Nuclear Weap nsWho has what

UNITED STATESUNITED KINGDOM

ISRAEL

INDIA

CHINA

RUSSIA

N. KOREA

FRANCE

6,550215

280

15

6,850

135

80

300

PAKISTAN

145

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MARGARET MEAD02 MAPWISE

The world’s nuclear-armed states possess acombined total of roughly 15,000 nuclearwarheads; more than 90 per cent belong toRussia and the United States

RUSSIA➤ Russia has the world’s largest nuclear arse-

nal. The Russian Federation has an estimated6,850 nuclear weapons.

➤ Armenia and Belarus, both of which rely onRussia’s arsenal for “umbrella” protection, standin violation of TPNW.

➤ Russia is also only one of the three nations topossess a nuclear “triad,” which includes inter-continental ballistic missile delivery.

➤ A nuclear “triad” refers to a nation’s ability todeploy its nuclear arsenal through intercontinen-tal ballistic missiles, sea-launched ballistic mis-

siles and strategic bombers, as defined by theNuclear Threat Initiative, an advisory board thatconducts research and provides analysis toencourage diplomacy.

CHINA➤ In 1957, before China had nuclear

weapons, its leader Mao Zedongmade the following statement: “I’mnot afraid of nuclear war. There are2.7 billion people in the world; itdoesn’t matter if some are killed.China has a population of 600 mil-lion; even if half of them are killed,there are still 300 million peopleleft. I’m not afraid of anyone.”

➤ China’s first nuclear weapons testtook place in 1964. Beijing main-tains a no-use-first nuclear policy,but some in the internationalcommunity are sceptical of itsintentions.

FRANCE➤ The French Dassaule Rafale fighter

jet can deploy a nuclear weapon witha warhead 20 times the size of thebomb dropped on Hiroshima.

➤ France, also a NATO member state,can only deliver its nuclear weaponsvia aircraft and submarines.

➤ The ASMP-A (nuclear air-launchedcruise missile) is a 300 kt (kiloton)warhead, about 20 times the size ofthe bomb dropped on Hiroshima,Japan, at the end of World War II.

➤ If a warhead of that size were todrop over Washington, D.C., it wouldresult in approximately 280,000casualties.

NORTH KOREA➤ North Korea possesses a large and increasingly sophisti-

cated ballistic missile programme, and conducts fre-quent missile test launches, heightening East Asian ten-sions. In 2017, North Korea successfully tested theHwasong-14 and Hwasong-15, its first ICBMs(Intercontinental ballistic missile), which some expertsbelieve gives North Korea the capability to deliver anuclear payload anywhere in the US.

➤ In August, US President Donald Trump threatened NorthKorea with “fire and fury” should the country not aban-don its threats against the US. The arm-twisting had noeffect on North Korea.

PAKISTAN➤ Contrary to India’s no-first-use policy, Pakistan has

not ruled out first-attack use of nuclear weapons.In 2014, Pakistan began developing tacticalnuclear weapons, which are smaller warheads

built for use on battlefields rather than cities orinfrastructure.

➤ These weapons are small enough to launch from war-ships or submarines, which makes them easier to use onshort notice than traditional nuclear weapons. Pakistanhas extremist, Islamist, elements with links to globalterror networks. Experts have long feared not enoughhas been done to secure Islamabad’s nukes againstthese threats.

UNITEDSTATES➤ The US is the only country to detonate nuclear

weapons against an enemy, as it did in the Hiroshimaand Nagasaki attacks against Japan in August 1945.

➤ The US has agreed to potentially use its nuclearweapons to protect NATO member states, Japan,Australia and South Korea.

➤ Because of these agreements, all 29 NATO member states, andthe three who hold bilateral protection agreements with theUS, are in violation of TPNW (Treaty on the Prohibition ofNuclear Weapons).

➤ The US, which has a nuclear arsenal that’s nearly the size ofRussia’s, is the only nation in the western hemisphere thatpossesses nuclear weapons, and one of three countries topossess the nuclear “triad.”

➤ The US is also the only nation in the world to store nuclearweapons in other countries.

➤ According to the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor, the US isbelieved to have stored some 180 nuclear weapons in othercountries.

➤ This number has been “significantly reduced since the ColdWar,” according to the report.

UNITED KINGDOM➤ The United Kingdom can only launch its nuclear weapons from its

four Vanguard-class submarines.➤ The UK is a NATO member state, and shares the umbrella protection of the alliance.➤ The country has at least one nuclear-armed submarine on patrol at all times, under a Continuous at Sea Defense Posture,

according to a report.➤ British policy also states that the country will not threaten the use of nuclear weapons against any “non-nuclear weapons state.”

ISRAEL ➤ Israel’s government will neither

officially confirm nor deny it hasnuclear weapons. But it’s an opensecret that the Middle Easterncountry has been building nuclearweapons for decades.

➤ In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a for-mer Israeli nuclear technician andwhistleblower, revealed the exis-tence of Israel’s programme.

➤ Western allies, like the US and UK,have supported Israel’s policy ofkeeping its programme “secret.”

INDIA➤ A series of five nuclear

explosions were con-ducted between May 11and May 13, 1998, at theend of which the governmentled by then Prime Minister A BVajpayee declared India a full-fledged nuclear state.

➤ India has declared a no-use-first policy, meaning that it vowed tonever use nuclear weapons in combat unless first attacked by anothercountry with nuclear weapons.

➤ But India may abandon its ‘no first use’ nuclear policy and launch apre-emptive strike against Pakistan if it fears that Islamabad was like-ly to use the weapons first said Vipin Narang, an expert on South Asiannuclear strategy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

■ Nine countrieshave nuclearweapons and it isestimated that 35-40 have the knowl-edge to acquirethem. ■ Current nuclearweapons are morepowerful than thosedropped on Japan.Just 50 weaponscould kill 20 crorehabitants

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2018 ESTIMATED GLOBAL NUCLEAR WARHEAD INVENTORIES