The UK is tiny. I wonder if we have the greatest nuke density (in missiles per square mile) on that list…then again, with the sheer numbers the US have probably not. Russia is too big to be in the running.
Edit: screw it, I’ll do the math.
All numbers rounded to the nearest whole number.
🥇Israel - 8,630 sq mi / 90 missiles
= 1 missile per 96 square miles.
🥈United Kingdom - 94,354 sq mi / 225 missiles.
= 1 missile per 419 square miles.
🥉United States - 3,809,525 sq mi / 5,244 missiles.
= 1 missile per 726 square miles.
France - 213,000 sq mi / 290 missiles.
= 1 missile per 734 square miles.
Russia - 6,601,665 sq mi / 5889 missiles.
= 1 missile per 1,121 square miles.
Pakistan - 340,509 sq mi / 170 missiles.
= 1 missile per 2,002 square miles
North Korea - 46,720 sq mi / 20 missiles.
= 1 missile per 2,336 square miles.
India - 1,269,219 sq mi / 164 missiles.
= 1 missile per 7,739 square miles.
China - 3,700,000 sq mi / 410 missiles.
= 1 missile per 9,024 square miles.
I genuinely didn’t realise Israel was so small, plus I’m number dyslexic so I couldn’t rough out the figures, it surprised me when they shot to the top of the list with only 90. I was also very surprised that France and the US were so close together.
Old habit. lol. There’s a reason my ex husbands gaming buddies called me “the oracle”. I could generally hear the conversations and any time someone asked a random question I’d start googling and come back with the answer.
Before that my adhd kept my brain spinning with random questions. Before the internet I’d bewilder my parents with them, after that I could find the answers for myself.
It's a challenging situation. On one hand, nuclear weapons and their potential for catastrophic destruction have served as a deterrent, preventing another world war. On the other hand, I recall reading an older article discussing how "weapons of mass destruction" acted as a deterrent to war, as no sane person would use them. The issue is, the author was referring to battleships, and the article was written right before the outbreak of WWI.
So let's wait and see what happens. Fingers crossed.
They're a deterrent until they're not. At some point, we will have an exchange, whether due to a system glitch, insanity, terrorism, or miscommunication.
Seeing nukes deployed in a real war was always treated as the lowest possibility, but even just a few weeks ago Putin was blustering about doing the very same, and Trump reportedly had to be instructed by his generals multiple times on why he couldn't nuke North Korea as well as, uh... hurricanes.
The thinking behind nuclear stockpile reduction treaties is that nuclear war, sooner or later, is inevitable. Maybe in 10 years, maybe 100, maybe 1000. However, the destructive potential is unlimited. It's better to reduce stockpiles now through international agreement so that the scope of harm is reduced as much as possible when they inevitably go off.
I don't put a lot of stock in the principles of mutually assured destruction. It assumes rationality exists in places where it assuredly does not.
Mutually assured destruction is the phrase. Anyone with self preservation won’t use them as the enemy can fire straight back with similar levels of force.
MAD is madness at its finest. It’s assuming all actors involved are rational and sane (and that alone right there is a big assumption) and it’s assuming your definition of reason and rationality are the same as their definition of reason and rationality.
MAD was only theorized around strategic nukes aimed at population center or in large first strikes.
Both NATO and the USSR planned to use tactical nukes if the Cold War did go hot.
My comment reflects I’m not either. After all mad is a relatively young concept, give or take 60 years going against 6,000 years of human nature. It’s hubris and arrogance.
I think it’s sad because of how old the video is and how much happier we all were when it came out. Also how fun the internet was back then when it wasn’t leading to the slow downfall of civilization.
You think anybody would admit to that?
_"Yeah, that missile is mostly just filled with bricks that we got on ebay.. But it could have been a nuke, so please PLEASE pretend to be a bit afraid at least."_
There is often info being released (propaganda) about our competitors and their tech. Recently it came out that the majority of Chinas missile silos are inoperable (mostly just defunct hatches that can't open), missiles full of water instead of fuel, and their military ranks are so disorganized they are basically not a threat. I doubt half of what they claimed is true, as I see US pushing just as much propaganda as anyone, but it is intersting.
And we all know N.K is just B.Sing
The only 'source' for that claim about the Chinese rocket forces was Radio Free Asia, which is as big a propaganda outlet as any of the Chinese official news sources. I'd take that with an absolutely massive grain of salt.
Lots of warheads are not operationally deployed, a list of deployed warheads is more useful. The UK may have 200+ warheads, but most are not able to be activated in the window you might need as they are in storage.
The other overlooked thing is delivering them. I would be surprised if some countries don’t have them inside other countries borders. If you can smuggle a car, a nuke is also possible.
Russia never shut down their plutonium pit production facilities, while the US did. This is actually a major issue right now for the Dept of Energy. Bill Clinton and GW Bush basically completely ignored our nuclear arsenal. We didn’t even start looking into the possibility of restarting plutonium production until Obamas administration, and we still haven’t gotten that project into the fully operational phase.
Russia and the US also both have the capability to do subcritical testing to ensure that the fissile material performs as expected. I have no doubt that Russia’s nuclear warheads will work.
I suspect this is probably much higher and I mean much higher amount of warheads that cannot actually function, given the example of the ukraine in what crap they were throwing at that country.
I’m sorry, but do you live under a rock? Are you missing all the news stories of Ukrainian towns being bombed and having cruise missiles fired at them? Russia’s guided bombs and cruise missiles work; that has been clearly demonstrated. The problem with Russia’s war machine is the fact that they can’t easily replenish what they’re using, and how bad they suck at logistics. These are not relevant issues for their ICBM fleet.
I'm not saying they're incapable of using purchased assets from other countries, but clearly, if you look at the benchmark of a war against a country the size of Ukraine, it should have only been a month and a half engagement. Basically, their army, even without the depleted stockpile, was essentially an outdated and defunded military. So I'm only contrasting what we saw with what we think. They can actually have usable assets for nuclear warheads.
You’re confusing a failure of logistics with a failure of equipment. Russia couldn’t conquer Ukraine in a month because they can’t keep their military supplied properly. Also, Russia and the Soviet Union has always had very talented engineers. They know how to build great equipment, they always have. Their historical problem has always been maintenance and logistics, not with building gear that doesn’t work. You can’t dismiss them by saying their success comes from “using purchased equipment”.
They only have 410 warheads, but I bet they all work. Meanwhile there's no way Russia's claimed number is their operational count with all maintenance intense and short shelf life these things are.
They had nuclear engineers. While they couldn’t have ever hacked the Soviet nukes to bypass the security, they could have disassembled the nukes and reused the fissile material to make new weapons. The physics of nuclear weapons is not a secret. What stops countries or organizations from acquiring nuclear weapons is the fact that it’s so hard to acquire fissile material. Ukraine had it handed to them. If they wanted to, they absolutely could have repurposed it into their own nuclear weapons.
That still likely requires seizing the weapons from the stewardship of forces loyal to Russia by force, potentially provoking war and inviting universal international condemnation. If Ukraine was willing to endure being that much of an international pariah it probably had/has advanced enough of a civilian nuclear program to just develop nukes from scratch in a handful of years, but
Would not have went well for them. They would’ve become a pariah state. Pretty much the entire West and Russia were pressuring them to give them up; if they kept the nukes, NATO would have likely embargoed them and I doubt we would’ve stopped Russia from invading them to retake the nukes before Ukraine could make them operational.
If only we kept the security guarantees made in the agreement.
If I remember correctly only Russia broke the agreement. It wasn’t a treaty to defend Ukraine. It was an agreement to not invade/sanction.
But ya, agree
Your dishonesty is incredibly annoying.
"We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon," she told me. "And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought -- maybe six months from a crude nuclear device."
Dr. Rice then said something that was ominous and made headlines around the world.
"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
https://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/10/wbr.smoking.gun/
The evidence for WMDs was infamously Iraqi purchases of aluminum tubes which the US alleged were going to be used for gas centrifuges to purify uranium… the main boogeyman was definitely nuclear not chemical
Let's hope it comes with equally cool heads for those in control of them.
Waaait a minute...
Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu, potentially Donald Trump...
Why did I suddenly get goosebumps?
This is old info; the US DoD put China at around 500 in January 2023. China is shooting for 1500 by 2035, so they’re probably closer to 6 hundo if they’re staying on track.
China actually most likely has the youngest warheads. US and Russian warheads are mostly all left over from the Cold War with refurbishments every few years. China on the other hand has only recently had the ability to start building up large numbers of warheads.
We destroyed the world by funneling trillions of dollars to make weapons that can destroy the world…..oh yea, and we can’t even use them. Future historians are gonna scratch their heads at our stupidity
y’all in here acting like the sheer amount of nuclear arms in the world (and the variety of hands their in) isn’t the balancing factor.
nobody is mad enough to push the button since they know that utter destruction is waiting for them
(bonus points for ‘hurr durr, Donald Trump gonna push the button.’ it doesn’t work like that. one man in the United States can’t do that)
and you only need about 100 nukes to mess up the biosphere sufficiently, we are a stupid species.
https://www.iflscience.com/how-many-nukes-would-it-take-to-totally-screw-humanity-48281
What's the purpose of US having so many then? Just to say that they have more than Russia? That's a huge cost just for some dick swinging. Makes way more sense to have 200 that will definitely work when needed
Because the purpose of nukes isn't to mess up the environment, it's to kill the other guy. The number of nukes needed to kill the other guy is a function of number of targets, multiplied by the number of nukes needed to destroy each target based on expected misses and interceptions, then multiplied by the fraction expected lost if the enemy were to perform a first strike (to ensure a viable second strike).
Also you’ve got to take into account the fact that the US, UK, and France rely on submarines to deliver their nuclear arsenals, and the entire submarine fleet can’t all be out at sea at the same time. For the UK, their real nuclear arsenal that they can actually deliver is less than half of their total warheads, purely because they can only reliably keep one ballistic missile submarine at a time on patrol. France has a similar limitation. The US still has air launched and ground based ICBMs and so is the least limited in this regard.
A question no one is asking is how does Israel have them too? Officially they have never reported owning any of them, and if they are allowed to have them under what excuse are its neighbors not allowed to get them too?
Much of the world is capable of developing weapons of mass destruction. Fortunately, most have committed to not doing so.
It isn't a question of whether an individual country is allowed to possess these weapons or not.
It is rather a question of whether the international community will tolerate their possession.
In the case of Israel, it is largely tolerated.
In the case of Iran or North Korea, it is not tolerated because those nations are not democratic.
It seems that your logic of tolerating one and not the other is flawed considering what Israel has shown in the last months, a complete disregard to human life.
Depends. What type of weapon? Where? What does “wipe out humanity” mean to you? When during the year? Accounting only for the nukes themselves or other factors?
Realistically a lot more than we have available today. Modern society would be wiped out for sure but it’s not lights out for humans entirely if we launched them all. Kurzgesagt made a cool video about this [here](https://youtu.be/LrIRuqr_Ozg?si=JV_KwCnDYRSNpH9T)
It seems like the Israel ones are a waste of their time. All of their enemies are too close for them to use nukes without being affected somewhat themselves.
This is a good point, airbursts of modern thermonuclear warheads release hardly any long lasting fallout. The bigger the ratio of fusion in the detonation, the cleaner the bomb.
Aren’t those infographics about nuclear warheads useless if they don’t include some kind of metric how strong they are?
You could have 10k warheads that only have 1 kiloton of tnt equivalent or 1k warheads with over a megaton each?
Here’s a thought. If nukes are a deterrent, one would think there’s a higher benefit in inflating your nuke count than minimizing it. But then is there a certain point where you would want to minimize it because your stockpile seems excessive?
The odds of this guide being spot on are slim. So is it too high due to countries trying to seem better armed than they truly are? Or too low from countries not showing their full arsenal
MAD. The larger a state's nuclear arsenal, the more of a risk it is to attack them. Therefore, reducing the risk of aggressive action against the nuclear power.
You need to have enough to make sure that if any conceivable enemy fired their entire arsenal in a 'counterforce' strike - attempting to destroy your nukes before they can be fired - you'll almost certainly have enough left over to destroy their population and economic assets in retaliation. That balance ensures MAD and prevents any nuclear war from actually starting, but it also makes it dangerous to ever fall too far behind in quantity of warheads and delivery systems.
The logic goes, if the enemy knows they have a large enough quantity advantage to possibly destroy all or almost all of your arsenal, that creates a kind of perverse incentive for them to make a surprise attack immediately while that advantage remains and eliminate the possibility of a more equal nuclear war later. Of course it's crazy to imagine a country initiating 'precautionary' nuclear war like this knowing they're probably taking at least a couple of nuclear strikes in retaliation, but when the stakes are so high it 'makes sense' from a certain perspective to ensure that temptation can never exist just to be 'safe'.
These numbers are much lower than they were at the peak of the Cold War.
Through diplomacy the US and Russia keep agreeing to limit their number of nukes until last year when Putin left the deal.
Completely ridiculous. Shows humanity is very far from evolutionary movement forward, with the amount of death we create for ourselves. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ keep blindly walking forward, hope the morons don’t decide to decimate this rock we all live on.
I do appreciate that warheads continue to be dismantled, dammit if I didn’t have to head to the office I would dive into a rabbit hole on decommissioning a warhead
The UK is tiny. I wonder if we have the greatest nuke density (in missiles per square mile) on that list…then again, with the sheer numbers the US have probably not. Russia is too big to be in the running. Edit: screw it, I’ll do the math. All numbers rounded to the nearest whole number. 🥇Israel - 8,630 sq mi / 90 missiles = 1 missile per 96 square miles. 🥈United Kingdom - 94,354 sq mi / 225 missiles. = 1 missile per 419 square miles. 🥉United States - 3,809,525 sq mi / 5,244 missiles. = 1 missile per 726 square miles. France - 213,000 sq mi / 290 missiles. = 1 missile per 734 square miles. Russia - 6,601,665 sq mi / 5889 missiles. = 1 missile per 1,121 square miles. Pakistan - 340,509 sq mi / 170 missiles. = 1 missile per 2,002 square miles North Korea - 46,720 sq mi / 20 missiles. = 1 missile per 2,336 square miles. India - 1,269,219 sq mi / 164 missiles. = 1 missile per 7,739 square miles. China - 3,700,000 sq mi / 410 missiles. = 1 missile per 9,024 square miles.
r/theydidthemath
2nd wasn't far off. Though Israel should come as no surprise at 90 for such a small country.
I genuinely didn’t realise Israel was so small, plus I’m number dyslexic so I couldn’t rough out the figures, it surprised me when they shot to the top of the list with only 90. I was also very surprised that France and the US were so close together.
I love that you asked yourself a question then went and researched the answer.
Old habit. lol. There’s a reason my ex husbands gaming buddies called me “the oracle”. I could generally hear the conversations and any time someone asked a random question I’d start googling and come back with the answer. Before that my adhd kept my brain spinning with random questions. Before the internet I’d bewilder my parents with them, after that I could find the answers for myself.
I’m the same way. Every time I hear about some concept I don’t know about I immediately google it
Now do it using square kilometres /s
idk if land area is a good metric, better to measure em per capita
More like the opposite of cool.
Actually freezing nuclear-winter cool.
Patrolling on Mojave almost makes you wish for nuclear winter.
The NCR wants to know your location.
(35.8324900, -115.4319207)
Warhead inbound - *Ulysses* (probably)
They are good for snuffing out hurricanes though. It works like blowing out candles on a cake
It's a challenging situation. On one hand, nuclear weapons and their potential for catastrophic destruction have served as a deterrent, preventing another world war. On the other hand, I recall reading an older article discussing how "weapons of mass destruction" acted as a deterrent to war, as no sane person would use them. The issue is, the author was referring to battleships, and the article was written right before the outbreak of WWI. So let's wait and see what happens. Fingers crossed.
They're a deterrent until they're not. At some point, we will have an exchange, whether due to a system glitch, insanity, terrorism, or miscommunication. Seeing nukes deployed in a real war was always treated as the lowest possibility, but even just a few weeks ago Putin was blustering about doing the very same, and Trump reportedly had to be instructed by his generals multiple times on why he couldn't nuke North Korea as well as, uh... hurricanes. The thinking behind nuclear stockpile reduction treaties is that nuclear war, sooner or later, is inevitable. Maybe in 10 years, maybe 100, maybe 1000. However, the destructive potential is unlimited. It's better to reduce stockpiles now through international agreement so that the scope of harm is reduced as much as possible when they inevitably go off. I don't put a lot of stock in the principles of mutually assured destruction. It assumes rationality exists in places where it assuredly does not.
I can’t and do not disagree.
You echo many of the points Dan Carlin makes in Blitz, Destroyer of Worlds. Check it out if you haven’t already!
Mutually assured destruction is the phrase. Anyone with self preservation won’t use them as the enemy can fire straight back with similar levels of force.
MAD is madness at its finest. It’s assuming all actors involved are rational and sane (and that alone right there is a big assumption) and it’s assuming your definition of reason and rationality are the same as their definition of reason and rationality.
MAD was only theorized around strategic nukes aimed at population center or in large first strikes. Both NATO and the USSR planned to use tactical nukes if the Cold War did go hot.
Battleships did not have the capability to end the world.
I'm not convinced mutually assured destruction works.
"WINNER: NONE" - WOPR
Strange game, the only winning move is not to play.
My comment reflects I’m not either. After all mad is a relatively young concept, give or take 60 years going against 6,000 years of human nature. It’s hubris and arrogance.
But only takes 1 to cause chaos..ironically
It’s not a guide either
More importantly, why is Jeff missing?
Here I am!! (Seriously my name is Jeff)
Oh thank goodness. You had me worried for a minute. Now will you *please* do something about these nukes??
Is that a wyvern king DP you got there?
You bet your sweet ass it is! Long Live the Wyvern King!
How much do you bench!!! Long live the wyvern king!
What are your demands?
More Jeff’s make themselves known!! … decommission more nukes too
I have exactly the same reaction! Because my name is Jeff and so apparently my words are backed with nuclear weapons!
We are powerful
Hokay. So basically we’ve got China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the UK, and us. With nukes.
But I'm le tired...
Well, have a nap...AND ZEN FIRE ZE MISSILES!
Mars is laughing at us, and the kangaroos are still like “G’DAY, MATE!” ….fucking kangaroos
https://youtu.be/Pk-kbjw0Y8U?si=wydw_qemA7jE4r_h
Sad how few people get this reference these days.
Old as dirt flash video
You mean that people dont know about a nearly 2 decades old video? I'm shock
I think it’s sad because of how old the video is and how much happier we all were when it came out. Also how fun the internet was back then when it wasn’t leading to the slow downfall of civilization.
Hi shock, nice to meet ya
AHHHHH MOTHERLAND
Dang, that's a pretty good earth you might be saying ***WRAONG***
That is a nice Earth you might say
Japan and S.Korea should get nukes. 3 other neighbors have them
The people of South Korea voted for nukes
Classic
I think 2500 is enough. Message me for more cost savings ideas!
Do you offer courses?
With Acronyms! BRB
Now show a map of working warheads
THIS would be the most interesting guide
You think anybody would admit to that? _"Yeah, that missile is mostly just filled with bricks that we got on ebay.. But it could have been a nuke, so please PLEASE pretend to be a bit afraid at least."_
There is often info being released (propaganda) about our competitors and their tech. Recently it came out that the majority of Chinas missile silos are inoperable (mostly just defunct hatches that can't open), missiles full of water instead of fuel, and their military ranks are so disorganized they are basically not a threat. I doubt half of what they claimed is true, as I see US pushing just as much propaganda as anyone, but it is intersting. And we all know N.K is just B.Sing
The only 'source' for that claim about the Chinese rocket forces was Radio Free Asia, which is as big a propaganda outlet as any of the Chinese official news sources. I'd take that with an absolutely massive grain of salt.
Lots of warheads are not operationally deployed, a list of deployed warheads is more useful. The UK may have 200+ warheads, but most are not able to be activated in the window you might need as they are in storage. The other overlooked thing is delivering them. I would be surprised if some countries don’t have them inside other countries borders. If you can smuggle a car, a nuke is also possible.
This is why a country will have 5000 warheads. If 90% are duds, the 10% that work will do the job.
Russias stockpile has half-lifed as far as I know, and they haven’t been refining more material for quite some time.
They were inspected yearly by the US until the start of the war in Ukraine so they had to ensure they were operational or lose face.
Russia never shut down their plutonium pit production facilities, while the US did. This is actually a major issue right now for the Dept of Energy. Bill Clinton and GW Bush basically completely ignored our nuclear arsenal. We didn’t even start looking into the possibility of restarting plutonium production until Obamas administration, and we still haven’t gotten that project into the fully operational phase. Russia and the US also both have the capability to do subcritical testing to ensure that the fissile material performs as expected. I have no doubt that Russia’s nuclear warheads will work.
A defective half life nuke is as good as a new working nuke
I suspect this is probably much higher and I mean much higher amount of warheads that cannot actually function, given the example of the ukraine in what crap they were throwing at that country.
I’m sorry, but do you live under a rock? Are you missing all the news stories of Ukrainian towns being bombed and having cruise missiles fired at them? Russia’s guided bombs and cruise missiles work; that has been clearly demonstrated. The problem with Russia’s war machine is the fact that they can’t easily replenish what they’re using, and how bad they suck at logistics. These are not relevant issues for their ICBM fleet.
I'm not saying they're incapable of using purchased assets from other countries, but clearly, if you look at the benchmark of a war against a country the size of Ukraine, it should have only been a month and a half engagement. Basically, their army, even without the depleted stockpile, was essentially an outdated and defunded military. So I'm only contrasting what we saw with what we think. They can actually have usable assets for nuclear warheads.
You’re confusing a failure of logistics with a failure of equipment. Russia couldn’t conquer Ukraine in a month because they can’t keep their military supplied properly. Also, Russia and the Soviet Union has always had very talented engineers. They know how to build great equipment, they always have. Their historical problem has always been maintenance and logistics, not with building gear that doesn’t work. You can’t dismiss them by saying their success comes from “using purchased equipment”.
Call me crazy but I dont trust China only having 410 warheads…I’m sure that ls just what they “reported”
They only have 410 warheads, but I bet they all work. Meanwhile there's no way Russia's claimed number is their operational count with all maintenance intense and short shelf life these things are.
I don’t trust America either. They happen to be the only one who have used it on a civilian population
Kinda like Russia probably has like 12 warheads not the reported slightly more then USA.
I've heard about how much upkeep they require, many of these countries are not about upkeep.
But how many does any country actually “need”? It seems like these USA and Russia numbers are way more than could ever practically be needed.
That's MAD for sure whenever someone pushes the fucking button.
For a split second I was like, “Yeah , Greenland!”
If by cool you mean nuclear winter...
Imagine if Ukraine never gave up its nukes...
They never realistically had the ability to use them, so it's doubtful that it would have made much difference.
This is the right answer.
Eh, bluffing works sometimes.
The Russians would've known that they couldn't use them
They had SCUD and Tochka, either of which could've been fitted with a nuclear warhead. "Inaccurate" doesn't matter with nukes.
I think it’s more about the cost of maintaining them and the necessary infrastructure
They had nuclear engineers. While they couldn’t have ever hacked the Soviet nukes to bypass the security, they could have disassembled the nukes and reused the fissile material to make new weapons. The physics of nuclear weapons is not a secret. What stops countries or organizations from acquiring nuclear weapons is the fact that it’s so hard to acquire fissile material. Ukraine had it handed to them. If they wanted to, they absolutely could have repurposed it into their own nuclear weapons.
That still likely requires seizing the weapons from the stewardship of forces loyal to Russia by force, potentially provoking war and inviting universal international condemnation. If Ukraine was willing to endure being that much of an international pariah it probably had/has advanced enough of a civilian nuclear program to just develop nukes from scratch in a handful of years, but
Would not have went well for them. They would’ve become a pariah state. Pretty much the entire West and Russia were pressuring them to give them up; if they kept the nukes, NATO would have likely embargoed them and I doubt we would’ve stopped Russia from invading them to retake the nukes before Ukraine could make them operational. If only we kept the security guarantees made in the agreement.
If I remember correctly only Russia broke the agreement. It wasn’t a treaty to defend Ukraine. It was an agreement to not invade/sanction. But ya, agree
Ukraine never had nukes. The USSR did.
So Iraq has none ? 🤨🤔
Do you mean Iran?
Iraq allegedly having WMDs was the justification given for the 2003 invasion
WMDs in question for the accusations being chemical weapons. Nukes were never mentionned, this myth is incredibly annoying
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_aluminum_tubes “Never mentioned” yeah right
Your dishonesty is incredibly annoying. "We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon," she told me. "And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought -- maybe six months from a crude nuclear device." Dr. Rice then said something that was ominous and made headlines around the world. "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." https://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/10/wbr.smoking.gun/
Chemical weapons aren’t nuclear
The evidence for WMDs was infamously Iraqi purchases of aluminum tubes which the US alleged were going to be used for gas centrifuges to purify uranium… the main boogeyman was definitely nuclear not chemical
I'm sure some chemistry is involved in nuclear weapons too
Nuclear and chemical are in leagues of their own is their point
And a joke is my point
Considering how much the phrase “We don’t want the ‘smoking gun’ to be a mushroom cloud” was repeated, the confusion is understandable.
[удалено]
Let's hope it comes with equally cool heads for those in control of them. Waaait a minute... Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu, potentially Donald Trump... Why did I suddenly get goosebumps?
That we know of.
Wow that’s crazy. And how many of these countries have dropped one of them on a civilian population?
🙋🏻♂️
Well, that feels like an excessive amount of nukes.
LOL something tells me our friends in China have way more.
This is old info; the US DoD put China at around 500 in January 2023. China is shooting for 1500 by 2035, so they’re probably closer to 6 hundo if they’re staying on track.
And something tell me many of them would not work
That’s what happens when you get your nukes off of Temu.
China actually most likely has the youngest warheads. US and Russian warheads are mostly all left over from the Cold War with refurbishments every few years. China on the other hand has only recently had the ability to start building up large numbers of warheads.
We destroyed the world by funneling trillions of dollars to make weapons that can destroy the world…..oh yea, and we can’t even use them. Future historians are gonna scratch their heads at our stupidity
And are still bleeding money trying to maintain them. No wonder South Africa dismantled its nukes real fast.
Yeah that's definitely why South Africa got rid of their nukes. Those cost savings s/
South Africa dismantled its nukes out of pure spite. The apartheid government was incredibly spiteful of the government that replaced it.
true true
One is too many.
I’m sure the world would be toast before anyone’s inventory can be depleted lmao
y’all in here acting like the sheer amount of nuclear arms in the world (and the variety of hands their in) isn’t the balancing factor. nobody is mad enough to push the button since they know that utter destruction is waiting for them (bonus points for ‘hurr durr, Donald Trump gonna push the button.’ it doesn’t work like that. one man in the United States can’t do that)
Not even close to accurate
and you only need about 100 nukes to mess up the biosphere sufficiently, we are a stupid species. https://www.iflscience.com/how-many-nukes-would-it-take-to-totally-screw-humanity-48281
Kid named 2,056 nuclear tests :
What's the purpose of US having so many then? Just to say that they have more than Russia? That's a huge cost just for some dick swinging. Makes way more sense to have 200 that will definitely work when needed
Because the purpose of nukes isn't to mess up the environment, it's to kill the other guy. The number of nukes needed to kill the other guy is a function of number of targets, multiplied by the number of nukes needed to destroy each target based on expected misses and interceptions, then multiplied by the fraction expected lost if the enemy were to perform a first strike (to ensure a viable second strike).
Also you’ve got to take into account the fact that the US, UK, and France rely on submarines to deliver their nuclear arsenals, and the entire submarine fleet can’t all be out at sea at the same time. For the UK, their real nuclear arsenal that they can actually deliver is less than half of their total warheads, purely because they can only reliably keep one ballistic missile submarine at a time on patrol. France has a similar limitation. The US still has air launched and ground based ICBMs and so is the least limited in this regard.
Be a patriot. Nukes create jobs.
Gotta love the false sense of global peace 💙
A question no one is asking is how does Israel have them too? Officially they have never reported owning any of them, and if they are allowed to have them under what excuse are its neighbors not allowed to get them too?
Much of the world is capable of developing weapons of mass destruction. Fortunately, most have committed to not doing so. It isn't a question of whether an individual country is allowed to possess these weapons or not. It is rather a question of whether the international community will tolerate their possession. In the case of Israel, it is largely tolerated. In the case of Iran or North Korea, it is not tolerated because those nations are not democratic.
It seems that your logic of tolerating one and not the other is flawed considering what Israel has shown in the last months, a complete disregard to human life.
How many would it take to wipe out humanity?
Just 1. The butterfly effect would end the world.
Depends. What type of weapon? Where? What does “wipe out humanity” mean to you? When during the year? Accounting only for the nukes themselves or other factors?
One. If you ment idiot in charge. Thankfully all of those countries have clear and sane leadership... please? Some? At lease a few? One? Anything?
Realistically a lot more than we have available today. Modern society would be wiped out for sure but it’s not lights out for humans entirely if we launched them all. Kurzgesagt made a cool video about this [here](https://youtu.be/LrIRuqr_Ozg?si=JV_KwCnDYRSNpH9T)
It seems like the Israel ones are a waste of their time. All of their enemies are too close for them to use nukes without being affected somewhat themselves.
Its a 'last stand' option, its not supposed to used otherwise
Nukes are a deterrent, not ever intended to be used.
it’s possible to make nukes that don’t produce nuclear fallout. they could also have some with varying blast radii
This is a good point, airbursts of modern thermonuclear warheads release hardly any long lasting fallout. The bigger the ratio of fusion in the detonation, the cleaner the bomb.
Cool in the sense of providing effective deterence.
Yes Definitely. Nuclear Winter cool
North Korea be like: yes we exist too, in that matter
Hmmm south Africa is not on the list.
South Africa USED to have its own nuclear arsenal of ~6 weapons. They dismantled them in 1989.
Apocalypse Now
Don't worry USA, we're expanding in Nebraska
Japan?
Doesn't have any.
Aren’t those infographics about nuclear warheads useless if they don’t include some kind of metric how strong they are? You could have 10k warheads that only have 1 kiloton of tnt equivalent or 1k warheads with over a megaton each?
Still crazy that Project Staircase only got 300 nukes in Three Body Problem
Cool cool cool…
Also about 6 has been declared misplaced/missing or lost. Not sure how or where you loose a whole ass nuclear warhead, but here we are.
haha im in danger
We are so fucked
Im sure we have a few stashed away in Australia
What about Iran?
Why does anyone need 5000 nukes. What a crazy world
What about Jeff?
So no nukes south of the equator?
South africa gave up theirs so, yeah
This isn’t a guide
China hasn't published anything in a while. It's likely that number is off
A guide showing catastrophic, world-ending weapons… cool! /s
5,000 nuclear warheads must be just such a massive logistical and administrative issue
Here’s a thought. If nukes are a deterrent, one would think there’s a higher benefit in inflating your nuke count than minimizing it. But then is there a certain point where you would want to minimize it because your stockpile seems excessive? The odds of this guide being spot on are slim. So is it too high due to countries trying to seem better armed than they truly are? Or too low from countries not showing their full arsenal
And all it takes is 1.
Yea, thats all the US has… totally, nothing to see here.
Want there a similar guide of sorts and there’s a guy named Steve or something that’s has 1?
The Southern Hemisphere is safe!
Now y’all that have’m and haven’t admitted it, can now raise your hand
JEFF has a bunch too
Umm… ‘murca
What if we used them to nuke the sun?
… but can we *really* trust Russia’s numbers?
… but can we *really* trust Russia’s numbers?
I somehow do not believe the numbers from one of the countries.
cue philomena cunk clip [https://youtu.be/DGrLUNpF7H4](https://youtu.be/DGrLUNpF7H4)
Humans are cunts. What a waste of everything.
“A cool guide” 😎 ☢️ 💥
South America Africa and Oceania are gonna be the next superpowers if MAD occurs.
Why do countries need 5200+ nuclear weapons? I feel like after you use a few you won’t need any anymore.
MAD. The larger a state's nuclear arsenal, the more of a risk it is to attack them. Therefore, reducing the risk of aggressive action against the nuclear power.
You need to have enough to make sure that if any conceivable enemy fired their entire arsenal in a 'counterforce' strike - attempting to destroy your nukes before they can be fired - you'll almost certainly have enough left over to destroy their population and economic assets in retaliation. That balance ensures MAD and prevents any nuclear war from actually starting, but it also makes it dangerous to ever fall too far behind in quantity of warheads and delivery systems. The logic goes, if the enemy knows they have a large enough quantity advantage to possibly destroy all or almost all of your arsenal, that creates a kind of perverse incentive for them to make a surprise attack immediately while that advantage remains and eliminate the possibility of a more equal nuclear war later. Of course it's crazy to imagine a country initiating 'precautionary' nuclear war like this knowing they're probably taking at least a couple of nuclear strikes in retaliation, but when the stakes are so high it 'makes sense' from a certain perspective to ensure that temptation can never exist just to be 'safe'.
These numbers are much lower than they were at the peak of the Cold War. Through diplomacy the US and Russia keep agreeing to limit their number of nukes until last year when Putin left the deal.
Indeed during the cold War Russia had 40000+ and the US 30000! Kinda makes today's number look like small change.
Tf do those two mfs need over 20k nukes each for? 😭
Completely ridiculous. Shows humanity is very far from evolutionary movement forward, with the amount of death we create for ourselves. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ keep blindly walking forward, hope the morons don’t decide to decimate this rock we all live on.
I do appreciate that warheads continue to be dismantled, dammit if I didn’t have to head to the office I would dive into a rabbit hole on decommissioning a warhead