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Locating the world’s nuclear weapons

Where most of the weapons are: US and Russia…….Using the weapons stores from these two nations alone, we can still obliterate all life on Earth several times over without much effort.

Where are all the nuclear weapons located in the world?, 109.com, 13 Aug 2010, The exact status of the world’s nuclear weapon supply is only known through educated guesswork and occasional information leaks. Nations with nuclear weapons hold their locations and attributes close to the vest at best (the U.S., Britain) or cloak them almost completely in utter secrecy (North Korea, Israel).
Where most of the weapons are: US and Russia
But there are several organizations that analyze and track nuclear weapons, the most prominent being the Federation of American Scientists and the Center for Defense Information. Despite their best efforts, our knowledge of global nuclear stockpiles is alarmingly similar to this Onion article (“World’s Nuclear Arsenal ‘Pretty Much’ Accounted For”), an odd bit of satire that is almost completely accurate.
Two nations have more nuclear weapons than all other nations combined: the U.S. and Russia. If you subscribe to George Carlin’s “Bigger Dick Foreign Policy Theory,” you can infer that these are the two most insecure nations in the world, with roughly 10,000 nuclear weapons each, several thousand of them operational. Using the weapons stores from these two nations alone, we can still obliterate all life on Earth several times over without much effort.
Who else has nukes, and who will get them soon?
The chief treaty limiting nuclear weapons is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, first drafted in 1970. While 189 nations have signed the treaty, only five of them are known nuclear states: the U.S., Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China……There are quite a few nations with nuclear weapons that aren’t part of the treaty. India and Pakistan are known to have nuclear weapons, each holding a few dozen. Israel steadfastly refuses to confirm or deny that they have nukes, but analysts are certain they do, and estimate they hold as many as 200 of them. North Korea, once a signatory to the treaty, withdrew from it and has conducted two nuclear tests…….
The U.S. positioned nuclear weapons in countries like Turkey, Belgium and Canada, claiming this circumvented treaty restrictions because the weapons remained under U.S. control. Former Soviet republics Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union collapsed (5,000 of them, in Ukraine’s case)…….The Doomsday clock is still ticking.

Where are all the nuclear weapons located in the world?

August 13, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear weapons