The Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1945–1968: An Analysis of the Technical Preparations

Swedish nuclear-weapons plans are analyzed during the period 1945–1968. By the end of this period, Sweden had in place a nuclear program capable of producing nuclear weapons within a few years. But for a combination of reasons—among them rising public opposition to nuclear weapons, tension between civilian nuclear power goals and the goal of maintaining freedom of action with respect to nuclear weapons, the US policy to discourage the Swedes from building the bomb, and strengthening of international nonproliferation norms—the program was abandoned in 1968 when Sweden joined the Non-proliferation Treaty as a non-weapon state