During the 20th century
Sweden had programs for both Nuclear and Chemical weapons. During the first decades of the
Cold War a nuclear weapon program was active. No weapon was ever deployed and in the 1960s the political landscape and budgetary problems questioned the use of these weapons and by the mid 1970s all plans for weapons of mass destruction had been scrapped.
Nuclear weapons
Sweden's nuclear weapon program was started after
World War II and the
American nuclear bombing of the
Japanese cities
Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
In the early years after the war Sweden made a decision to become a
neutral power that could defend itself militarily against any invading power. The biggest threats to Sweden were
Soviet nuclear capabilities and in the late 1940s and 1950s much research was made into nuclear weapons.
In 1948 the first solid plans on how to create an atomic weapon was presented to the FOI ("Totalförsvarets Forskningsinstitut",
Swedish Defence Research Agency). Plans were established to run a civilian
nuclear power program in parallel, using domestic
uranium resources as nuclear fuel. The
Ågesta and
Marviken reactors were supposed to produce
plutonium for the weapons, while also producing energy. The
Saab 36 was a planned
attack aircraft that would be able to deliver nuclear weapons, and later on, submarines and aircraft like the
Lansen and ultimately
Viggen were considered as means of delivery as well.
All of the nuclear development activities took place at...
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