| There is a documentary called Countdown to Zero which makes this point about nuclear bombs. The film advocates getting rid of all nuclear weapons, which may be naive, but they make a good point: all that you need to create an atomic bomb is a few million dollars, a talented engineer and physicist who would keep their mouths shut, and enough luck not to get caught. The BoM is essentially: * HEU: buy it on the black market, high-6/low-7 figures. A lot of fissile material went missing during the dissolution of the USSR, North Korea has productive uranium mines and enrichment capabilities, etc. * Decommissioned artillery cannon: militaries sell these after rendering them inert, high-5/low-6 figures. You could make a jury-rigged Bomb by re-commissioning the cannon, capping it with half of your HEU shaped into the end of the barrel, and then firing a slug made out of the other half. That's not as simple as it sounds, and it wouldn't be very efficient, but you would end up with a bang and a lot of fallout. I think there was a cult that tried it at some point - maybe Aum Shinrikyo? Thankfully, they weren't lucky enough not to get caught. |