WikipediaExtracts:List of states with nuclear weapons
Extracted from Wikipedia --
Eight sovereign states have publicly announced successful detonation of nuclear weapons. Five are considered to be nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In order of acquisition of nuclear weapons, these are the United States, Russia (the successor of the former Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, France, and China. Of these, the three NATO members, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France, are sometimes termed the P3.
Other states that possess nuclear weapons are India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Since the NPT entered into force in 1970, these three states were not parties to the Treaty and have conducted overt nuclear tests. North Korea had been a party to the NPT but withdrew in 2003.
Israel is also generally understood to have nuclear weapons, but does not acknowledge it, maintaining a policy of deliberate ambiguity. Israel is estimated to possess somewhere between 75 and 400 nuclear warheads. One possible motivation for nuclear ambiguity is deterrence with minimum political friction.
States that formerly possessed nuclear weapons are South Africa (developed nuclear weapons but then disassembled its arsenal before joining the NPT) and the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, whose weapons were transferred to Russia.
According to the Federation of American Scientists there are approximately 3,880 active nuclear warheads and 12,119 total nuclear warheads in the world as of 2024. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated in 2023 that the total number of nuclear warheads acquired by nuclear states reached 12,512. Approximately 9,576 are kept with military stockpiles. About 3,844 warheads are deployed with missiles. 2000 warheads, which are primarily from Russia and the United States, are maintained for high operational alerts.
