[JumpCrisscross]

> the Netherlands (and most of the European countries) has the skills to build nukes and ICBM in 6 months if it wanted to

Eh, probably not. The Dutch have a serious nuclear power economy [1]. But procuring and refining the uranium would take at least a year. Their larger strategic deficit in long-range missile production (or a civil launch industry).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_Netherlan...

[philipkglass]

The Netherlands already has a domestic uranium enrichment facility that can perform 5000 tons of separative work per year:

https://www.urenco.com/global-operations/urenco-nederland

Because of the counter-intuitive way uranium enrichment works, enrichment from natural uranium to commercial reactor fuel takes more separative work than going from commercial reactor fuel to bomb material:

https://scipython.com/blog/uranium-enrichment-and-the-separa...

Because commercial power reactors consume so much uranium per year, the on-site inventory needed just to produce a year's worth of commercial reactor fuel is enough to make many bomb cores. Nuclear breakout could be very fast if the Netherlands were willing to endure all the diplomatic consequences of withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

I agree about the longer timeline to develop a ballistic missile system that could deliver a warhead.

EDIT: switched erroneous "less" to "more"

[JumpCrisscross]

> enrichment from natural uranium to commercial reactor fuel takes less separative work than going from commercial reactor fuel to bomb material

More*.

(Also, fascinating. Thank you.)