1/ Related meta-followup to my 50-something tweet thread analyzing & interpreting the Israeli reveal on Iran's historical nuclear weapons program
Prompted by @ArmsControlWonk and @aaronstein1 comments on the Armscontrolwonk podcast armscontrolwonk.com/archive/120512…
Prompted by @ArmsControlWonk and @aaronstein1 comments on the Armscontrolwonk podcast armscontrolwonk.com/archive/120512…
2/ I know Jeffrey in real life, so this is all in good cooperative friendship. But part of the conversations on the podcast got into some criticism of my taking the lid off the Iranian designs technology details some and explaining how it works.
3/ I have been doing the nuclear weapons reverse engineering thing literally for several decades. Back to roughly 1989 when I was in college. My degree was in physical stuff engineering and it entailed years of university math, physics, chemistry among other topics.
4/ The university I attended graduates hundreds to perhaps a thousand people a year with approximately the same technology education. Anyone with that education and a desire to learn nuclear weapons design has the intellectual ingredients to get started.
5/ To do designs you also need top level synthesis skills and visual skills, to be able to conceive and mentally model the results some and design more detailed computer or on paper analysis. I knew ~20 people in my year bright enough and with the secondary skills.
6/ Some of them somewhat predictably ended up over the hills at LLNL, doing for real from inside. 🤷🏻♂️ I'm not entirely a fan of the weapons despite the intellectual curiosity and proliferation worries.
7/ If you go from 1 large university to nationwide, there are many many thousands of people with basic backgrounds, hundreds and hundreds with all the special focus skills graduating each year.
Expand the horizons more and there are A LOT of people each year worldwide.
Expand the horizons more and there are A LOT of people each year worldwide.
8/ The skills sets are rare, but not vaguely THAT rare. Common enough that any decent size country with robust higher education programs will have plenty of intellectual capacity for a bomb program.
9/ The information leaked over the years about known methods and approaches was past critical mass to kickstart a Manhattan Project program anywhere of concern. North Korea, Iran, Libya, Iraq all plenty big enough. With the talent and a basic knowledge base, it's easy.
10/ US (Russian, Chinese, French, UK, etc) bombs are difficult because they're very accident safe designs now, lightweight and high yield, using little fissile Uranium or Plutonium material. Relax those constraints and a basic bomb can be designed in a day by an expert.
11/ There has been a western countries small community of internet connected self made experience for at least 27 years. Many of those people published stuff, some not. Everyone was concerned about two things. 1; were we helping Iran or North Korea or such if we published.
12/ 2; Were the public and policymakers sufficiently educated to understand risks. Alternatively, were weapons programs obfuscating risks to their political leadership.
These are competing risks. 1 says don't publish much publicly, 2 says publish more.
These are competing risks. 1 says don't publish much publicly, 2 says publish more.
13/ There were ongoing debates. The conclusion inevitably was that both we risked more not publishing and we were all individually worried about being the guy (or woman) who went too far and helped a proliferator.
Generally people were very restrained.
Generally people were very restrained.
14/ Carey Sublette pulled the body of public knowledge together in the Nuclear Weapons Archive in mid-90s ( nuclearweaponarchive.org ). It includes a detailed Nuclear Weapons design/engineering FAQ that again was already totally public information by 1996, and wasn't new then.
15/ There were topics intentionally left out (two point primaries for example). Everything left out leaked over time anyways. Howard Moreland, who did the original Progressive article on the H-bomb "secret", published an expose of two points primaries on Wikipedia later.
16/ The Iranian design seems new to people not in that circle. But it's not new. I understood the basic concept in early 90s and could design better ones using improvements on that basic concept by 1992. I'm not alone.
17/ It's remarkably primitive compared even to North Korean designs, which were apparently based on a rather clever improvement on a British 1957 design (Orange Herald) and show signs of higher design goals even before the recent thermonuclear one.
18/ The only real barriers to an Iranian bomb are nuclear material access. Their first primitive design works acceptably for its goals. Its fabrication is simple. The bomb is arguably simpler than the altitude sensor fuze to detonate it.
19/ As Jeffrey and Aaron mentioned on the podcast, there were likely IND (Improvised Nuclear Devices - terrorist weapons) experts quietly wishing I would shut up. But the basic knowledge has been out for decades. And they know it. High school students could build a gun type bomb.
20/ As with Iran, the ways you keep terrorists from building bombs boil down to "don't let them have Uranium or Plutonium". Really. That's the only thing possible. Some small groups might not have necessary talent, but not safe assumptions. Keep the fissiles material away.
21/ I know Jeffrey and Aaron were being constructive and having fun, but people do really worry about the information being too sensitive.
It's not. You may be uncomfortable hearing it but it's not vaguely a secret. People need to know it's not a secret.
It's not. You may be uncomfortable hearing it but it's not vaguely a secret. People need to know it's not a secret.
22/ I'm not going to publish a detailed numerical efficiency analysis of variations on Initiation points patterns and branching, explosive thickness, tamper and core weights etc. Because publishing actual optimization & buildable designs is still irresponsible. But not concepts.
23/ The Israeli information on R265 and development programs released so far only reinforces the general conclusion that Iranian designs were usable in 2003. Some people still have a problem accepting that. Don't; it was clear in IAEA reports and leaks almost a decade ago.
24/ I'm not sure any real harm would come from an equivalent explanation of North Korea's implosion system designs. Stay tuned (but not this week, I'm busy).
25/ Wrapping main thread up. See I have some replies to catch up reading.
