WI: Mobutu buys a couple nukes

after the collapse of the USSR could mobutu buy a couple nuclear weapons as insurance

Would the first congo war happen

If the first congo war happens would couple nukes being used save mobutu's regime

how long could mobutu or his successor last
 
couldn't he just ignore the treaty
In theory, yes. There have been a number of Treaty violations related to Pakistan (look up A. Q. Khan) selling nuclear technology to a number of countries, after all.

In practice, no. Nuclear weapons are problematic to transfer. The Pakistani transfers seem to have involved the provision of know-how, schematics, and precursor technology and equipment, and certainly did not involve Pakistan selling complete weapons to North Korea. Anyway, in order to maintain them you need an infrastructure capable of producing them--so what's the point in buying them instead of the infrastructure? Then you can produce however many weapons you like.

Mobutu wouldn't have the money for any of this, in any case. He might have been hugely corrupt, but it takes more than just personal wealth to buy a nuclear weapons program. You really need a reasonably capable state or other organization to back that up, and the Congo just lacked that in the 1990s.
 
Were the Russians or any post-Soviet state ever really that hard up for cash that they'd even consider selling nuclear weapons? Since if there's one thing a reasonably developed nation can do that would end up making it an international pariah, I'd imagine that'd fit the bill to a T.
 
Were the Russians or any post-Soviet state ever really that hard up for cash that they'd even consider selling nuclear weapons? Since if there's one thing a reasonably developed nation can do that would end up making it an international pariah, I'd imagine that'd fit the bill to a T.

Even if they were dead broke, it would still be way more trouble than it was worth.
 
So fascinate the idea is so unrealistic is the idea

Mobutu was dictator, but a rich one ? you need allot money to buy that entire stuff and i have my doubt he had the reserves to do it.
Buying Nukes and brag about it to world press, brings Mobuto nothing just short media hype because,
You need a delivery system: Sub, Bomber, rocket or a truck to be serous threat to world, that stuff cost money and has to deliver to Zaire.
Also need that all maintenance in tropical climate, special the nukes what need specialist and Money, allot of money
now the MI6 and CIA would notice something if suddenly former Soviet technicians show up in Zaire and live luxurious in Mobutu private mansions
and what about the large shipments of Material from former USSR states to Zaire ?
they would intervene and a Navy Seal team would take care of Mobutu while he sleep...
 
Were the Russians or any post-Soviet state ever really that hard up for cash that they'd even consider selling nuclear weapons? Since if there's one thing a reasonably developed nation can do that would end up making it an international pariah, I'd imagine that'd fit the bill to a T.
Russia as a country no, individuals yes. It's possible that enough people could have been suborned but unlikely in the extreme.
 

Deleted member 94680

Russia as a country no, individuals yes. It's possible that enough people could have been suborned but unlikely in the extreme.

Individuals don't control nuclear weapons. "Enough people" would run into the hundreds, each wanting a serious wedge of cash.

It's great fluff as a McGuffin for an action movie, but in reality it's ASB that a Russian (or any other nation's) nuclear weapons could be sold to a rogue state/terrorist organisation/megalomaniac madman.
 

Asami

Banned
Individuals don't control nuclear weapons. "Enough people" would run into the hundreds, each wanting a serious wedge of cash.

It's great fluff as a McGuffin for an action movie, but in reality it's ASB that a Russian (or any other nation's) nuclear weapons could be sold to a rogue state/terrorist organisation/megalomaniac madman.

And the nation who sold it is likely to get serious backlash if it gets used. Like, your country is forfeit level backlash.
 
Individuals don't control nuclear weapons. "Enough people" would run into the hundreds, each wanting a serious wedge of cash.

It's great fluff as a McGuffin for an action movie, but in reality it's ASB that a Russian (or any other nation's) nuclear weapons could be sold to a rogue state/terrorist organisation/megalomaniac madman.

Wouldn't people notice that at least a few of these individuals are suddenly receiving large amounts of money from some mysterious source? And then fluctuations in the Congolese budget (either the payments are coming out of there or Mobutu's pocket, and he "only" had 1-5 billion dollars--Mobutu might want to make up for this by looting a bit extra).

On the Congolese side, I think at least one person would notice something was up, and that when Mobutu is buying nuclear weapons, he might've gone too far this time. Or someone let's something slip at a meeting, party, to their family or friends, etc. Mobutu can't manage a deal like this on his own, of course.
 
Who says he has to buy them?

A disaffected Negro (this is the seventies) pilot assigned to fly B52s is getting tired of the racism, the low pay, and the general problems of the post Vietnam War drawdown. One day he happens to meet a lovely young woman. Charm is deployed, closeness grows, and passion flourishes.

Then, after one particularly degrading day, the woman said, "I know a way you can make a quarter of a million dollars and live free of whites."

He's particularly depressed, and in spite of the horror of betrayal, that money and the hot lady are so welcoming.

His plane is deployed on a training mission with live nukes (they do that). About halfway across the Atlantic, while the plane is on autopilot, he says, "I gotta go to the john." He unstraps, heads back to the relief facilities . . . and takes something, two somethings, out of his personal bag.

One he puts on the floor, pushing a button, the other he takes into the head, strapping it across his face. A hissing sound emerges from the device on the floor, unhearable over the drone of the engines.

When he comes out, half an hour later, the other four guys are dead. He straps himself back in and turns off the radio, then sets a new course southwards.

The plane, almost out of fuel, makes a landing on a remote strip hacked out of the Congolese jungle. The pilot gets out, and is greeted by his young lady, who grins and hands him a briefcase. He opens it and sees lots and lots of green stuff.

"The president wants to meet you," she says. and gets into the back of a car next to a security man, while he gets in front. The car drives away.

A few minutes later it stops, and his body is thrown out off the road. She'd held the money (which was counterfeit, anyway), so it's not bloody. They proceed to Kinshasa, where she will tragically die in the next few days.

Behind them, a crew is throwing nets over the plane, to hide it from American satellites. Over the next few days it will be dismantled, with lighter metal being thrown out into the jungle, and heaver things (engines, electronics) loaded on small ships to be taken out to sea and sunk.

The bombs are removed and transferred to Kihshasa. Mobutu is happy.

(Yes, I was thinking of Thunderball.)
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Who says he has to buy them?

A disaffected Negro (this is the seventies) pilot assigned to fly B52s is getting tired of the racism, the low pay, and the general problems of the post Vietnam War drawdown. One day he happens to meet a lovely young woman. Charm is deployed, closeness grows, and passion flourishes.

Then, after one particularly degrading day, the woman said, "I know a way you can make a quarter of a million dollars and live free of whites."

He's particularly depressed, and in spite of the horror of betrayal, that money and the hot lady are so welcoming.

His plane is deployed on a training mission with live nukes (they do that). About halfway across the Atlantic, while the plane is on autopilot, he says, "I gotta go to the john." He unstraps, heads back to the relief facilities . . . and takes something, two somethings, out of his personal bag.

One he puts on the floor, pushing a button, the other he takes into the head, strapping it across his face. A hissing sound emerges from the device on the floor, unhearable over the drone of the engines.

When he comes out, half an hour later, the other four guys are dead. He straps himself back in and turns off the radio, then sets a new course southwards.

The plane, almost out of fuel, makes a landing on a remote strip hacked out of the Congolese jungle. The pilot gets out, and is greeted by his young lady, who grins and hands him a briefcase. He opens it and sees lots and lots of green stuff.

"The president wants to meet you," she says. and gets into the back of a car next to a security man, while he gets in front. The car drives away.

A few minutes later it stops, and his body is thrown out off the road. She'd held the money (which was counterfeit, anyway), so it's not bloody. They proceed to Kinshasa, where she will tragically die in the next few days.

Behind them, a crew is throwing nets over the plane, to hide it from American satellites. Over the next few days it will be dismantled, with lighter metal being thrown out into the jungle, and heaver things (engines, electronics) loaded on small ships to be taken out to sea and sunk.

The bombs are removed and transferred to Kihshasa. Mobutu is happy.

(Yes, I was thinking of Thunderball.)
A "disaffected Negro"?

WTF?

I understand the scenario is out of the 1970s, did you also post it from the 1970s?
 
Wouldn't people notice that at least a few of these individuals are suddenly receiving large amounts of money from some mysterious source?
Not really. Given that even while falling apart the Soviets kept reasonable track of their nuclear arsenal those involved would have to disappear, and hence would need enough funds to last them for the rest of their lives [1].

And then fluctuations in the Congolese budget (either the payments are coming out of there or Mobutu's pocket, and he "only" had 1-5 billion dollars--Mobutu might want to make up for this by looting a bit extra).
I suspect the costs, perhaps US$1-200 million wouldn't be that noticeable in the background of general looting.

On the Congolese side, I think at least one person would notice something was up, and that when Mobutu is buying nuclear weapons, he might've gone too far this time. Or someone let's something slip at a meeting, party, to their family or friends, etc. Mobutu can't manage a deal like this on his own, of course.
Nope, but he can have them, and their families. brutally killed. A return to the Mulele technique perhaps.


[1] Not necessarily very long, especially if the Soviets find them. Or the Americans.
 
Read up on the first Congo War, and WOW. I knew the East Africans had been invading a lot to slaughter refugees and to steal minerals, but for Rwanda to overthrow the government of Zaire... At first I was going to ask where he would sue them, as rebels would be hard to find and a waste of nukes. Using it on a small, nearby country though... Takes a lot of experience to hit something like that, though. Don't think he has the men who are able to do it. Let alone those who are paid well, kept on the payroll and in practice for years, as well as able to keep their mouths shut about it. And for this to prevent the First Congo War people would need to know about them. Pretty much the only way deterents work.
 
Through '66 and 7
They fought the Congo War
With their fingers on their triggers
Knee-deep in gore
The days and nights they battled
The Bantu to their Knees
They killed to earn their living
And to help out the Congolese.

It seems appropriate. Though I'm also fond of:
Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.
 
Read up on the first Congo War, and WOW. I knew the East Africans had been invading a lot to slaughter refugees and to steal minerals, but for Rwanda to overthrow the government of Zaire... At first I was going to ask where he would sue them, as rebels would be hard to find and a waste of nukes. Using it on a small, nearby country though... Takes a lot of experience to hit something like that, though. Don't think he has the men who are able to do it. Let alone those who are paid well, kept on the payroll and in practice for years, as well as able to keep their mouths shut about it. And for this to prevent the First Congo War people would need to know about them. Pretty much the only way deterents work.

In fairness Mobutu did give aid and comfort to the genocidaires after the RPF drove them out of Rwanda, to the point of helping them prepare to reinvade the country, and enabled their attacks on Congolese Tutsis. Enabling genocidal actions and terrorism against a neighboring state is a legitimate casus belli.

With that said, yes, Rwanda does have much to answer for in the Congo. Their role in the far more destructive Second Congo War is much harder to defend.
 
Top