USA still has an awful lot of nuclear weapons – Enough Firepower to Kill Billions

The U.S. Military Has 3,822 Nuclear Weapons. (Enough Firepower to Kill Billions), http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-military-has-3822-nuclear-weapons-enough-firepower-25142 Michael Peck, 31 Mar 18,

In a more peaceful universe, the fact that the United States possesses almost 4,000 weapons that can destroy entire cities would be horrifying.

But in our universe, it is actually an encouraging sign of how much America’s nuclear arsenal has declined since the Cold War.

The figures show just how deep America’s nuclear arsenal has been cut since the height of the Cold War. In 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States had 25,540 nuclear weapons. That number grew to a peak of 31,255 nuclear weapons in 1967.

From 1967 on, that number gradually declines. In the 1970s, the stockpile ranged from 24,000 to 28,000 weapons. In the 1980s, it hovered around 23,000.

It wasn’t until the fall of the Soviet Union that the nuclear arsenal noticeably shrank. From 19,008 weapons in 1991, the number dropped to 13,708 in 1992 and 10,685 by 1999.

The Federation of American Scientists put the total number of U.S. nuclear weapons as of January 2017 at about 6,800, of which about 4,000 are active. The active stockpile included 1,367 deployed strategic warheads, 2,471 nondeployed warheads and around 200 deployed tactical warheads.

The Department of Energy also reported dismantling 10,972 nuclear weapons from 1994 to 2017, with the largest numbers occurring in the 1990s. From 648 weapons dismantled in 2008, the number plummeted to 109 in 2015, before rising to 354 in 2017.

As a footnote, there are an estimated 14,200 nuclear weapons in the world, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Russia has the largest number at 6,600 active and retired warheads, just slightly larger than the American total. The rest of the world (France, China, Britain, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea) have a little over a thousand.

As Winston Churchill said, “If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

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For First Time, Majority in U.S. Oppose Nuclear Energy, Gallup, BY REBECCA RIFFKIN , March 18, 2016,

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

54% of Americans oppose nuclear energy, 44% in favor
First time in Gallup’s trend that majority oppose nuclear energy
Both major parties less likely to favor nuclear energy than in 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the first time since Gallup first asked the question in 1994, a majority of Americans say they oppose nuclear energy. The 54% opposing it is up significantly from 43% a year ago, while the 44% who favor using nuclear energy is down from 51%.

Gallup asks Americans as part of its annual Environment poll if they favor or oppose the use of nuclear energy as one way to provide electricity. Each year from 2004 to 2015, a majority of Americans said they favored the use of nuclear energy, including a high of 62% in 2010.

In 2011, Gallup conducted its annual Environment poll a few days before the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan, and at that time, 57% of Americans were in favor of nuclear energy. The next time the question was asked in 2012, a similar majority still favored the use of nuclear energy.

And although there have not been any major nuclear incidents since Fukushima in 2011, a majority of U.S. adults now oppose nuclear energy. This suggests that energy prices and the perceived abundance of energy sources are the most relevant factors in attitudes toward nuclear power, rather than safety concerns prompted by nuclear incidents.

Lower gasoline prices over the past year are likely driving greater opposition toward the use of nuclear power. As Americans have paid less at the pump, their level of worry about the nation’s energy situation has dropped to 15-year-low levels. This appears to have resulted in more Americans prioritizing environmental protection and fewer backing nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

Democrats and Republicans Less Likely to Favor Nuclear Energy

Republicans continue to be more likely than Democrats and independents to be in favor of nuclear energy. Still, support for the use of nuclear energy among Republicans and Democrats has declined in comparison to 2015. A slight majority of Republicans, 53%, are in favor of nuclear energy, down significantly from 68% last year. One in three Democrats, 34%, favor it, down from 42% in 2015. Independents’ support is essentially unchanged from last year, but is down from the high Gallup found in 2010……..

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted March 2-6, 2016, with a random sample of 1,019 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. https://news.gallup.com/poll/190064/first-time-majority-oppose-nuclear-energy.aspx

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