[perihelions]

This is huge, and confusing. Poland doesn't have any nuclear reactors, or nuclear expertise of any kind. The latency to obtain nuclear weapons—unless some allied country literally gifts them—would presumably be extremely long. AFAIK it also doesn't have long-range missiles, nor any missile industry: hence no credible, modern delivery mechanism.

Poland is a signatory of the international nonproliferation treaty, although that's merely symbolic because anyone can exit with just 90 days' notice[0].

Less symbolically, Poland has a Section 123 treaty agreement with the United States[1], which obligates nonproliferation and is tied to literally tens of billions[2] in ongoing commercial nuclear power investments. Granted that in the current political climate, anything could happen; during the ancien régime, this action would (I understand) have triggered automatic US sanctions on nuclear technology—something that'd be stupidly expensive with the amount of nuclear reactors Poland is currently buying from the USA (and from Korea, another 123 signatory).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio...

[1] https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/123-agreements-peaceful-cooperat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_reactors_in_Euro...

[GuestFAUniverse]

Are treaties with the US worth anything? Ukraine, trade war, ...

Sorry, I wish it wouldn't be such a bleak outlook. With DT and El Moron siding with Russia, I think Poland's approach could be the necessary kick in the butt the whole EU needs to get they sh*t together and _not_ depend on the US.

[apsec112]

Poland does have one nuclear reactor, although it is a small 30 MW research reactor and not a power plant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_reactor

[jauntywundrkind]

I don't find your technial arguments particularly compelling.

The US hired a couple college grads to do the Nth Country Project, to build a bomb. In 1964. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jun/24/usa.science https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42817514 https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2025-0...

Sure, ICBM's are big and expensive to build. I'm not sure that Poland feels compelled to have such range, at least from the start. This also depends on how big a bomb they feel they need, and how miniaturizable the bomb is. Maybe you want to go bigger, but the US built the considerable B54 portable nuclear munitions in 1963, weighing ~50 lbs. A medium sized drone of today could carry that quite a long range.

I really wish this was unnecessary. The US abandoning allies and siding with the Russians is below my worst expectations, and I expected a good amount of this egregious nation destroying shit.

[rsynnott]

France has muttered about making its nukes available to other European countries. France also has the world’s largest nuclear reprocessing plant, and actually burns plutonium in its reactors (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcoule_Nuclear_Site), so is in a good position to produce more warheads quickly, if required.

> Less symbolically, Poland has a Section 123 treaty agreement with the United States[1], which obligates nonproliferation and is tied to literally tens of billions[2] in ongoing commercial nuclear power investments.

I mean, Poland has another treaty with the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Treaty), but, y’know…

> something that'd be stupidly expensive with the amount of nuclear reactors Poland is currently buying from the USA

Those are now not due to start til _2040_, so I’d be surprised if much money has changed hands yet. Other nuclear vendors are available (notably, again, France).

Like, this is all obviously very extreme stuff, but if we are seeing a US re-alignment towards Russia, which, well, is kind of how things are looking, then, y’know, it’s an extreme situation.

[sleepyguy]

Ukraine could easily help them. They have the people and technical know-how.

[ahartmetz]

I'm fairly sure that you can make nuclear weapons if you have money and a few universities with good physics departments. I don't doubt that Poland has these things.

[EA-3167]

It's a classic example of "The best time to do it was yesterday, the second best time to do it is today."

We're on Trump's second term, the countries facing Russia would be insane to rely on us or respect agreements with us.