ABSTRACT
Libya's programme to acquire a nuclear weapons capability spanned just over three decades from the early 1970s to late 2003. This chapter examines the proliferation pathways pursued by the Gadhafi regime, the period under study is divided into three main sections. Running from 1969 through to 1981, the first encompasses Libya's initial efforts to procure the building blocks of an ostensibly 'civil' programme, ranging from uranium exploration through conversion and enrichment to the construction of research and power reactors and the reprocessing of plutonium. The period from 1981 through to the mid-1990s encompassed Libya's active exploration of the routes to acquiring the fissile material required for nuclear weapons based on both plutonium and uranium enrichment. A third period, from the mid-1990s to December 2003, witnessed the reinvigoration of Libya's nuclear efforts, particularly in the enrichment field. Libya's lack of success with reluctant suppliers and other nuclear suppliers pushed it towards the Soviet Union as a source of nuclear assistance.
