Sweden and weapons of mass destruction

During the late 1940s and 1950s, Sweden had programs for both nuclear and chemical weapons. During the first decades of the Cold War, a nuclear weapons program was active.

No weapon was ever deployed. In the late 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.

Sweden's nuclear weapon programme was started in early 1946 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 Swedish National Defence Research Institute (FOA). 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. Later on, submarines and aircraft were configured as a means of delivery as well.

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