(Washington Insider Magazine) -The United States and Russia, the two largest nuclear powers in the world, have threatened to produce more weapons. This is how many nuclear weapons each country has.
How Many Does Russia and the US Have?
Each nation will be able to increase the number of nuclear weapons if the two countries that now hold the leadership positions in the world’s nuclear club follow through with their threat to withdraw from an arms control pact.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if the United States withdraws from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Pact, or INF treaty, he will create nuclear missiles that can be fired from the ground.
The agreement, signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987, placed restrictions on the production of missiles with a nuclear warhead at intermediate ranges. As part of the deal, each nation was required to destroy over 2,500 missiles, ranging between 310 and 3,420 miles. Because of the weapons limitation, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles were prevented from entering European territory for thirty years.
Russia and the United States have a combined total of around 13,350 nuclear weapons, the lion’s share of the 14,500 nuclear weapons currently in existence. The remaining 1,150 firearms are now in the custody of seven different nations.
Who controls the greatest number of nuclear weapons?
There are a variety of conflicting reports on the nuclear arsenals of various countries; nevertheless, the general view is that Russia has the greatest number of nuclear weapons, followed by the United States.
Business Insider’s publication reports that Russia has a nuclear arsenal containing 6,850 nuclear warheads (1,600 deployed, 2,750 stored, and 2,500 retired). On the other hand, the United States has 6,450 nuclear weapons in its arsenal (1,750 deployed, 2,050 stored, and 2,650 retired).
According to Statista, the United States had 5,428 nuclear weapons as of January 2022, while Russia’s arsenal included 5,997 nuclear warheads. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates that Russia’s nuclear arsenal has a stockpile of around 4,477 warheads. In contrast, the United States has around 3,708 warheads.
Russia and the United States have more nuclear weapons than the rest combined, accounting for 90 per cent of the world’s total arsenal. This is true despite conflicting claims on stocks. According to Statista, China has 350 nuclear weapons, making it the nation with the third-most nuclear weapons overall. According to Business Insider, China has 280.
Could Russian Missiles Reach the US?
The Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that land-based missiles from Russia could reach the United States in as little as 30 minutes, while submarine-based missiles from Russia could launch an attack 10 or 15 minutes after being launched.
Both the United States and Russia have their missiles on what is known as a “hair-trigger alert,” which means that they are ready to be launched within a matter of minutes of a decision being made to do so. This is the case because both countries are concerned about the possibility of an attack from the other.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, during the Cold War, weapons were put on “hair-trigger” alert because Soviet and American military strategists feared first-strike attacks of up to thousands of missiles that could be used to destroy bombers and land-based missiles in enemy territory. These attacks could have been prevented if the missiles had been placed on a “hair-trigger” alert. The period that this information comes from is the height of the Cold War.
There are now agreements between the United States and Russia that improve the level of protection afforded to the United States against the nuclear weapons maintained by Russia. This protection is afforded to the United States by the nuclear weapons maintained by Russia. The United States and Russia have both agreed, as part of the treaty between the two countries known as the Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, more commonly referred to as the New START Treaty, to adhere to certain restrictions regarding the number of nuclear weapons that they have in their possession.
Read More: Russian Long-Range Missiles: Is Moscow Running Out Of Missiles?
Conclusion
The United States and Russia have significantly decreased their nuclear arsenals and stockpiles since the end of the Cold War. According to Homeland Security Newswire, in 1967, the United States possessed 31,225 nuclear weapons. Around “35,000 nuclear weapons remained at thousands of installations across a large Eurasian expanse that spanned eleven time zones” when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
