Paul Scherrer in the late 1940s. He played an important role in the Swiss nuclear program.
On 15 August 1945, Hans Frick, a colonel in the Swiss military, sent a letter to Federal Councillor Karl Kobelt requesting that Switzerland study the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons in order to defend itself.[6] The Federal Council authorized the creation of a commission to do such in November 1945.[6] Efforts "were well under way" in 1945.[7]
On 8 June 1946, the Study Commission for Nuclear Energy (Schweizerische Studienkommission für Atomenergie – SKA) was created by the Swiss government under the leadership of Paul Scherrer, a physicist and professor at ETH Zurich.[8][9] The commission had the objective of studying the civil use of atomic energy and the secret objective of studying the scientific and technical basis for building nuclear weapons.[8][9][10] The activity of this group was low and only slow progress was made; however the events of the Cold War, especially the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and the nuclear arms race of the mid-1950s, provided new impetus.[3][8][9] While his specific role is questioned, Scherrer played an important role in the Swiss nuclear program.[11][12][7]
The secret Study Commission for the Possible Acquisition of Own Nuclear Arms was instituted by Chief of General Staff Louis de Montmollin with a meeting on 29 March 1957.[8][13][14] The aim of the commission was to give the Swiss Federal Council an orientation towards "the possibility of the acquisition of nuclear arms in Switzerland."[13] The recommendations of the commission were ultimately favorable.[8]
The Federal Council released a public statement on 11 July 1958 stating that although a world without nuclear weapons was in Switzerland's interest, its neighboring countries adopting nuclear weapons would force it to do likewise.[15][13] On 23 December 1958 the Federal Council instructed the Military Department to study the logistics and execution of attaining nuclear arms.[16] However, efforts remained focused on study and planning rather than implementation.[8][17]
In a referendum held in April 1962, the Swiss people rejected a proposal to ban nuclear weapons within the country.[1] The next year in May, Swiss voters again rejected a referendum that would have required Swiss voters to approve of the Armed Forces being equipped in nuclear weapons if it chose to do so.[18]
By 1963, planning had proceeded to the point that detailed technical proposals, specific arsenals, and cost estimates were made.[8][1] On 15 November 1963, Dr. Paul Schmid prepared a 58-page report laying the theoretical foundations for Swiss nuclear armaments.[8][19][1] On 28 November 1963, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff estimated that the costs of building a uranium bomb at 720 million Swiss francs over 35 years, initially including 20 million francs for pure research, that would be needed for planning.[4][8][1] It also calculated that, should the decision be for plutonium instead of highly enriched uranium, then the estimate would be 2,100 million francs over 27 years.[4][8][1] On 4 May 1964, the military joint staff issued a recommendation to have about 100 bombs (60–100 kilotons), 50 artillery shells (5 kt), and 100 rockets (100 kt) within the next 15 years, at costs of about 750 million Swiss francs.[8] There were plans for 7 underground nuclear tests in "uninhabited regions" of Switzerland; a location with a radius of 2–3 kilometres (1.2–1.9mi) "that can be sealed off completely."[8][1]
In addition, Switzerland purchased uranium and stored it in nuclear reactors purchased from the United States, the first of which was built in 1960.[3][8][1] Between 1953 and 1955, Switzerland procured around 10 metric tons (11 short tons) of (unenriched) uranium oxide from the Belgian Congo with the authorization of the U.S. and United Kingdom (Switzerland had also considered purchasing from the Republic of China and the Union of South Africa[6]).[20][21]5,000 kilograms (11,000 pounds) were stored in the Diorit reactor in Würenlingen, while a stockpile of 3,238kg (7,139lb) of uranium and 2,283kg (5,033lb) of uranium oxide was stored at Wimmis until 1981, and it was not covered by the international safeguards meant to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.[4] Additionally, in 1969, the Swiss government unsuccessfully tried to purchase 3kg (6.6lb) of weapons-grade plutonium from Norway.[4]
In the spring of 1964, a group working within the Military Department, which approved of nuclear tests in Switzerland, presented a secret plan for the attainment of nuclear weapons to the Federal Council. In the first phase of the plan, 50 bombs from 60–100 kt would be procured. In phase two, another 200 bombs would be procured.[22] To clarify definitively whether nuclear tests should be carried out in Switzerland, the military chief of staff Jacob Annasohn requested of Federal Councillor Paul Chaudet, head of the Military Department, to obtain authorization for the total budget of 20 million Swiss francs from the Federal Council.[22]
A Swiss Mirage IIIS in 1988.
Besides having a main military goal of deterrence, strategists envisioned the Swiss nuclear strike capability as part of a preemptive war against the Soviet Union.[23] The Swiss Air ForceMirage III jet would have been able to carry nuclear bombs as far as Moscow. They also suggested the weapons could be used on Swiss soil against a possible invading force.[23]
Switzerland possessed 20kg (44lb) of separated plutonium coming from reprocessed spent fuel of the heavy water research reactorDIORIT.[24] It was stored for several decades under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards at the Paul Scherrer Institute, but this supply was not directly suitable for building nuclear weapons.[25] In February 2016, nearly three decades after the end of its nuclear program and in time for the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, the Swiss government transferred this excess plutonium to the United States for disposal.[24][25]
Financial problems with the defence budget in 1964 prevented the substantial sums required from being allocated.[8] Continuing financial shortfalls prevented the proposed effort from getting off the ground.[3][8][1] This, as well as a serious accident in 1969 which caused a partial meltdown in the small Lucens pilot reactor, strengthened opposition against the Swiss nuclear program.[3][1][26]
Switzerland signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) on 27 November 1969, and its process of ratification first met with the resistance of the Federal Department of Defence.[5][18] After signing the treaty, Switzerland's policy of pursuing acquiring nuclear weapons was replaced by one of studying acquisition to provide options in case the treaty broke down.[8] Switzerland ratified the treaty on 9 March 1977.[5] Soon after that, Switzerland ratified the Seabed Arms Control Treaty.[27]
On 30 April 1969, the Working Committee for Nuclear Issues (AAA) was created.[28] It met 27 times between 26 September 1969 and 25 October 1988.[8][29] However, the committee had only a preparatory role.[1] As the Cold War started coming to an end, the AAA became less relevant.[30] On 1 November 1988, Federal Councillor Arnold Koller signed the dissolution order,[31] and the AAA ceased to exist on 31 December of that year,[32] thus ending the 43-year Swiss nuclear weapons program.[4]
Nuclear weapons ban
On July 7, 2017, Switzerland voted in favor of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first such international treaty to ban nuclear weapons.[33] However, in 2018, the Swiss government changed its position and opposed signing the treaty because of security concerns.[34] Switzerland reaffirmed its opposition in 2024.[35]
Biological and chemical weapons
Switzerland did not possess biological weapons nor did they see it as in their interest to acquire them,[36] thus the banning of such weapons was in the country's interest.[36] Switzerland signed the Biological Weapons Convention in April 1972 and ratified the treaty in 1976 with three reservations.[37] The country also signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in January 1993 and ratified it in March 1995.[38]
In 1937, General Henri Guisan and the Swiss Army high command commissioned a secret program to develop and utilize chemical weapons. From 1939 onwards, the contact poison sulfur mustard was manufactured, as well as phenacyl chloride.[39] In the summer of 1940, extensive exercises were held in several cantons using mortars with polychlorinated naphthalene gas. In the Canton of Uri alone, 14,000 farm cows were poisoned, which the Swiss Army then euthanized. The program also produced 330 tons of mustard gas, which proved difficult to store and thus the program was halted in 1943 by Guisan, who ordered the chemical weapons to be burned on the grounds of the Munitionsfabrik Altdorf, known today as RUAG Ammotec.[40]
Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT. Proliferation has been opposed by many nations with and without nuclear weapons, as governments fear that more countries with nuclear weapons will increase the possibility of nuclear warfare, de-stabilize international or regional relations, or infringe upon the national sovereignty of nation states.
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility." Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, or a reactor core melt. The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Pakistan is one of nine states that possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan began developing nuclear weapons in January 1972 under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who delegated the program to the Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Munir Ahmad Khan with a commitment to having the device ready by the end of 1976. Since PAEC, which consisted of over twenty laboratories and projects under reactor physicist Munir Ahmad Khan, was falling behind schedule and having considerable difficulty producing fissile material, Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist working on centrifuge enrichment for Urenco, joined the program at the behest of the Bhutto administration by the end of 1974. Producing fissile material was pivotal to the Kahuta Project's success and thus to Pakistan obtaining the capability to detonate a nuclear weapon by the end of 1984.
Paul Hermann Scherrer was a Swiss physicist. Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, he studied at Göttingen, Germany, before becoming a lecturer there. Later, Scherrer became head of the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich.
Raja Ramanna was an Indian nuclear physicist. He was the director of India's nuclear program in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which culminated in Smiling Buddha, India's first successful nuclear weapon test on 18 May 1974.
During World War II, Japan had several programs exploring the use of nuclear fission for military technology, including nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Like the similar wartime programs in Nazi Germany, it was relatively small, suffered from an array of problems brought on by lack of resources and wartime disarray, and was ultimately unable to progress beyond the laboratory stage during the war.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, South Africa pursued research into weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons under the apartheid government. South Africa’s nuclear weapons doctrine was designed for political leverage rather than actual battlefield use, specifically to induce the United States of America to intervene in any regional conflicts between South Africa and the Soviet Union or its proxies. To achieve a minimum credible deterrence, a total of six nuclear weapons were covertly assembled by the late 1980s.
In the 1970s and 1980s, during the military regime, Brazil had a secret program intended to develop nuclear weapons. The program was dismantled in 1990, five years after the military regime ended. Brazil is considered to possess no weapons of mass destruction but does have some of the key technologies needed to produce nuclear weapons.
The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world, ranked in severity at level 5 out of 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The fire was in Unit 1 of the two-pile Windscale site on the north-west coast of England in Cumberland. The two graphite-moderated reactors, referred to at the time as "piles", had been built as part of the British post-war atomic bomb project. Windscale Pile No. 1 was operational in October 1950, followed by Pile No. 2 in June 1951.
The US–UK Mutual Defense Agreement, or the 1958 UK–US Mutual Defence Agreement, is a bilateral treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom on nuclear weapons co-operation. The treaty's full name is Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for Cooperation on the uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes. It allows the US and the UK to exchange nuclear materials, technology and information. The US has nuclear co-operation agreements with other countries, including France and other NATO countries, but this agreement is by far the most comprehensive. Because of the agreement's strategic value to Britain, Harold Macmillan called it "the Great Prize".
The Dhruva reactor is India's largest nuclear research reactor. It was the first nuclear reactor in Asia proper. Located in the Mumbai suburb of Trombay at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), it is India's primary generator of weapons-grade plutonium-bearing spent fuel for its nuclear weapons program. Originally named the R-5, this open pool reactor first went critical on 8 August 1985 after 10 years of construction. However, the unit did not attain full power until 1988. The reactor experienced at least one serious accident when 4 metric tons of heavy water overflowed from the reactor core in 1985 following vibration problems.
Weapons-grade nuclear material is any fissionable nuclear material that is pure enough to make a nuclear weapon and has properties that make it particularly suitable for nuclear weapons use. Plutonium and uranium in grades normally used in nuclear weapons are the most common examples.
Nuclear power in Switzerland is generated by three nuclear power plants, with a total of four operational reactors (see list below). Since 1985, nuclear power has been contributing approximately 40% of Switzerland's electrical energy. In 2022, it produced 23 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, and accounted for 37% of the nation's gross electricity generation of 62 TWh, while 55% was produced by hydroelectric plants and 8% came from conventional thermal power stations and non-hydro renewable energy sources.
During the late 1940s and 1950s, Sweden had programs for both nuclear and chemical weapons. During the first decades of the Cold War, a nuclear weapons program was active.
Bulgaria has developed weapons of mass destruction, most notably chemical weapons. Chemical weapons production was concentrated in Smyadovo. As of 2016, Bulgaria does not possess any weapons of mass destruction.
This timeline of nuclear weapons development is a chronological catalog of the evolution of nuclear weapons rooting from the development of the science surrounding nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. In addition to the scientific advancements, this timeline also includes several political events relating to the development of nuclear weapons. The availability of intelligence on recent advancements in nuclear weapons of several major countries is limited because of the classification of technical knowledge of nuclear weapons development.
After World War II, Sweden considered building nuclear weapons to defend themselves against an offensive assault from the Soviet Union. From 1945 to 1972 the government ran a clandestine nuclear weapons program under the guise of civilian defense research at the Swedish National Defence Research Institute (FOA).
Diorit was an experimental nuclear research reactor at the Swiss Federal Institute for Reactor Research (EIR) in Würenlingen
The Es-Salamresearch reactor, also known as the Aïn Oussara nuclear reactor is a nuclear research reactor in Algeria. The reactor can produce 15 megawatts-thermal and its primary uses are radiopharmaceutical production, neutron activation analysis, neutron radiography, and training. The reactor was supplied by China and built in the region of Aïn Oussera, nearly due south of the capital city of Algiers. It reached criticality in February 1992 and began operation in late 1993.
The Haigerloch Research Reactor was a German nuclear reactor test facility. It was built in a rock cellar in Hohenzollerischen Lande Haigerlochearly in 1945 as part of the German nuclear program during World War II.
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Joye-Cagnard, Frédéric (2010). La construction de la politique de la science en Suisse: enjeux scientifiques, stratégiques et politiques (1944–1974). Alphil. ISBN9782940235537. OCLC717749048.
Winkler, Theodor (1981). Kernenergie und Aussenpolitik. Die internationalen Bemühungen um eine Nichtweiterverbreitung von Kernwaffen und die friedliche Nutzung der Kernenergie in der Schweiz (in German). Berlin Verlag. pp.315–316. ISBN978-3-87061-231-3.
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