Does nuclear power lead to nuclear weapons?

This resource is a wikidebate, a collaborative effort to gather and organize all arguments on a given issue. It is a tool of argument analysis or pro-and-con analysis. This is not a place to defend your preferred points of view, but original arguments are allowed and welcome. See the Wikidebate guidelines for more.

Subject classification: this is a science resource.

Does nuclear power lead to nuclear weapons? That is, does development of nuclear power make it easier to acquire nuclear weapons? Does it contribute to nuclear proliferation? Is there some correlation between nuclear power acquisition and nuclear weapon acquisition?

The claim is not that nuclear power necessarily leads to nuclear weapons since that is obviously untrue.

Nuclear power leads to nuclear weapons

Pro

• Argument for As a hint, "the UK’s first nuclear power stations were built primarily to provide fissile material for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. [...] In Britain, the civil nuclear power programme was deliberately used as a cover for military activities. [...] The first generation of British Magnox nuclear power stations were all secretly designed with the dual purpose of plutonium and electricity production in mind." This is not conclusive, but is suggestive.
• Argument for "[N]uclear power plants, and the education of those who design and operate them, spread both the technological know-how and the raw materials needed to build atomic bombs."

Con

• Argument against Britannica's expert analysis suggests there is not much connection between nuclear power acquisition and nuclear weapon proliferation.
  • Objection Britannica's procon.org lists multiple pros and cons on the question, so the picture is perhaps not so simple as the particular referenced Britannica's article makes it seem.
    • Objection The procon.org has perhaps a slightly different methodology: choose some of the best or most professional or reliable sources for both sides and present them. Thus, in procon.org, Britannica perhaps becomes more relativist than it gets in the referenced article above, by applying a debate process that tends to be relativist.

See also

• Should we use nuclear energy?

Further reading

• Does Expanding Nuclear Energy Contribute to the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons?, procon.org by Britannica
• Fact Sheet: Nuclear Proliferation Risks in Nuclear Energy Programs, 2021, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
• Nuclear power without nuclear proliferation?, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• The link between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, wiseinternational.org
• Nuclear energy programs do not increase likelihood of proliferation, study finds, 2017, sciencedaily.com
• Will nuclear proliferation challenges limit a significant expansion of global nuclear power?, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2019, thebulletin.org