Why have certain nations acquired nuclear weapons, while other countries have refrained from doing so? In the research literature the main focus has been on states that have built nuclear weapons; little attention has been devoted to countries that have chosen nuclear restraint. Why then is it important to study why some states gave up their nuclear weapon plans? The answer is simple: If we want to stop or discourage states such as Iran from getting the bomb, we need to learn from states that have abandoned their nuclear weapon ambitions. What were the main technical difficulties these states struggled with to prepare to acquire nuclear weapons? Could those technical hindrances be used by critical politicians, resistance groups and other states to gain time to take action against and even prevent nuclear plans being realized? Finally, what can be learned from the political decision-making process in different countries that might dissuade or steer states away from nuclear weapons plans?
There are many good reasons for choosing Sweden as a study object if the intention is to learn how and why a nation might abandon a nuclear weapons programme after many years of heavy research and development (R&D) investment. Starting off as a nuclear aspirant in the 1950s, Sweden eventually changed its course, shelved the nuclear option, and rose to become a leading player in the international ‘game of disarmament. By signing the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear-weapon state on August 19 1968, Sweden publicly agreed to an international commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons. This put an end to the country’s plans to acquire its own nuclear arsenal—one of the most intensely debated issues in Swedish foreign policy in the twentieth century.
Those plans were well advanced. Between 1948 and 1968, the responsible organization for the nuclear weapons research, Swedish National Defence Research Agency (FOA), conducted five major investigations of the prerequisites for Swedish nuclear weapons production.1 The large, capital-intensive heavy water programme that served as the basis for both the civilian and nuclear weapons initiatives was called ‘the Swedish line’, for its aim of enabling the country to become independent in the nuclear energy field. Despite extensive investment, and the construction of several reactors, a uranium plant and other necessary facilities, ‘the Swedish Line’ was abandoned in 1970, the same year that Sweden ratified the NPT.
The heavy water technology that Sweden had invested in for its civilian nuclear energy production was by then considered to be an outdated method of production.2 It had become obvious that the more cost-efficient light water reactor technology would dominate Swedish nuclear power development. The Swedish private company ASEA had received an order in the mid-1960s to build a light water nuclear power plant, Oskarshamn, on the south-east coast of Sweden. This plant started to produce nuclear power in 1972. The new technology used light water reactors loaded with highly enriched nuclear materials imported from the United States. In addition, at the end of the 1950s the United States lowered the price of enriched uranium. As a consequence, Sweden decided that the reactors that had been meant to produce weapons-grade plutonium would instead be loaded with enriched uranium from the United States in order to reduce production costs. The imported nuclear materials were, however, prohibited from use for military purposes, as regulated in agreements between Sweden and the United States, so if plutonium of weapons grade quality were to be produced, it would have to be done in separate reactors loaded with uranium from Swedish sources. In parallel with the increased technological difficulties involved in producing nuclear weapons as part of civilian nuclear energy development, domestic political criticism against these plans grew in intensity, both within parliament and outside. It would henceforth be impossible to carry out Swedish nuclear weapons production within the framework of a civilian nuclear energy project.3
Once plans for Swedish nuclear weapons began to be discussed openly (around the middle of the 1950s), the issue did not go unchallenged. Arguments for and against nuclear possession were put forward in the Swedish parliament, within the ruling Social Democratic Party (the SAP) and in public discussions. When the political elite started to back away from nuclear weapons plans at the beginning of the 1960s, the Swedish government invested much political energy in creating an international legal framework for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. At the United Nations (UN) and through regional cooperative efforts, Sweden advanced proposals aimed at creating nuclear-weapon-free zones and achieving nuclear disarmament. For example, in October, 1961, the minister of foreign affairs, Östen Undén, put forward a proposal to create a ‘non-atomic club’ in the UN General Assembly, the so-called Undén Plan. The idea was that states that did not have nuclear weapons should commit themselves to ‘abstain from developing, acquiring or, on another party’s account, storing such weapons’. On 4 December 1962, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution based on Undén’s proposal. The Undén Plan should be understood as a forming part of a more ambitious strategy aimed at reaching the objective of full and comprehensive nuclear disarmament. By having the non-nuclear-armed countries form a ‘non-atomic club’, the idea was to put pressure on the nuclear powers to enter negotiations on a nuclear test ban treaty, in itself an important step on the path towards complete nuclear disarmament.4 The earlier Irish proposal in 1961 to establish a nonproliferation treaty, which also was transformed into a United Nations UN resolution, was well supported by Swedish efforts to move in the same direction, even though Sweden argued in the negotiations that the nuclear weapons states would have to take the disarmament issue more seriously. During the subsequent negotiations that lead to the NPT in 1968, Sweden played a most active role and has been acknowledged as one of the world’s strongest advocates against nuclear proliferation.5
In order to explain this transformation from a potential proliferator to a strong international opponent of the spread of nuclear weapons, the relationships between scientists, leading politicians and military leadership need to be analysed. The military wanted, for obvious reasons, to create as strong a Swedish defence capability as possible, and nuclear weapons were considered to be a vital ingredient in such a defence system. The scientists were given the assignment to find out how Swedish nuclear weapons could be produced, and they had strong incentives to get funding to conduct research in a new and challenging research field. The politicians had to tackle the question of whether Sweden should acquire nuclear weapons and if such a decision would serve the security of the nation. Moreover, the politicians decided on funding for R & D investment in nuclear weapons research, and they were dependent on basic information from the scientists and the military about the latest findings in nuclear energy developments and security policy analysis so as to take well-founded decisions over time. The dynamic relationships among these three groups affected how the decisions were made to start and develop nuclear weapons research in Sweden. Finally, the relationships between scientists, leading politicians, and military leadership also affected how the decision to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons emerged.
Sweden’s deliberations on the nuclear issue did not, however, take place in a vacuum. The surrounding world, and especially the United States, had an important impact on how these nuclear weapons plans developed over time. By the end of World War II, Sweden had caught the attention of the US government because of its abundant uranium resources. Diplomats and military experts in the American administration feared that Swedish uranium assets would fall into Russian hands and would be used in a future Soviet nuclear weapons programme. Measures were taken by the United States to prevent such a development taking place. As will be demonstrated in this study, American concerns grew when the Swedish nuclear weapons research programme was put into motion during the 1950s, and the United States took action to prevent the Swedes realizing these plans.
Against this background, the question is whether conclusions can be drawn from the Swedish nuclear weapons programme, which was in operation for more than 20 years, in dissuading other states from entertaining or fulfilling nuclear ambitions. The Swedish case could provide new insights and knowledge relevant to current international efforts to dissuade countries with nuclear weapons ambitions from realizing their plans, and to confront those who have refrained thus far, but might reconsider in the future. In this respect, the nonproliferation policy of the United States and its objectives and instruments used to influence Sweden from acquiring nuclear weapons are of special interest. This is one reason for writing this book. In the conclusions, I will briefly discuss the lessons that can be learned from the Swedish nuclear experience.
Over the years, a number of studies have analysed the Swedish nuclear weapons programme from different perspectives. Some studies have focused on the public political debate in Sweden, while others have investigated the military’s handling of these plans.6 Furthermore, some scholars have attempted to explicate, from a more comprehensive perspective, why Sweden decided not to develop its nuclear weapons capability; however, the explanatory value of these analyses has been limited by heavy dependence on secondary source materials.7 The studies to date of Swedish nuclear weapons policy cannot fully explain why Sweden abandoned its nuclear weapons plans. The main reason for this lack of a comprehensive picture has been the paucity of primary sources. Today, however, the end of the Cold War and the declassification of large parts of the relevant documentary record, especially concerning the technical preparations for nuclear weapons production, have facilitated a more penetrating analysis of this important historical issue.8 The second and main reason for writing this book is, therefore, to make a comprehensive analysis of Sweden’s plans to manufacture nuclear weapons from 1945, when the first seeds of those plans were sown, until 1975, when all R&D was completely phased out. Why was this ambitious nuclear weapons research programme initiated, and who was the initiator and main driver of this project? How was nuclear weapons research in Sweden organized over time, and what were the overall aims of this research? How advanced were Swedish technological preparations for the production of nuclear weapons, and why were these plans abandoned?
Since it is now possible to conduct an overarching study on Sweden’s plans to acquire nuclear weapons based on primary sources, Sweden could be used as a case study for discussing the validity of the most influential International Relations (IR) theories on nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation dynamics. In this literature, the central question is: why have certain states acquired nuclear weapons while other states with advanced technical capabilities have chosen not to? Where are the main explanations to be found? Some researchers, the so-called neo-realists, have found the answers in the anarchic international system where states seek security in competition with each other.9 Other researchers argue that the reasons why states acquire or abstain from developing nuclear weapons are to be found at the domestic political level where the political decisions are made.10 Adherents of liberal institutionalism, in contrast, claim that the main reasons have to be found in the setting up of an international system of regime-type organizations with the goal of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.11 Constructivist-oriented scholars search for a cultural explanation in nonproliferation norms and changing national identities.12 It can be argued that the scarcity of reliable primary sources has meant that scholars have been forced, more or less, to use theories more extensively than would have been the case had more detailed information been available. Furthermore, the lack of vital data has resulted in too many cases of oversimplification and inaccurate conclusions, even leading some scholars to question whether it is meaningful to app...