So first, I am not a nuclear physicist, just a bored autist with nothing better to do while doing PT full time to recover from a series of injuries.
That being said:
Tritium and Deuterium are normally what you’d need for a fission-fusion bomb, or… trying to develop a fusion reactor like a tokamak or what not.
Tritium and Deuterium are mechanically, industrially, produced in yet again another different kind of process that is not the same as the different stages of uranium enrichment.
As of right now, the only sources I can find claiming Iran is developing a tritium production capacity… all trace back to here:
But this is.directly conflicted with Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (basically her job is to oversee all of the US’s various intelligence agencies, hybridize what they are saying into a cohesive big picture)
… Tritium alone will not make a nuclear fusion /hydrogen bomb.
You have to start the fusion reaction with a fission reaction, made out of >90% enriched urananium.
While it is true that Iran has a lot of 60% enriched uranium… even if they did have tritium… they would still have to further enrich the uranium, and actually build and test an actual nuclear bomb/warhead.
Making a bomb actually work properly is an entirely other, pretty darn difficult thing to pull off, which is why the precise details of that is basically the most classified info on Earth.
Currently, as best I can tell, US intelligence agencies as represented by Gabbard have essentially dismissed this NCRI report as flawed or invalid in some way… which is why Trump just said that he doesn’t care, because he has seen this story that originates from NCRI bouncing all over the right wing American media sphere.
Trump, rather infamously, doesn’t (or potentially can’t) read briefings or documents that are more than about a page long.
His first admin. was marked by many staffers figuring out stupid ways to overly summarize things, or make any documents he’d need to read be openly praising him, for him to actually read anything… and in this second admin it seems even worse, all he does is watch TV news, and he will claim it is more true than literally the reports from the most expensive intelligence network on the planet…
… so. yeah. we have insane conspiracy theory rapist racist felonious dementia grandpa for President, and he just believes whatever he wants to, and then his maggat cult followers do the same.
You can make a just fission only bomb with just highly enriched (>90%) uranium… again assuming you can actually make the bomb in the correct manner.
The US’s early nukes, the ones we dropped on Japan, were fission only.
Still awfully destructive, but … the opposite of miniaturized.
With fission-fusion (and other more complex setups)… you can get much more destructive power in a lot smaller and less heavy package.
Making a fission only warhead on a missile or in a bomb… you would need something quite large.
Like, hide it in a semi truck or large van and then detonate it.
Or a fuck off huge ICBM.
Basically, its… not very realistic to imagine a fission only nuke as something that could be practially be used by conventional military delivery methods that I am aware that Iran has access to.
Its possible you could make like a suicide bomber truck, an Oklahoma City Bombing / WTC 93 bombing with a nuke… but this truck, with a goddamned nuke in it, would have to somehow drive to its target.
Not impossible, Ukraine and Israel just managed to sneak basically semi trucks full of drones and shit into enemy territory… but not easy either.
Iran has certainly snuck equipment into Syria, Lebanon, Iraq… but not Israel/Palestine, at least as I am aware, nothing that huge, that heavy.
Iran can and does send funds and basically build a gun, build a mortar, build a bomb kits to Hamas and Hezbollah… as well as train people in being good guerilla fighters… but I’ve never heard of them delivering something you couldn’t smuggle in a car trunk.
I may be not sufficiently informed on… the entirety of everything Iran has managed to smuggle into Israel/Palestine though.
So first, I am not a nuclear physicist, just a bored autist with nothing better to do while doing PT full time to recover from a series of injuries.
That being said:
Tritium and Deuterium are normally what you’d need for a fission-fusion bomb, or… trying to develop a fusion reactor like a tokamak or what not.
Tritium and Deuterium are mechanically, industrially, produced in yet again another different kind of process that is not the same as the different stages of uranium enrichment.
As of right now, the only sources I can find claiming Iran is developing a tritium production capacity… all trace back to here:
https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/nuclear/ncri-reveals-secret-rainbow-tritium-facility-for-nuclear-missile-warheads/
But this is.directly conflicted with Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (basically her job is to oversee all of the US’s various intelligence agencies, hybridize what they are saying into a cohesive big picture)
https://www.factcheck.org/2025/06/trump-gabbard-comments-on-iran-nuclear-capability/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/americas-spies-say-iran-wasnt-building-a-nuclear-weapon-trump-dismisses-that-assessment
She mentions nothing about tritium.
… Tritium alone will not make a nuclear fusion /hydrogen bomb.
You have to start the fusion reaction with a fission reaction, made out of >90% enriched urananium.
While it is true that Iran has a lot of 60% enriched uranium… even if they did have tritium… they would still have to further enrich the uranium, and actually build and test an actual nuclear bomb/warhead.
Making a bomb actually work properly is an entirely other, pretty darn difficult thing to pull off, which is why the precise details of that is basically the most classified info on Earth.
Currently, as best I can tell, US intelligence agencies as represented by Gabbard have essentially dismissed this NCRI report as flawed or invalid in some way… which is why Trump just said that he doesn’t care, because he has seen this story that originates from NCRI bouncing all over the right wing American media sphere.
Trump, rather infamously, doesn’t (or potentially can’t) read briefings or documents that are more than about a page long.
His first admin. was marked by many staffers figuring out stupid ways to overly summarize things, or make any documents he’d need to read be openly praising him, for him to actually read anything… and in this second admin it seems even worse, all he does is watch TV news, and he will claim it is more true than literally the reports from the most expensive intelligence network on the planet…
… so. yeah. we have insane conspiracy theory rapist racist felonious dementia grandpa for President, and he just believes whatever he wants to, and then his maggat cult followers do the same.
Thanks, great analysis. Fuck that piece of shit and fuck the people who own him with a whale’s dork.
One last note:
You can make a just fission only bomb with just highly enriched (>90%) uranium… again assuming you can actually make the bomb in the correct manner.
The US’s early nukes, the ones we dropped on Japan, were fission only.
Still awfully destructive, but … the opposite of miniaturized.
With fission-fusion (and other more complex setups)… you can get much more destructive power in a lot smaller and less heavy package.
Making a fission only warhead on a missile or in a bomb… you would need something quite large.
Like, hide it in a semi truck or large van and then detonate it.
Or a fuck off huge ICBM.
Basically, its… not very realistic to imagine a fission only nuke as something that could be practially be used by conventional military delivery methods that I am aware that Iran has access to.
Its possible you could make like a suicide bomber truck, an Oklahoma City Bombing / WTC 93 bombing with a nuke… but this truck, with a goddamned nuke in it, would have to somehow drive to its target.
Not impossible, Ukraine and Israel just managed to sneak basically semi trucks full of drones and shit into enemy territory… but not easy either.
Iran has certainly snuck equipment into Syria, Lebanon, Iraq… but not Israel/Palestine, at least as I am aware, nothing that huge, that heavy.
Iran can and does send funds and basically build a gun, build a mortar, build a bomb kits to Hamas and Hezbollah… as well as train people in being good guerilla fighters… but I’ve never heard of them delivering something you couldn’t smuggle in a car trunk.
I may be not sufficiently informed on… the entirety of everything Iran has managed to smuggle into Israel/Palestine though.