Popular Mechanics:
The number of nuclear weapons worldwide dipped slightly in 2017, with the world’s nine nuclear powers collectively downsizing by 500 weapons.
The United States and Russia entered 2018 with fewer weapons, while China, India, and Pakistan gave their modest arsenals a slight boost. The world’s newest nuclear power, North Korea, is still a mystery with an unknown quantity of nuclear weapons.
The nonprofit Stockholm International Peace Research Institute tracks the arms trade, current conflicts, and the number of worldwide nuclear weapons through its annual yearbook. The 2018 yearbook, just released, has some interesting figures on the state of nukes.
The United States decreased its nuclear arsenal from 6,800 in 2017 to 6,450 in January 2018. That’s a decrease of 350 nukes, or about a warhead a day. Those numbers are deceiving, however, as the U.S. deployed only 1,700 warheads during this period (meaning the weapons that are loaded on submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and standing by at air bases). The rest of the arsenal is in reserve or awaiting destruction. Russia also declined, but not by as much, dropping from 7,000 weapons to 6,850. Russia had 1,600 deployed nukes during the same period.
