Well Hrdrok, That is "THE" question, and an excellent one!
I will NOT presume to be more effective than the CIA in matters of intelligence beyond the media coverage on the issue, but, with what I know about it, and how tight the security is (simply because of the nature of what it is being secured) where, even a foreign power MUST maintain a level of security just to maintain the weapon's function and development system operations, I know it is going to be hard for the public media to truly know what is or ISN'T the day to day facts... but we do have some facts based on the nature of what it is we are dealing with:
FACT # 1: Any nation that builds a nuclear reactor is going to produce tailings (radioactive waste byproducts) that are ready for application as a dirty bomb, so, when you hear about the desire of any foreign power seeking clean nuclear power... watch out. Security or storage on tailings is not as easy as it sounds and is often overlooked. You cant just dump it in a pit or an ocean and bury it ..and at the present, it is hard to hide a nuclear reactor, so, media on this is from open acknowledgment and most likely accurate. Why lie about it... wanna see a picture? haha
FACT #2 Any nation building a nuclear reactor is going to need fuel to fire that reactor, which is one step below weapons grade fissionable material and precisely WHY anyone should be concerned.
FACT #3 We know what it takes to produce "yellow cake" which is part of the process and one step below producing the enriched fuel for a reactor or a bomb, how you refine it from there is going to determine wether you are making a bomb or a reactor... The centrifuge and particle accelerator needed to produce this material is also hard to hide, so, open acknowledgment here is pretty much going to start the lies, or set the tone for your story after the discovery of these facilities... or the intent to build them.
...so, basically what I am saying is.. it is very hard to hide a massive weapons production facility, which you are going to need if you are going to produce the type of rockets and bombs that are significant enough for the purpose of threatening another nation or deterring another nation from attack through (MAD) "mutual assured destruction". So, media is probably fairly accurate on these developments...
Currently Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia, United States openly acknowledge having the bomb. Because it's pointless not to admit it.
Right here I would like to point out that a BIG reason we went after Hussein was not so much that he already HAD the WMD's, but, the special aluminum tubing that was intercepted is needed to build the particle accelerator. Sure, it can be used to build a cannon, as he later claimed, but, there are far better ways to make a cannon. Most likely, he had already worked out a deal for the fissionable material with one of the nations listed above.
Nations that are in possession of weapons from one of the above listed countries (and do not openly acknowledge this) is a well known ally of the United States: ISRAEL
Nations currently seeking nuclear weapons are N. Korea and Iran
...and they acknowledge this. Iran's President openly stated the intent to continue the Nuclear Power development and declared the matter "closed for any further discussion". N. Korea has already produced enough yellow cake to build a dozen bombs within the next 2 to 5 years... (scary thought) because N. Korea is developing a rocket delivery system called the "TaePo Dong 3" Which is capable of hitting the entire North American Continent. The Taepo Dong 2 can already hit Hawaii. (remember pearl harbor?)
Nations which have supposedly abandoned the development of nuclear weapons are:
South Africa—Constructed but then voluntarily dismantled six uranium bombs.
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine—When Soviet Union broke up, these former states possessed nuclear warheads they have since given up.
and Libya (which I personally would like more information on)
Now I'm quoting sources on that information for reference:
www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762462.htmlSo, in answer to your question Hrdrok, ...you better bank on it.
The nations which pose the biggest threat right now already have the bomb and openly acknowledge that. My guess is Pakistan. (All they need for a delivery system is a jet with enough fuel) Look at the political struggle there recently and the proximity to conflict. Not to mention they harbor terrorists. It doesn't take much to overthrow a government. We are pro's at it ourself. Between Pakistan and India is a big problem called "Kashmir" and they fought over it for 20 years and now they have nukes pointed at each other. ONE MISTAKE and it will kick off the nuclear confrontation with them...
Now...add Kim Il Sung and the TaePo Dong 3 which can reach BOTH of those nations already AND THE U.S. (effectively eliminating the U.S. from involvement through (MAD), and Iran which could (and most likely would) Side with Pakistan. That possible confrontation just got ugly.
Hussein had already been launching Scuds at Israel, and the truth is, we didn't know for sure if he had tipped them with warheads...they were checking for that. You gotta understand that Russia had just crippled it's economy trying to match our nuclear capability...and had thousands of nukes sitting around collecting dust, while officers were wearing rags and eating borscht.. and slugging down vodka like a nation full of winos.
They had acknowledged that there were several hundred kilos of refined enriched uranium unaccounted for... so, our concern was and IS certainly justified. We still do not know where that went.
and it only takes a ball of uranium about the size of a softball to produce a 500 kiloton bomb... the stuff we detonated in Hiroshima was only about the size of a golf ball(21kiloton). Uranium is the heaviest element known to man. That is why you hear about terminology like "reaching critical mass" etc... I could go into the physics of it, but, we dont need more "Dr. Dooms " walkin around selling that knowledge to fanatics.
Nations with delivery systems capable of hitting the united states are: China, Russia, India, Israel, N. Korea and Great Britain.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan has Chinese systems capable of hitting anywhere in the middle east, as do the nations listed above.
If you are interested, there is an extremely good (interactive) proliferation map with a timeline at
www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/military/proliferation/map_flash.html..the map was produced by OnLine NewsHour (The folks that do the McNeil / Lehrer report) ..a fairly neutral media source and probably the only true journalistic integrity source left in the political climate today.
Sources:
www.cdi.org/issues/nukef&f/database/chnukes.htmlwww.atomicarchive.com/Reports/Northkorea/TaepoDong.shtmlwww.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-23157077.htmlwww.spacewar.com/reports/Pakistan_Test_Fires_Long_Range_Nuclear_Capable_Missile.html anyway, if that doesn't get to the heart of your question Hrdrok, lemme know and I'll see what I can do about narrowing things down for ya... I know I am very opinionated, but, it is a thing that concerns me on a personal level. I played with nukes every day.I took them apart. I assembled them. I maintained batteries and connectors in warheads... I packaged and shipped them. I pulled guard on them during mock launch sequences with orders to shoot to kill if a live system was armed without proper authorization... (a very intense situation several times per month) I went downrange with the rockets and fired them. I maintained the launchers, the rocket stages, and field deployment situations deep in the woods of Germany during the cold war... I stood in front of angry mobs with guns who were there to demonstrate how much they did not like nukes in their back yard. (Sometimes they would pop off a round at the weapon to express their anger) and we were required to know everything we could do to keep information about these things out of the hands of the enemy, including capture and detainment of spies. Now, you see, I get to discuss that which was classified information for over 50 years. So, please excuse my enthusiasm to "get it off my chest" so to speak...
What alot of you might not know yet is that there are two reasons you never heard what I am about to tell you next:
1. Panic is a true threat to nuclear weapons systems
and 2. The enemy was repeatedly denied their objective.
....with that, what I am talking about here, is what we all knew at the time... there were over 500 terrorist attacks each year against US forces in Europe. 50% of those were of the anti-nuke demonstration variety. (The locals didn't want our big green weenie in their back yard) The ones you DID actually hear about were large enough to be undeniable, such as the Marine barracks attack in Beirut
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing and some of the more daring exploits of the PLO, IRA & Beider Meinhoff gang... ( a group of German based radicals ) ...to this day you still don't have alot of information on them.
...with that in mind.. and present day climates... I ask...has anything really changed? ...Only what you now have access to .. INFORMATION and LOTS OF IT.. and so do they.
Yeah, Hrdrok, sadly, there are good reasons to be worried about who can hit the US with a nuclear bomb. The threat is real. The bomb is loose... and we need to stop it... so, the best thing to do is educate people on that. When the people get upset about it... they wont support it...which makes it a hard venue to maintain... perhaps the world needs a "real time" history lesson? The last batch of "japanese jihad" was dispatched with two little tiny bombs. Now we have thousands of em and they are 67 times more powerful.
...on a more "positive" note, I AM a contractor...I can build bomb shelters and, lately, I have considered providing this service. Anybody wanna buy a bomb shelter yet? (I guarantee my work ;D)
The military definition of a terrorist:
Any person or person(s) who are highly trained, well equipped, and highly motivated that will stop at NOTHING to achieve their mission.
That definition hasn't changed in 40 years.
...so, the military already knows that the only way to deal with one is in a very "permanent" way. When it is a whole nation, we have demonstrated an effective way to dispatch that problem as well... it's not a question of "IF", my Hrdrok n roll Brother... it is a question of "when".
-Doug