the fall of Portuguese rule in Mozambique and Angola 11 years later, Zambia and Botswana were the two "frontline states" of black rule in southern Africa. Botswana, surrounded by white-ruled states on all sides, followed a moderate course and generally did not provoke its neighbors. But Zambia's policy of sheltering and supporting independence movements led it into several nasty low-intensity conflicts. The Portuguese and Rhodesians regularly raided across the borders -- in 1968 the Portuguese blew up Zambia's largest bridge, effectively cutting the country in two for six months -- and South Africa trained and funded an anti-Kaunda guerrilla movement in Zambia ("Operation Plathond") that killed people and blew stuff up for almost a decade. If you were Kaunda, you could reasonably ask yourself -- if they're not planning to nuke Zambia, what /are/ they doing with it?
OTL, Kaunda's reaction was to denounce the draft Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It went through the UN in 1968 and passed with almost universal approval; Zambia was one of just four votes against. Kaunda insisted that small states should be able to obtain nukes to deter attack by their larger neighbors...
...and there the matter rested; while Kaunda fulminated, he never actually tried to obtain a bomb.
Okay [handwave] let's assume a somewhat more paranoid and obsessive Kaunda. That's surely not hard -- it's not like paranoia and obsession were unheard of in that generation of African leaders. And let's say that, starting in 1968 *Kaunda decides to get his hands on a working nuclear weapon by 1980.
Is this remotely plausible? I think so -- just barely.
1) Zambia has uranium deposits. They're not high-grade, and OTL they've only just started to be exploited in the last few years, but they were first discovered in the 1950s.
In the alternative, Kaunda had excellent relations with Mobutu of the Congo (later Zaire), and the Congo had some of the world's best uranium deposits -- the metal for the Manhattan Project came from there.
2) Zambia could plausibly want to build a nuclear reactor. OTL Zambia was awash in electricity from the dam on the Zambezi, built in the 1950s. However, the turbines were on the Rhodesian side, and Ian Smith's government was forever threatening to pull the plug and plunge Zambia into darkness. Given the other stuff Rhodesia did -- from closing the rail line to shutting off the oil pipeline -- this was a perfectly credible threat. So Kaunda could plausibly announce in 1968 that he wanted a small peaceful nuclear reactor.
(Note that neighboring Congo had a small test reactor. It's still there, in fact, despite determined efforts by at least three US administrations to have it decommissioned.)
3) Actually building a weapon is the hard part. Zambia was -- still is -- a very poor country. In 1970 the population was around 5 million, of which less than 2% were university graduates.
On the other hand, Zambia had surprising strength in engineering and technical fields -- it had been a mining colony, after all. And the country's mineral wealth meant that it was one of the few African countries to consistently run a trade surplus (at least until mineral prices collapsed in the 1980s). So there would have been money to buy the necessary equipment.
Note that in those innocent days, it was much easier to get access to multipurpose equipment suitable for building a bomb, as witness the relative ease with which the South Africans and Israelis were able to do it.
Given easy access to fissionables, a steady flow of money, and twelve years of lead time, I don't think it's utterly implausible.
4) Another tricky bit would be keeping the Rhodesians and South Africans from getting wind of the project. Both of them had quite substantial intelligence networks in Zambia. But I'll wave a hand [handwave] and say that both governments simply refuse to believe that a kaffir could possibly do this.
Okay, so -- handwaves granted, Zambia detonates a small implosion-type device in March 1980, just a few weeks before neighboring Rhodesia-Zimbabwe is set to become the new Republic of Zimbabwe.
Now what?
Doug M.
