Worldwide Nuclear Forces

Status of Nuclear Powers and Their Nuclear Capabilities data as of 01 January 2017								Introduction Summary - 2004 Summary - 2005
Summary North Korea, India and Pakistan have all embarked on major expansions of their nuclear weapons production capacities, and by the 2025 timeframe are set to have stockpiles that rival those of France and Britain. To all evidence, Israel continues to produce new nuclear weapons for a growing stockpile. The United States and Russia have effected massive reductions in their nuclear stockpiles relative to Cold War peaks, but further reductions seem stalled, given Russian insistence on maintaining a large prestige stockpile. France has published the size of its stockpile, and the UK continues to reduce its stockpile, both measures recommended by the arms control community. Almost no one noticed, and these initiatives had no impact on other countries. Many public estimates of the stockpiles of Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan are static, and have not increased since the turn of the century, despite the fact that these countries continue to produce new nuclear weapons. The size of the stockpiles of the smaller nuclear weapons states are poorly characterized in the open literature, and the inventories of delivery systems are very poorly characterized. Japan has a large inventory of Plutonium that could be turned into a fairly sizeable nuclear weapons stockpile on a timescale of a few months.					What is to be Done?? Russia opposes further nuclear reduction because by some measures it presently has the world's largest arsenal of deliverable weapons, and this nuclear superiority is one of the few reasons anyone pays attention to the Russian leadership. United States of America will not reduce its nuclear posture to a level substantially lower than the Russians. KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES United Kingdom has taken a variety of unilateral reductions as an example for other countries to follow, but no one noticed, and now they are down to a minimum deterrent posture. France is not going to reduce lower than the UK, and as with Russia, nuclear weapons are a claim to fame. China seems to believe that a few hundred nuclear weapons are one of the keys to being a great power, and maybe many more than just a few hundred would be needed to offset an American missile defense. India is not too sure why it has nuclear weapons, but rivals China and Pakistan have them, so India doesn't want to be left behind. EXISTENTIAL FEARS Pakistan has a well founded fear of India's growing conventional superiority, and has embarked on a massive buildup of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons the likes of which has not been seen since the Fulda Gap in Germany during the Cold War. Israel does not want to be shoved into the sea. North Korea saw what happened when Iraq and Libya confronted the United States and did not have nuclear weapons.
	USofA	Russia	United Kingdom	France	China	Israel	India	Pakistan	North Korea
Weapons
Stockpile	4,018 + 2,800	7,700	200	300	?400	200	110-175	110-130	20-45
Deliverable	3,950	4,500	160	300	~325	200	110	110-130	20-45
ICBM
Delivery Systems	450	311			35
Nuclear Weapons	450	1,050			35
Type	MM II : 0 MM III: 450 MX PK : 0	SS-18: 46 SS-19: 30 SS-24: 0 SS-25: 100 SS-27: 124			DF-5: 20 DF-31A: 15
IRBM, MRBM
Delivery Systems					100	100	70	100	100
Nuclear Weapons					100	100	+50	65	??
Type					DF-3 : 40 DF-4 : 12 DF-21: 48	Jericho 1 : 50 Jericho 2 : 50	Prithvi : 70 Agni : 20	15 x Hatf-6 / Shaheen-II 50 x Hatf-5 / Ghauri	ND-1 : 100
SLBM
Delivery Systems	288	240	64	64	76	24
Nuclear Weapons	1,152	1,472	160	384	60	24
Type	Trident-1: 0 Trident-2: 288	SS-N-18: 64 SS-N-23: 96 SS-N-30: 80	Trident-2: 64	M-4 : 0 M-45: 0 M-5: 64	JL-1 : 12 JL-2 : 48	Popeye : 24
SSBN	Ohio : 14	Delta III: 4 Delta IV : 6 Borei : 2	Vanguard : 4	Inflexible : 0 Triomphant : 4	Xia-SSBN : 1 Jin-SSBN : 4	Dolphin : 3
Heavy Bombers
Delivery Systems	60 [208]	78
Nuclear Weapons	~1300 [~2,000]	800
Type	B-2: 19 [21] B-1B: 0 [93] B-52: 41 [94]	Tu-95H6: 28 Tu-95H16: 35 Tu-160: 15
Theater Bombers
Delivery Systems		471		54	150	-	400	143
Nuclear Weapons	~1,000	?200		54	150	75	+50	10
Type	F-15 F-16 F-18	Air Force Tu-22M: 100 Su-24 : 371 Navy Tu-22M: 58 Su-24 : 58		Rafale : 30 M2000N : 30 Etendard : 0	H-6 : 120 Q-5 : 30	F-4 F-16	MiG-27 : 147 Jaguar : 88 M2000 : 35 Su-30 : 30	A-5: 49 Mirage III : 16 Mirage 5: 52 F-16: 25
Other Theater and Tactical Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear Weapons		?1,000			???120
Type		AF SAMs Navy: aircraft missiles torpedoes			DF-11 DF-15 artillery ADM			Hatf-2 / Ababil Hatf-3 / Ghaznavi Hatf-4 / Shaheen-I
In June 2016 SIPRI defined "operationally deployed nuclear weapons" as warheads "placed on missiles or located on bases with operational forces". At that time, SIPRI judged that China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea had no operationally deployed nuclear weapons. SIPRI's estimate of "deployed" nuclear weapons for the US and Russia is about half the number typically assesed as "deliverable". In the late 1940s the United Stated initially retained civilian control of nuclear weapons, but the Department of Defense acquired control of the US arsenal after the beginning of the Korean War. More recently, arms control advocates have proposed de-alerting nuclear forces, and storing nuclear weapons separately from their delivery systems. Neither of these rationales would appear applicable to the five countries identified by SIPRI.

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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Summary

What is to be Done??