Amazing lessons of the secret nuclear program of the Cold War. The article of The Economist magazine

Photo: Egor Myznik / Unsplash

The United States is tired of being a "world policeman." And if any country decides to join the club of nuclear powers-for example, South Korea-America, perhaps, will not interfere with this (as it was with the secret nuclear program of Sweden during the Cold War). But such a world will not become safer, writes The Economist magazine. On the contrary, this will increase the risk of conflicts and can draw the United States into wars - even with isolationist politics. We publish the translation of the article of the magazine.

In the midst of the Cold War, American intelligence officers and generals suspected that an unexpected participant was about to join the nuclear powers. It was Sweden - a neutral state that remained aloof from both world wars and refused to join NATO at the time of its creation in 1949.

Despite their way to avoid wars, by the beginning of the 1960s, Swedish scientists were, perhaps, only two years from creating a nuclear bomb after many years of secret work. The officials conducted discussions in the spirit of James Bond on how to hide the Plutonium production plant in a huge rock. Military commanders developed plans to strike on any Soviet threat with the help of arsenal of 100 tactical missiles, nuclear bombs and torpedoes. One of the preferred scenarios suggested a blow to the Soviet fleet of invasion at the time when the ships gather in the port for landing troops before crossing the Baltic Sea.

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