As the title says. Make nuclear weapons a common weapon for a state to have, with even third-tier powers (like Cuba, Algeria, or Australia) and a few fourth-tier powers (like Oman, the Philippines, or the Congo) having at least a few. Bonus points with a post-1933 POD. Mucho bonus points if you can make them common even among the fourth-tier powers.
AHC: Make nuclear weapons common!
- Thread starter Alternate History Geek
- Start date
You'll need to answer the question of cost: nuclear weapons are very expensive to develop and manufacture. If you imagine that these third- and fourth-rate powers are buying their weapons, you have to ask why the larger powers would willingly sell to them.
I don't suppose you're talking about these small countries all having intercontinental capability, right? I mean, you'd be satisfied if they had warheads of some sort and fairly limited delivery means? Artillery, tactical bombers, stuff like that?
if north korea can do it i see no reason why switzerland or sweden cant.
just let all non nato/wp countries go the "we're aremed neutrals, f*ck off" way.
just let all non nato/wp countries go the "we're aremed neutrals, f*ck off" way.
Sweden and Switzerland both had plans for nuclear weapons but I don't know how to make them go through with it. Australia and Argentina had nuclear weapon programs as well, and Iraq would have gotten them if the raid on Osirak and the Gulf War didn't happen. I also remember reading something about an Italian ICBM project, and Yugoslavia and Taiwan were also suspected to nuclear weapon programs.
Last edited:
Using nuclear weapons is simply not done, old chap. Frightfully common, what? It would be the act of a bounder and a cad, the sort of person who'd eat pie with a salad fork.
Think about how close we came to nuclear war OTL. That was with 10 nuclear armed countries. The world would have destroyed itself before nuclear weapons ever got as common as the OP asks for.
The OP never said such an outcome was desirable. He simply asked how serious nuclear proliferation would be enacted.
My admittedly uneducated guess would be no WW2, say if instead of Nazis a conservative military dictatorship or monarchial restoration takes place in the 30s. A Germany more moderate and patient with its demands could easily bring it back to the upper tier of the great powers without a war.
The major powers have the time and money to invest in nuclear programs, albeit not in the absurdly wasteful Manhattan project style, so that by 1960 the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, and the USSR all have home-built nuclear programs, and possibly Italy and Japan as well. With them being much more common, they are not viewed as an unholy terror like OTL, but just as a really big bomb, so they are sold to the various clients of the great powers, and of course there is the usual technology spread.
So by 2013 at most a dozen countries have the ability to actually make their own or with anything more than a short-range delivery method, but there are at least three to four times that number who own a couple.
My admittedly uneducated guess would be no WW2, say if instead of Nazis a conservative military dictatorship or monarchial restoration takes place in the 30s. A Germany more moderate and patient with its demands could easily bring it back to the upper tier of the great powers without a war.
The major powers have the time and money to invest in nuclear programs, albeit not in the absurdly wasteful Manhattan project style, so that by 1960 the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, and the USSR all have home-built nuclear programs, and possibly Italy and Japan as well. With them being much more common, they are not viewed as an unholy terror like OTL, but just as a really big bomb, so they are sold to the various clients of the great powers, and of course there is the usual technology spread.
So by 2013 at most a dozen countries have the ability to actually make their own or with anything more than a short-range delivery method, but there are at least three to four times that number who own a couple.
Brazil, Argentina, South Africa etc continue their nuke programs. During the fall of the Soviet Union, a small group of generals decides they want to retire well. Tactical nukes suddenly show up in Serbia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, and Sudan. After a nuke shows up in Serbia and goes off in Croatia, everyone decides tactical nukes arent a big deal and game on. Chavez comes to power and promptly gets a nuke from Cuba in exchange for oil. Zimbabe, seeing South Africa, obtains a few nukes of its own. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Turkey, and Egypt all obtain nukes in response to Iraq. Greece starts a nuke program in response to Turkey. Bulgaria and Romania decide the neighborhood isnt too safe without one. Bin Laden spends a lot of money and Afghanistan obtains one - cuz they are virtually everywhere now.
Excuse me while I go take a sedative so I can sleep well tonight.
Excuse me while I go take a sedative so I can sleep well tonight.
I've often wondered about the British doing their own dual-key programme with Commonwealth countries along the same lines as US-NATO, even if we push it the French could do the same thing. This would introduce nuclear weapons into regions such as South East Asia, the Mid East and Africa as early as the 60s, causing countries in the region to nuke-up as a counter.
If without WWII, you have the history of the second half of the twentieth being a lot of brushfire decolonization wars,
THen you still have the vast number of nuclear weapons per OTL, Then you don't have MAD, indeed, you have nuclear weapons not actually being very useful for the wars being fought.
MOst of them anyways.