No.after the collapse of the USSR could mobutu buy a couple nuclear weapons as insurance
No.
Replace the dimmed words with any others.
Still no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons
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.couldn't he just ignore the treaty
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.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.
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.
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.
A "disaffected Negro"?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.)
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].Wouldn't people notice that at least a few of these individuals are suddenly receiving large amounts of money from some mysterious source?
I suspect the costs, perhaps US$1-200 million wouldn't be that noticeable in the background of general looting.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).
Nope, but he can have them, and their families. brutally killed. A return to the Mulele technique perhaps.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.
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.