Understanding the History of Nuclear Weapons: Insights into the Nine Countries that possess them

 

 Nine countries have roughly 12,100 nuclear warheads, with over 9,500 in active military stockpiles, according to the Federation of Atomic Scientists' 2024 State of the World’s Nuclear Forces.

- At first, you have to know that Russia has the most confirmed nuclear weapons, with over 5,500 nuclear warheads. The United States follows behind with 5,044 nuclear weapons.

- A single nuclear warhead could kill hundreds of thousands of people, with lasting and devastating humanitarian and environmental consequences.

- At the dawn of the nuclear age, the United States hoped to maintain a monopoly on its new weapon, but the secrets and the technology for building the atomic bomb soon spread. The United States conducted its first nuclear test explosion in July 1945 and dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.

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Just four years later, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test explosion. The United Kingdom (1952), France (1960), and China (1964) followed. Seeking to prevent the nuclear weapon ranks from expanding further, the United States and other like-minded countries negotiated the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996.

- The United States, Russia, and China also possess smaller numbers of non-strategic (or tactical) nuclear warheads, which are shorter-range, lower-yield weapons that are not subject to any treaty limits.

- China, India, and Pakistan are all pursuing new ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and sea-based nuclear delivery systems. North Korea continues its nuclear pursuits in violation of its earlier denuclearization pledges.

- Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons following the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse but returned them to Russia and joined the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states.

Nine countries have nuclear weapons:

China (350 nuclear warheads)

France (290 nuclear warheads)

India (160 nuclear warheads)

Israel (90 nuclear warheads)

North Korea (20 nuclear warheads)

Pakistan (165 nuclear warheads)

Russia (5977 nuclear warheads)

USA (5428 nuclear warheads)

UK (225 nuclear warheads).

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US President Reagan put it in clear words at the height of the Cold War: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?”