People do not understand how nukes work.
First of all, just because you can test a bomb underground does not mean that you really have a nuke, although I think it does mean that you have finally figured out the triggering mechanism, which is so devilishly hard that many nations have never been able to master it. You have to get the triggering down to the 1000th of a second and there are a million things that can wrong.
North Korea has also not been able to fit a nuke onto a warhead and put that warhead on a missile that will work when you fire it. A lot of their missiles don’t even work, so their missile tech is not that good either. It is extremely hard to make a nuclear capable missile and many nations just gave up after trying a while.
Once you finally get a working missile, now you need to somehow fit that bomb into a warhead. Have you seen the size of the Little Boy bomb we dropped on Japan? Try sticking that on a rocket. This is also devilishly hard. North Korea has been trying for years to make a nuke into a warhead and will launch with a capable missile, but they have not yet been successful. This also is devilishly hard and many nations once again gave up after trying for a while.
Nuclear tech is not even really exportable. Yes, Progressive magazine ran an article called How to Make a Nuclear Bomb, but so what? Now go make one. I dare ya. The tech is fiendishly difficult and most of the material is certainly not in the public domain. The necessary tech that other nations used can be acquired, but it is very hard to find and especially to copy. Saddam’s regime had a very hard time acquiring manuals for their program.
You also need rocket scientists and nuclear physicists. They don’t grow on trees. Really no nation can become a nuclear power without building up a pretty significant military, industrial and educational infrastructure.
Oh and one more thing. There’s no such thing as a suitcase nuke. That’s just some lie a bunch of media whores made up so they can scare you more and get more viewers.
