PC/WI. Australia/Canada with an independent nuclear deterrent.

Australia ran an enrichment 'experiment' at Lucas Heights for 15-20 years but I don't know if the output was ever used in HiFAR or Moata research reactors. In any case it would have been way too small to keep HEU up to SSBNs.

I think the task is well and truly beyond a country of only 12,000,000 and a GDP of 36 billion US$ in the 60s.
 
A world in which Nuclear Nonproliferation totally failed would likely lead to Canada and Australia having bombs.

However, depending on how 'independent' you want those deterrents to be, that could be tough.

Note that OTL, Britain is heavily dependent on the US (Trident subs, etc.) although US designs are often locally build, IIRC.

I'd think that a similar sort of thing would likely happen with Canada and Australia - locally built war heads (likely) from locally sourced fissiles, but with designs shared partially from/with other allies (US, UK, France, other Commonwealth countries).

Once the NPT is a dead letter (either it never happens or it is ignored), there's likely to be a reasonable amount of selling full weapons packages among allies. I can't see the Netherlands building their own bomb, for instance, but they might well get whole systems under local control, or joint local/NATO control.

So Canada, say, would likely have several weapons packages from the US (especially more specialized ones), while we had enough development and a couple of completely homegrown systems, just in case the US tap was turned off.
 
As allies of two nuclear-armed nations that would surely support them if they faced any existential threat, why on Earth would either need an independent nuclear deterrent?

i can see them having British / French / cooperatively developed Devices as a counterpoise within NATO to US dominance of the technology but entirely independent ? probably not
 
<snip>

Note that OTL, Britain is heavily dependent on the US (Trident subs, etc.) although US designs are often locally build, IIRC.

.

No it isn't

the only part of UK trident that depends on the US is the 'rocket' part of the missiles as they are used in a pool , the rest is UK designed and built ...
 
For Canada it comes down to the fact that the country is already under the protection of the US nuclear umbrella due to geography. The US would have to respond to a nuclear (or conventional) threat to Canada irregardless of treaties just due to geography. This official position goes all the way back to 1938. Knowing this it is hard to make the Canadian government willing to spend billions (and potentially damage their dovish reputation abroad) building an independent nuclear deterrent. Indeed the US may not be pleased with a neighbour (even a friendly one) having an independent nuclear deterrent. They originally wanted Canada to host US nuclear weapons with a 2 key system. Indeed the US government originally wanted a 2 key system for the UK rather than the Uk having independent control of nuclear weapons and only relented this position when they were informed by parliament that the UK was set on having its own nuclear stockpile under its control. The Polaris agreement is pretty much that: The US provides the technology and the warheads, but the UK mounts them in natively built systems (i.e. the Vanguard subs) and exclusively controls their use (while they are dependent on the US for new technology to upgrade their system).
 
I think we can pretty much rule this out for Canada, absent a drastic change in US-Canada relations:

"Strikingly, Canada appears to have even refused an offer which would have seen the USA provide Canada with nuclear weapons. In 1951, an US official suggested to the head of Canada’s Defence Research Board that Canada might welcome some US nuclear bombs for its own control and use. 'As regards the possibility of bombs being stored in Canada, Dr Solandt reported that Mr Arneson had thrown out a suggestion which he might or might not have meant to be taken seriously, that the Canadian government might wish to have bombs stored in Canada for its own use.'32 Even if this offer was not serious, and whatever the details would have been, that it was apparently never explored is striking and suggests a genuine lack of interest.."
http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2013/Urban.pdf

(The paper's basic argument summarized by its author: "Canada’s non-acquisition of an independent strategic nuclear arsenal (hereafter, nuclear weapons) presents a particularly intriguing enigma for scholars of International Relations (IR), a group who have heretofore neglected this puzzle. This is because in foregoing acquisition Canada abstained from exploiting an unprecedented opportunity to ameliorate the massive imbalance in military power that existed between it and the USA. Realist theories of IR would suggest that any rational state endowed with Canada’s capabilities and facing such a situation ought to have leapt at the opportunity that acquisition presented to reduce this imbalance. Yet, not only did acquisition not occur, it seems that it was never even considered by Canada’s primary decision-makers. Below I argue that this result can best be accounted for through the recognition of the role played by trust in the Canada-USA relationship...")
 
I think we can pretty much rule this out for Canada, absent a drastic change in US-Canada relations:

"Strikingly, Canada appears to have even refused an offer which would have seen the USA provide Canada with nuclear weapons. In 1951, an US official suggested to the head of Canada’s Defence Research Board that Canada might welcome some US nuclear bombs for its own control and use. 'As regards the possibility of bombs being stored in Canada, Dr Solandt reported that Mr Arneson had thrown out a suggestion which he might or might not have meant to be taken seriously, that the Canadian government might wish to have bombs stored in Canada for its own use.'32 Even if this offer was not serious, and whatever the details would have been, that it was apparently never explored is striking and suggests a genuine lack of interest.."
http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2013/Urban.pdf

(The paper's basic argument summarized by its author: "Canada’s non-acquisition of an independent strategic nuclear arsenal (hereafter, nuclear weapons) presents a particularly intriguing enigma for scholars of International Relations (IR), a group who have heretofore neglected this puzzle. This is because in foregoing acquisition Canada abstained from exploiting an unprecedented opportunity to ameliorate the massive imbalance in military power that existed between it and the USA. Realist theories of IR would suggest that any rational state endowed with Canada’s capabilities and facing such a situation ought to have leapt at the opportunity that acquisition presented to reduce this imbalance. Yet, not only did acquisition not occur, it seems that it was never even considered by Canada’s primary decision-makers. Below I argue that this result can best be accounted for through the recognition of the role played by trust in the Canada-USA relationship...")

Interesting find, and ya if the conclusion was that the Canadians and their leaders didn't pursue nuclear weapons (ironically purchased from the USA) because they trusted the Americans not to actually threaten them then with nuclear weapons, then yes, that is a pretty obvious truth. Countries like North Korea and Iran are so desperate for a nuclear deterrent because they know in any conventional war with the USA (or any great power around them for that matter- ie. North Korea eyeing China's and Russia's stockpiles as well) they would lose and their dictator leaders would be removed from power. Obviously in theory Canada is even more vulnerable to conventional (or nuclear) US power due to its long lights guarded border, and (comparatively) small population and industry but in practice no one of any importance in Canada considers US power to be a real threat to the country's sovereignty. Thus building nuclear weapons (or in this case purchasing from the US itself) for the purpose of deterring potential US aggression is a wholly unnecessary expense and furthermore could even jeopardize Canada-US relations.

As to the idea that the US would actually give Canada nuclear weapons to operate independently in any situation, I find that extremely unlikely. The only reason the US extended a deal to Britain was that they first rejected a dual-key offer from the US and then built thermonuclear weapons of their own (Blue Streak). Given that one way or another the UK was going to have an independent nuclear arsenal, the US preferred to sell its systems to the UK. Canada never had any sort of nuclear weapons program since its involvement in the Manhattan project so it certainly didn't have the same kind of bargaining position to strike a deal like the UK did. I see no reason that the US would ever offer Canada more than a dual-key systems, as there really is no reason to give a country on your own border, even a very friendly country, a stockpile of nuclear weapons that it can fire independently, when you don't have to. Remember that the US wasn't even willing to allow Canada to build its own nuclear attack submarines in the late 1980s (the Canada class SSNs) and even went so far as to invoke the US-UK mutual defence treaty to stop the UK from selling the reactors to Canada and pressured the Canadian government to drop the plan (which it did) and furthermore moved to block Canada from buying from another third party (ie. France). The theory behind the US resistance is that the Canadian SSNs would impede the ability of US submarines to control the Northwest Passage.
 
Top