World Balance of Nuke Power (1st quarter 2014)

[cnleio]

16 June 2014: Nuclear forces reduced while modernizations continue, says SIPRI

At the start of 2014 nine states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—possessed approximately 4000 operational nuclear weapons. If all nuclear warheads are counted, these states together possessed a total of approximately 16 300 nuclear weapons (see table 1) compared to 17 270 in early 2013.


Reductions slow and modernizations continue
Over the past five years there has been a steady decline in the overall number of nuclear warheads in the world (see table 2). The decrease is due mainly to Russia and the USA—which together still account for more than 93 per cent of all nuclear weapons—further reducing their inventories of strategic nuclear weapons under the terms of the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START).

At the same time, all five legally recognized nuclear weapon states—China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA—are either deploying new nuclear weapon delivery systems or have announced programmes to do so. India and Pakistan continue to develop new systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons and are expanding their capacities to produce fissile material for military purposes.

There is an emerging consensus in the expert community that North Korea has produced a small number of nuclear weapons, as distinct from rudimentary nuclear explosive devices.

 

[GreenFalcon]

Very balanced

 

[nair]

What is that US going to do with 7300 war heads?????

 

[xunzi]

Our American friend needs to donate their nuke to us. LOL In all seriousness, put an asterisk on China. Nobody knows how many nuke we really got. All speculation from hundred to thousand.

 

[rockstar08]

What is that US going to do with 7300 war heads?????

they will use when aliens attack them

 

[nair]

they will use when aliens attack them

Lol.... Even then they have excess stock mate.......

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

What is that US going to do with 7300 war heads?????

We used to have 31,000

 

[nair]

We used to have 31,000

Hmm..... You can afford it, and you can afford to waste money on making them and maintaining them and distroying/dismantling them...... But then there would be some thought behind having so much of weapons right????? Even if it is offensive can some one use 10% of those weapon possessed by them?????

 

[rockstar08]

Lol.... Even then they have excess stock mate.......

are you sure ?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Hmm..... You can afford it, and you can afford to waste money on making them and maintaining them and distroying/dismantling them...... But then there would be some thought behind having so much of weapons right????? Even if it is offensive can some one use 10% of those weapon possessed by them?????

Mutually Assured Destruction

That's why Russia's worry about Anti-ballistic missiles is silly.
We both have the ability to create so many that even a 90% success rate would be futile.

 

[nair]

Mutually Assured Destruction

For that you need 31000? I am sure 100 is more than enough

 

[pigtaker]

What is that US going to do with 7300 war heads?????

we can destroy the earth twice while they can 10 times. that is the difference, which make US feel safer.

 

[AugenBlick]

After you achieve MAD wrt. your enemies , rest is just added expenses.

 

[arp2041]

In every "conspiracy theory" Israel have 200 nukes, why just 80?

@500

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

we can destroy the earth twice while they can 10 times. that is the difference, which make US feel safer.

It was initially about precision. As missile accuracy got better the warhead count didn't need to be so great. So all the START treaties began to happen.