InternetJeff
Regarding SLBM deterrence value……
What use are SLBM’s. Absolutely nothing - if you don’t have missiles to load into the tubes.
That said, ambiguity is a wonderful thing when it comes to capabilities and intentions.
Israel does not have nuclear weapons, or so they say. But most everyone ‘thinks’ that they do.
Do they, or don’t they? So most everyone treats them with a measure of wariness lest they become a pool of molten glass in the desert.
Same could hold true for Canada’s enemies, irrespective of where they are located. Wars break out time and again, in the unlikeliest places, over large, or insignificant reasons, or erratic world leaders. Take your pick.
Canada has more than enough expertise to build an SLBM, or we could buy ones off-the-shelf from the South Koreans that fit the Hanwha subs.
As to warheads, again, Canada has more than enough expertise to build a working nuke without resorting to full-scale testing.
Where does that expertise come from? University physics departments, nuclear reactor engineers across the county, Chalk River, and other nuclear research facilities. The government could enlist manufacturing expertise from the auto, aircraft, or indeed many other industries, to build something with 1,000 times the precision of the first atomic bombs - and remember that the 1st plutonium bomb was never full-scale tested prior to being dropped on Nagasaki, and it worked. None of the manufacturers would even need to know what the parts they were making were for - they get a CAD file by e-mail, et voila, a short time later the part is couriered to P.O. Box or a series of non-descript strip mall storefronts, and then taken to an assembly point.
As to fissile material, we have more than enough sitting in storage pools that could easily, and clandestinely, be enriched. An unused hard-rock 3,000′ deep mine near Sudbury/Timmins perhaps.
If this disturbs anyone, I will point out it’s almost all public knowledge. I suggest reading “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” by Richard Rhodes, and the “Los Alamos Primer” authored in 1943 by Robert Serber, one of the key members of the Los Alamos bomb team. BTW, both books can be purchased on Amazon. Both books leave out salient details, but some additional glimpses can be had in the fictional book, “The Sum of All Fears”, by Tom Clancy.
There’s also “The Curve of Binding Energy” by John McPhee, which is a biography of Theodore Taylor - one of the most prolific nuclear weapons designers at Los Alamos. Taylor designed the largest fission weapon (500KT), and the smallest - weighing a total of about 20lbs. - fit in a backpack.
Taylor also collaborated with George Gamow on a study called "What the World Needs Is a Good Two-Kiloton Bomb”.
Taylor also contended that “anyone” could design a plausible nuclear weapon using declassified and public information.
A 3rd-year Princeton University physics student set out to do just that in the mid-1970’s. The paper, “The Fundamentals of Atomic Bomb Design: An Assessment of the Problems and Possibilities Confronting a Terrorist Group or Non-Nuclear National Attempting to Design a Crude Pu239 Fission Bomb,” was turned in by the student in May 1976. Freeman Dyson gave it an “A”. He also removed it from circulation. For those who don’t know who Freeman Dyson was, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
As Dyson later put it in his book, ‘Disturbing the Universe’,
“[Phillips] had mastered quickly and competently the principles of shockwave dynamics. But his sketch of the bomb was far too sketchy for the question “Would it actually explode?” to have any meaning. To me the impressive and frightening part of his paper was the first part [in which he described how he got the information]. The fact that a twenty-year-old kid could collect such information so quickly and with so little effort gave me the shivers.”
In short, today with 50 years more public disclosure of weapons techniques, just about any 4th year physics/engineering student can design a working device, using modern CAD software and public-domain CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software on virtually any laptop. I personally know guys/girls who studied nuclear engineering at my university a long time ago who would be more than capable of doing the design.
The only impediment is the acquisition of fissile material enriched to the appropriate degree, and that is not an issue for a nation state actor. A very credible city-buster boosted fission weapon in the 200+KT range could probably be built, in secret, in under a year, on a relatively small budget, without a full-scale test necessary. A 1MT plutonium-based H-bomb would probably take three years to produce, with most of the effort in the enrichment, and the explosive lenses. Tritium - Canada has lots, courtesy of Candu reactors.
Here’s a site that allows you to see the simulated blast effects for a variety of yields.
https://nukeblastsimulator.com
Choose the W76, B61, or W88 as being representative of a typical SLBM warhead yield that Canada could readily construct, then choose your target.
History since 1945 has shown that nations possessing nuclear weapons tend not to be invaded or annexed or attacked - India/Pakistan excluded. Ukraine voluntarily gave theirs up and look what that led to.
We are concerned about eventual Chinese incursions into the Northwest Passage, ditto for the Russians. The US has never recognized the Northwest Passage as Canadian internal waters.
The world is a vastly different place than it was 5 years ago. Alliances are shifting, old norms are disappearing. So, coming back to deterrence, maybe Canada should get some. You never know how long your friends remain your friends, or at least benign neightbours, or when they are coming for your resources.
In the immortal words of Lord Palmerston, British Prime Minister, 1955-58, 1859-65;
“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” — in a speech, House of Commons, 1 March 1848
For further reference, amuse yourselves with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared - it was on TV last night.