Sweden and weapons of mass destruction

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During the 20th century Sweden had programmes for both nuclear and chemical weapons. During the first decades of the Cold War a nuclear weapon programme was active.

No weapon was ever deployed. In the 1960s the political landscape and budgetary problems hindered 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 programme 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 programme 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 the FOI. The plan was to produce 100 warheads in a timespan of ten years.

During the 1960s it was still not clear if Sweden should develop a nuclear weapon capacity. By the end of the 1960s the Swedish government, because of military budget constraints, had to choose between a nuclear weapon or a new fighter aircraft (the Saab 37 Viggen).^{[citation needed]} The choice fell with the new fighter. All the plans for a Swedish nuclear weapon were scrapped by 1968, when Sweden signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 1972 the last remnants of a plan for nuclear weapons was discontinued when the FoA stopped their experiments with plutonium.

Sweden did, however, continue with civilian nuclear power and today (2012) Sweden has 10 active nuclear reactors.

Chemical weapons

After World War I Sweden started researching on chemical weapons. In the 1930s Sweden's first chemical weapon programme was born when developing and equipment research for sulfur mustards (mustard gas) was started. In 1940 work on the gas was temporarily halted, but by the end of World War II new programmes were soon a priority for the Swedish military. Programmes for both sulfur mustards and sarin gas were initiated.

In the 1960s the development of chemical weapons was highly criticised and in 1970 the Swedish government stated that it would not develop or produce any more chemical weapons. In 1994 Sweden signed the Chemical Weapons Convention that forbids development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons.

See also

• Swedish armed forces

References

• Forsvarets forskningsanstalt och planerna pa svenska karnvapen, Thomas Jonter, March 2001 (Swedish)
• The Swedish nuclear weapon (Swedish) via the Internet Archive
• "Svensk atombomb utvecklades trots förbud" - Ny Teknik, Jan Melin, April 4, 2001 (Swedish)
• Paul M. Cole, Atomic Bombast: Nuclear Weapon Decisionmaking in Sweden 1945–1972 Stimson Center Occasional Paper No. 26, April 1996
• Thomas Jonter. The Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1945–1968: An Analysis of the Technical Preparations Science & Global Security, 2010, 18, P. 61–86

World map with nuclear weapons development status represented by color.

  Five "nuclear weapons states" from the NPT

  Other states known to possess nuclear weapons

  States formerly possessing nuclear weapons

  States suspected of being in the process of developing nuclear weapons and/or nuclear programs

  States which at one point had nuclear weapons and/or nuclear weapons research programs

  States that possess nuclear weapons, but have not widely adopted them