Nuclear Warheads Per Country
Given current events and global risks, one might wonder about nuclear weapons/warheads per country… Who has them, and how many? Well, approximately 87% of all nuclear warheads are in the hands of the United States and Russia.
Data sourced from the Arms Control Association and the Federation of American Scientists.
As of 2025, there were approximately 12.331 nuclear warheads in the world. This includes stockpiled, retired, reserved, and deployed nuclear warheads.
Deployed warheads include those on ballistic missiles, at bomber bases, and, in the case of the U.S., non-strategic bombs in Europe.
Number Of Nuclear Weapons By Country
“The exact number of nuclear weapons in each country’s possession is a closely held national secret, so the estimates presented here come with significant uncertainty. Most nuclear-armed states provide essentially no information about the sizes of their nuclear stockpiles. Yet the degree of secrecy varies considerably from country to country.” Quote from the FAS
The “New START Treaty” (in force until February 4, 2026)
The treaty limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads for each party to 1,550. The total number of deployed warheads could exceed the 1,550 limit by a few hundred because only one warhead is counted per bomber, regardless of how many it carries. The treaty also limits the number of deployed and non-deployed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers, submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments to 800. The number of deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments is limited to 700.
Russia (5,449) 1,710 deployed warheads
United States (5,277) 1,670 deployed warheads
France (290) 280 deployed warheads
UK (225) 120 deployed warheads
China (600) 24 deployed warheads
India (180) 0 deployed warheads
Pakistan (170) 0 deployed warheads
Israel (90) 0 deployed warheads
North Korea (50) 0 deployed warheads
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Countries That Had Nuclear Weapons or Nuclear Weapons Programs at One Time:
- Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons following the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, but returned them to Russia.
- South Africa secretly developed but subsequently dismantled its small number of nuclear warheads.
- Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The U.S.-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent capture of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein definitively ended his regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
- Libya voluntarily renounced its secret nuclear weapons efforts in December 2003.
- Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan also shelved nuclear weapons programs.
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)
How many nuclear warheads does it take to destroy the world?
The exact number of warheads required to cause a global catastrophe is difficult to specify due to various factors such as the location of detonations and the resilience of different ecosystems. However, even a small fraction of the existing nuclear arsenal could have catastrophic global consequences.
In my opinion, just one nuclear warhead detonation would risk global economic systems, given the ensuing panic, leading to supply chain disruptions around the world. And if it escalated, well, all bets are off… Lights out.
One wonders if nuclear-armed nation leaders and their heads of military have an adequate notion of mutually assured destruction…
[ Read: United States Nuclear Targets Map ]