The Americans were horrified when the Soviets developed their own nuclear weapons. What was the American reaction to the British, French, Chinese, Indian and Pakistani governments doing the same?

by George_S_Patton_III
restricteddata

This is a large topic — but briefly:

  • The UK. The US knew the UK was making nuclear weapons (it was not a secret that they were pursuing it), and was not at all surprised by it. The UK was a partner with the US in the Manhattan Project, but had been excluded from future collaboration by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Within the US there were those who felt that the US ought to help the UK, their allies, with this, and those who didn't want to help anyone. In the end, they didn't help. But the UK's weapons work enabled new cooperation between the US and the UK, since the UK had demonstrated that they had the "secret" well in hand. The US-UK nuclear collaboration is a large topic, and went through many phases over the Cold War and even into the present (the UK arsenal uses US-produced missiles with UK-produced warheads today).

  • The French. The US was not thrilled with the French developing a nuclear force but wasn't horrified by it. The US-French relationship was always touch and go; the French were considered allies but very touchy ones. In general, by the time the French developed their first weapons (1960), the US was starting to get concerned about proliferation issues, but hadn't fully become engaged with the topic yet. Eisenhower told DeGalle he was "concerned" but that was as far as any discouragement went.

  • The People's Republic of China. This was the "wake-up call" for proliferation issues. The US was very unhappy. "Horrified" would imply they were surprised by it, which they weren't, but unhappy, sure. At the time (1964) of their first detonation, Mao's China was in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, had split from their alliance with the USSR, and was regarded by the US (and even the USSR, to a degree) as a poor but populous "rogue" state. It was similar to how people reacted with North Korea obtained nuclear weapons, if not a bit worse — China was the first "poor" country to develop these arms, and had many more human and natural resources at its disposal than North Korea does. This led directly to the push for the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (1968).

  • Israel. You left them off your list, but they obtained nuclear capabilities in the late 1960s. They are an interesting and tricky case. The Kennedy administration attempted to strongly discourage Israel from developing nuclear weapons and even attempted to inspect their facility at Dimona. The Israelis were clever in their concealment, however, and the US was unable to prove what they were doing. By the Nixon administration an agreement was reached in which the US would act as if Israel did not have nuclear weapons so long as Israel did not acknowledge that it had them, test them, or use them. This was a compromise based on the fact that while the US would prefer Israel not to have them (it complicates US freedom of action in the Middle East), they recognized they would not get rid of them at that point, and the US wanted to keep them as a close ally.

  • India. The Indians set off a nuclear detonation in 1974, but claimed it was a "peaceful" explosion and not a military warhead. The US was unhappy about this to say the least, but again, at that point it was a fait accompli. The Indians had done a very good job of concealing this from US intelligence prior to the test. While the US knew that the Indians had a growing investment in nuclear technology, and knew that China developing nuclear weapons could spur them to develop their own, they were still caught off-guard when the Indians actually tested. The Indians swore to the US that they would not develop the technology into a military weapon, but reversed course in the 1980s. After testing in 1998, the US imposed sanctions on the country, though these were largely relaxed in George W. Bush.

  • South Africa. Another left off your list, but South Africa achieved a small nuclear arsenal by the 1980s. They disassembled it in the early 1990s. At various points the South Africans looked as if they were going to test a weapon and were heavily discouraged by the United States from doing so.

  • Pakistan. The US long knew that Pakistan was pursuing nuclear weapons clandestinely, but its dependence on Pakistan as an intermediary in its efforts to affect the Soviet Union in Afghanistan made it very difficult for the US to address this adequately. Pakistan's geopolitical status and willingness to host US military activity meant that they were given a lot of latitude to defy US intentions and goals (and issue that continues today; they are sometimes described as "the ally from hell" for this reason). Pakistan developed a covert nuclear capability sometime in the late 1980s, but did not test or make it overt until 1998, when, after clashing with India after Kashmir, tested several warheads a few weeks after India did. The US also imposed sanctions on Pakistan as a result. The response to Pakistan's nuclear capabilities has been a very gloomy one, because of the fears that such weapons might be stolen or moved into the hands of terrorists by agents within the secretive Pakistan ISI. And the work of the A.Q. Khan network, in which a major Pakistani nuclear scientist aided in the transfer of nuclear technology to many nations (Iran, Libya, North Korea), likely with the knowledge of the Pakistani government (it is hard to imagine him doing it without their knowledge), hasn't helped any of this. But again, the US is heavily dependent on Pakistan for its military basing (esp. since the beginning of the War in Afghanistan in 2001), so its ability to put pressure is limited.

  • North Korea. It would violate the "20 year rule" to go into too much detail here but I think it is enough to say that the North Korean nuclear program began in the 1970s, and has been a major issue regarding US negotiations on the Korean peninsula since then. The US response to the North Koreans testing a nuclear weapon definitely falls under the category of "horrified." The problem has always been: how do you get a pariah state to stop, if you aren't willing to go to war with them? Heavy sanctions have been imposed for decades, deals have been made (but not always followed through with, on both the US and DPRK sides), and the assessment of the value of these varies today by the analyst. Maybe in some future time we'll have better access to the history of the North Korean program.

This is a very, very, very general overview. If you want many more details about what the US knew and did not know, and about what pressures were put on countries before and after their testing, see Jeffrey Richelson, Spying on the Bomb, which is essentially a compendium of information about US efforts to know what other countries were doing with their nuclear programs. I would note that the above only focuses on countries that were successful in getting weapons. There were several countries that the US actually did manage to discourage from developing weapons, notably Taiwan (who was too dependent on the US to risk their ire).