F. George McDuffee wrote in
:

Consider that the U.S. was able to make quite serviceable nukes
in 1943/44/45 with totally manual machine tools and a great deal
of care, and it should be clear why this is simply a feel good
measure.

True, but that was a fission bomb. It took a lot of skill and the very best
machine tools and minds available. To make a small high yield bomb (the
kind that can fly) you need to make a hydrogen bomb. The yield is
limitless, providing you can get enough tritium into it. (Near where I live
the power company has dumped a considerable amount of tritium into the
water shed.)

Anyway, to build that sort of device a good five axis mill and a means to
measure accurately are required. Surely those tools can be easily bought
here in the US. But to sell them to Iran or N. Korea is pure folly. I'm
sure they could, through trial and error, produce a working bomb. To give
them high end machine tools and the means to measure the work just reduces
the amount of time it will take them to get it right. Then they will have
the means to mass produce as well.

--

Dan