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The problem is that he simply states 1-2 years more quickly as if it's an indisputable fact. The USSR's first nuclear test was in 1949. The UK had access to so
by wmil 13y ago
The problem is that he simply states 1-2 years more quickly as if it's an indisputable fact.
The USSR's first nuclear test was in 1949.
The UK had access to some Manhattan Project data and didn't detonate a test bomb until 1952. France didn't test a bomb until 1960, and that was arguably the first repeat of the Manhattan Project without data and designs from the project.
It's entirely reasonable to assume that the USSR wouldn't have had the bomb until 1964 or so without it's spy network. That would have changed the cold war dramatically.
- philwelch 13y agoThe UK had fewer resources and many more important things to do. They built the NHS while we built the military industrial complex.
- willvarfar 13y agoBritain was bankrupt after ww2 and focused on domestic issues and the giving up of empire. France was even more dire and reconstructing. But, whilst Russia was shattered, it diverted far bigger resources to gaining some sense of parity with the US after the war than other countries. The USSR looked to the west as a threat; the Brits and the French didn't fear their ally the US, and didn't need to get a bomb of their own with such urgency (until the USSR got the bomb, that is. Suddenly also having the bomb was strategically important.)