That’s a big contrast with arguments of that era that there’s nothing to fear about Soviets sneeking a suitcase nuke into the states, because they don’t even have technology to perfect suitcases yet...
Snippet from a December 1959 memo about the proliferation potential of the gas centrifuge, from the Atomic Energy Commission's Director of Classification, about China as a potential future nuclear state. An unusual sentiment for the time, and an odd context to find it expressed..pic.twitter.com/iPzGefyPhI
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Haughty disdain for Western Civilization is old hat among certain types.
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Don’t think it’s disdain, rather more like “they aren’t stupid, they were once ahead of us, so don’t presume it’s beyond them”.
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The point is driven home not only by the suggestion of respect for their history over our own but also the flippant "so-called Western Civilization".
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It sounds like the USA realized gas centrifuges were ripe for proliferation only after having committed to large scale gaseous diffusion plants and they didn't want to call attention to the fact.
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China, for a long time, didn't seem to be trying to compete with the US and Russian in numbers of warheads, but just seeking to build a force large enough to be a deterrent. (Which may depend on resources and/or MAD theology.)
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