Open Sources Lower Nuclear Design Barrier

A declassified 1960s experiment at Livermore (the 'Nth Country' project) tasked three postdocs with designing an atomic bomb using only unclassified literature, machine tools, and basic electronics; after years of work they produced a design assessed as comparable in yield to Hiroshima, showing technical design is accessible. The project found the real bottleneck was access to fissile material (uranium/plutonium) and testing capability, not theoretical knowledge. — This reframes nonproliferation policy: controlling materials and infrastructure, and international enforcement, matters more than information suppression alone.