Russian President Vladimir Putin raised eyebrows — and possibly the stakes of his war in Ukraine — on Sunday when he ordered his nuclear weapons to be put on heightened alert.
The White House projected confidence on Monday, with President Biden telling Americans not to worry that the order would increase the chances of nuclear war.
Whether Putin is posturing or not, the former Cold War-era KGB agent commands the world’s largest compliment of nuclear warheads.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think tank that tracks the global nuclear arsenal, Russia possessed 6,255 nuclear warheads as of January 2021, its most recent available data.
That eclipses the US nuclear quiver, which has 5,550.
An intercontinental ballistic missile being fired from Russia. According to the most recent data, Russia has 6,255 nuclear warheads. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP
Russian military officials inspecting a silo of a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile in 2001. ASSOCIATED PRESSAmerica has more nukes ready to go at the push of a button, however, with 1,800 of those warheads mounted atop a missile or within ready access of a nuclear-capable bomber crew.
Russia only has 1,625 nuclear weapons in so-called “deployed” status.
Of course, It’s unlikely there’d be time — or need and ability — to reload after the first salvo of a global thermonuclear war.
A French nuclear-armed submarine in Cherbourg on March 21, 2008. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Military vehicles carrying hypersonic missiles at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, on October 1, 2019. REUTERSThe US and Russia are the only nations with four-figure nuclear arsenals:
- China: 350 warheads, all held in reserve.
- France: 280 deployed warheads, 10 more in reserve.
- United Kingdom: 225, but expected to grow after raising its self-imposed limit to 260 warheads.
- Pakistan: 165 warheads
- India: 156 warheads
- Israel: Believed by most to have 90 nuclear warheads, but Israel has long been coy about even the existence of its nuclear program
- North Korea: The dictatorship’s renegade nuclear program is also shrouded in mystery — estimates range from 20 to 50 functioning nukes
A serviceman closing a gate at a launch control facility in Minot, North Dakota, where nuclear missiles are stored. AP Photo/Charlie RiedelThe size and destructive capabilities of nuclear warheads vary based on their construction and design. By current standards, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World War II — the only nuclear weapons to date to be fired in war — are considered “low-yield.”
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima is estimated to have killed 140,000 people, while the Nagasaki bombing killed some 74,000.
The average modern thermonuclear warhead in the Russian or American arsenal can be hundreds of times more destructive.
