This article is a little silly. First it moves the goal posts from making nuclear weapons to making advanced nuclear weapons (e.g. Plutonium implosion designs), with the justification that only implosion weapons are suitable for ICBM delivery.
However, this analysis is inaccurate, naive, and misleading. Look at the history of nuclear proliferation. South Africa, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea all successfully acquired nuclear weapons production capability, the later 2 fairly recently. All but North Korea and South Africa are sure to have built advanced weapons.
Also, there are 2 parts to the equation implicit in this article: a nuclear warhead and an ICBM capable of carrying it. Unfortunately, it's just as easy to keep working on the 2nd part to make bigger rockets with heavier payload capacity, even if you are never able to figure out how to make an advanced, lightweight warhead. India has the capability to launch a dead-simple gun-type Uranium bomb to anywhere in the world, for example. North Korea's missile program is maybe 10-20 years behind India's. And North Korea has been sharing its missile technology with Iran.
It's naive to think that we're safe merely because the technological road is difficult. At best it's just a matter of time, given concerted effort.
South Africa built at least 6 deliverable nuclear weapons (bombing airplanes). If it was tested, no one knows. There were suggestions that SA tested in 1979 (Vela incident).
For what it is worth, South Africa had a fairly good rocket development. The Israeli Jericho rocket was actually a joint Israeli-South African project (the Jericho missiles were tested in SA btw). The RSA rockets would have been able to carry South African nuclear warheads. This (and the whole company Houteq) got dismantled in 1990 though.
South Africa had a different strategy with its nuclear weapons though. Its main purpose of its program was to force the USA to act if the RSA was threatened by the USSR.
However, this analysis is inaccurate, naive, and misleading. Look at the history of nuclear proliferation. South Africa, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea all successfully acquired nuclear weapons production capability, the later 2 fairly recently. All but North Korea and South Africa are sure to have built advanced weapons.
Also, there are 2 parts to the equation implicit in this article: a nuclear warhead and an ICBM capable of carrying it. Unfortunately, it's just as easy to keep working on the 2nd part to make bigger rockets with heavier payload capacity, even if you are never able to figure out how to make an advanced, lightweight warhead. India has the capability to launch a dead-simple gun-type Uranium bomb to anywhere in the world, for example. North Korea's missile program is maybe 10-20 years behind India's. And North Korea has been sharing its missile technology with Iran.
It's naive to think that we're safe merely because the technological road is difficult. At best it's just a matter of time, given concerted effort.