It's everyone's nightmare scenario: After a 65-year hiatus, nuclear bombs are again used as weapons. But despite the evident dangers posed by their existence, nine nations cling to nukes, and a few others, such as Iran, seem to want them. The existing nuclear powers resist disarmament because they believe, or claim to believe, in a number of myths about how easy bombs are for rogue regimes to get -- and how useful they are once in hand.
1. We can't eliminate nukes because countries would cheat and build them in secret.
When countries get the bomb, it's because the rest of the world is unwilling to stop them, not because everyone is caught by surprise.
Almost every step toward acquiring a nuclear arsenal has its own telltale. To build a bomb, you need either highly enriched uranium or plutonium. Uranium is found only in a few locations, and national intelligence agencies monitor sales. Enriching uranium requires specialized equipment, the sale of which is also monitored. Creating plutonium is even harder, requiring specialized facilities that emit known pollutants and whose designs are familiar to experts. And testing a bomb is a clear giveaway: Nuclear explosions give off unmistakable seismic, acoustic and radioactive signals.
No country has ever fielded operational nuclear weapons without the United States knowing about the program beforehand. Beginning in the 1960s, satellites allowed us to detect the distinctive structures used to produce the materials needed for nuclear weapons; this imagery shed light on bomb-making efforts by China, and later South Africa and Pakistan. Traditional espionage techniques provided information about the French, Indian and Iranian programs. Imports of rare and suspicious materials first alerted us to Israel's intentions.
