A suitcase nuke is a tactical nuclear weapon which uses, or is portable enough that it could use, a suitcase as its delivery method. Synonyms include suitcase bomb, backpack nuke, mini-nuke, pocket nuke and snuke.
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Thus far, only the United States and the Soviet Union/Russian Federation are known to have possessed nuclear weapons programs developed and funded well enough to manufacture miniaturized nuclear weapons.[1] [2] Both the United States and the Soviet Union have acknowledged producing nuclear weapons small enough to be carried in specially-designed backpacks during the Cold War, but neither have ever made public the existence or development of weapons small enough to fit into a normal-sized suitcase or briefcase. It has also been reported that Israel has produced nuclear warheads small enough to fit into a suitcase.[3]
In nuclear weapon design, there is a tradeoff in small weapons designs between weight and compact size. Extremely small (as small as 5 inches (13 cm) diameter and 24.4 inches (62 cm) long) linear implosion type weapons, which might conceivably fit in a large briefcase or typical suitcase, have been tested, but the lightest of those are nearly 100 pounds (45 kg) and had a maximum yield of only a fraction of a kiloton (190 tons).[4] The largest yield of a relatively compact linear implosion device was under 2 kilotons for the cancelled / never deployed (but apparently tested) US W82-1 artillery shell design, with yield under 2 kilotons for a 95 pounds (43 kg) artillery shell 6.1 inches (15 cm) in diameter and 34 inches (86 cm) long.
Declassified Russian sources indicate that the smallest Soviet miniaturized nuclear weapon was also small in dimensions, and its size was compared to a "small refrigerator." Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, these were the type of devices that Soviet General Alexander Lebed claimed had been issued to the GRU and then subsequently lost. Lebed, who worked with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, presented to the U.S. Congress the idea that suitcase bombs had been created by the Soviets and that 132 KGB-produced devices could not be accounted for.[5]
There has been no official information released on the existence of true suitcase or briefcase-sized nuclear weapons in either the U.S. or Russian arsenals. However, the Washington, D.C.–based intelligence-firm, Center For Defense Information (CDI), states that the US government produced a class of nuclear devices in the late 1970s which were small enough to fit into an actual suitcase or briefcase. Likewise, CDI claims that a detailed training replica—with dummy explosives and no fissionable material—was routinely concealed inside a briefcase and hand-carried on domestic airline flights in the early 1980s.[6]
While the explosive power of the W54—up to an equivalent of 6 kiloton[7] of TNT—is not much by the normal standards of a nuclear weapon (the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II were around 16 to 21 kilotons each), their value lies in their ability to be easily smuggled across borders, transported by means widely available, and placed as close to the target as possible.
In 1997, former Russian National Security Advisor Alexander Lebed made public claims about lost "suitcase nukes" following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In an interview with the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, Lebed said:
I'm saying that more than a hundred weapons out of the supposed number of 250 are not under the control of the armed forces of Russia. I don't know their location. I don't know whether they have been destroyed or whether they are stored or whether they've been sold or stolen, I don't know.
However, the Russian government immediately rejected Lebed's claims. Russia's Ministry for Atomic Energy went so far as to dispute that suitcase nuclear weapons had even ever been developed by the Soviet Union. Later testimony however insinuated that the suitcase bombs had been under the control of the KGB and not the army or the atomic energy ministry, so they might not know of their existence. Russian president Vladimir Putin, in an interview with Barbara Walters in 2001, stated about suitcase nukes, "I don't really believe this is true. These are just legends. One can probably assume that somebody tried to sell some nuclear secrets. But there is no documentary confirmation of those developments."
The highest-ranking GRU defector Stanislav Lunev claimed that such Russian-made devices do exist and described them in more detail.[8] These devices, "identified as RA-115s (or RA-115-01s for submersible weapons)" weigh from fifty to sixty pounds. They can last for many years if wired to an electric source. In case there is a loss of power, there is a battery backup. If the battery runs low, the weapon has a transmitter that sends a coded message—either by satellite or directly to a GRU post at a Russian embassy or consulate.” According to Lunev, the number of "missing" nuclear devices (as found by General Lebed) "is almost identical to the number of strategic targets upon which those bombs would be used."[8]
Lunev suggested that suitcase nukes might be already deployed by the GRU operatives at the US soil to assassinate US leaders in the event of war.[8] He alleged that arms caches were hidden by the KGB in many countries for the planned terrorism acts. They were booby-trapped with "Lightning" explosive devices. One of such cache, which was identified by Vasili Mitrokhin, exploded when Swiss authorities tried to remove it from woods near Bern. Several others caches were removed successfully.[9] Lunev said that he had personally looked for hiding places for weapons caches in the Shenandoah Valley area[8] and that "it is surprisingly easy to smuggle nuclear weapons into the US" either across the Mexican border or using a small transport missile that can slip undetected when launched from a Russian airplane.[8] US Congressman Curt Weldon supported claims by Lunev but noted that Lunev had "exaggerated things" according to the FBI.[10] Searches of the areas identified by Lunev have been conducted, "but law-enforcement officials have never found such weapons caches, with or without portable nuclear weapons."[11]
The lightest nuclear warhead ever acknowledged to have been manufactured by the U.S. is the W54, which was used in both the Davy Crockett 120 mm recoilless rifle–launched warhead, and the backpack-carried version called the Mk-54 SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition). The bare warhead package was an 11 in by 16 in (28 cm by 41 cm) cylinder that weighed 51 lbs (23 kg). It was, however, small enough to fit in a footlocker-sized container.
In 1994 the United States Congress passed The National Defense Authorization for Fiscal Year 1994, preventing the government from developing nuclear weapons with a yield of less than 5 kilotons, thereby making the official development of these weapons in the U.S. unlikely. This law was, however, repealed in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004.[12]