Sane normal people love our planet. They love to live, enjoy their life, work, relax and we could go much longer about that. Due to others we all also live in permanent danger. Nuclear weapons were invented some time ago – they are massively effective, they have permanent destructive power versus humans, animals, plants and the Earth itself and we have officially no defensive mechanism. Should there ever be a war or other reasons to use them most effectively in their large number, they may destroy our entire planet.
We think that one of the most beautiful project that someone may develop and advance would be to end existence of all nuclear weapons and prevent their subsequent rebuilding. Nations can still consider other nations to be their enemies, some insane people may still live for reasons to destroy instead of to create. Nuclear weapons though are special in that when someone uses them, it will destruct not only what they want, but much more. It is also probable that explosion of such weapon creates uninhabitable area that’s affected by radiation for many years.
What Are They Good For?
The nuclear weapons are incredibly powerful massively destructive tool. That features helps their owners for their own feeling of power although their feeling is simply shortsighted. As soon as you go through the nuclear weapons negatives, you will find yourself to be someone who wants no part in them.
It does not just destroy certain very large area and its people. It keeps it uninhabitable for very long period of time, many years. Humans need to avoid it, animals, even plants change and those we eat should not be touched.
The main advantage is brutally offensive with no view into the future. Attackers won’t only destroy the land and people, but that land will have to remain empty for many years. Otherwise people there will die from illnesses caused by impact of nuclear blast. Land becomes radiated, “poisonous”, breathing should not be done with air in or from that area.
Nuclear weapons can reinforce nationalism. They also make many people feel that border with other countries is not the only area they can attack or invade. If North Korea one day dislikes Australia, it will not matter to them that Australia is in a distance when they could use some tough nukes and send a few powerful messages.
It’s a bargaining chip good for negotiations. Your country may be the weakest pawn talking to others, but when you show up for negotiations while having a few nukes in a military backyards, you will become very welcome country to talk to.
Your country may have more options to discuss problems that don’t really belong to your area. USA is very well respected to discuss issues belonging to Europe, because we have thousands nuclear warheads and even if we don’t behave well, everyone prefers to be on our good side. China, Russia, Pakistan, Israel – all nuclear weapons active military nations are almost always welcome to any international negotiations, even if they seemingly have no impact for them. But nobody wants to be angry with these countries, at least not too much.
Having nuclear weapons can also lower the threat that the country will be attacked. One always have to consider the risk of being attacked right back and with so powerful weapons.
Launch locations with nuclear weapons are flexible. Traditional war forces you to send your troops to a specific location, where you start fighting the troops of the enemy. Nuclear weapon can travel thousands of miles and can be launched from moving submarine that can secretly position itself closer to the place of attack.
What Goes Against Them?
Basics are the most obvious no-nos. They kill people, animals, destroy buildings, human area and construction, nature from farmland, forests, jungles, rivers, lakes and everything else. And they leave attacked area uninhabitable for human life. A certain specific number of nuclear weapons could technically clean up all life on this planet. And we now have about 12,000 warheads, so either we are already there or we are close to that number.
Many weapons of that kind can be used after your area has already been attacked. You may have many casualties, many people died, but we may have a software that can still respond to such attack, even if we cannot supervise it. We are dead, but weapons can still fight for us. Software can also have pre-built delaying to true surprise the enemy country and attack them later after some time have passed.
All benefits are very bad features. They can be described as advanced and smart, but the end of all of these features is to kill and destroy. No plus, all just a bunch of minus.
Detonations are very closely connected to cancer development. Yes, it’s destructive, it’s killing, but it’s also very unhealthy. That almost sounds silly to say, but it is unhealthy also when it has not yet been exploded. Radiation works even when it’s just sitting around, your only help is the sufficient distance. If you keep a few pounds of uranium or platinum in your living room, your body will not like it even if you won’t warn it.
They devastate our environment. As careful as we may be now, and educated, these weapons still produce nothing and destroy most everything within their proximity.
Having nuclear weapons in your country’s military also supports very high threat of terrorism. When your country has nuclear weapons, then terrorism also steps a bit higher than before. Not because they worry about being attacked by nuclears, but because they perceive the country to be stronger and more defensive than before and that needs more significant weapons.
Hazardous waste created during development of such weapons seems like a small problem easily solved, but the opposite is the truth. Waste is created and it’s more deadly than what we can imagine. And it will last forever. Touch that piece of land where some waste has been deposited in 20 years and it will very deeply hurt your health.
Keeping so many and so complex weapons for some time may also cause them to fail when we intend them not to fail. It’s also serious especially if your country happens to be small in size and military equipment. When you try to reply and attack some country but all you have is one or two bombs, it will disappoint you when they fail. But if they were sitting in some silo for 30 years, they are not brand new and it can happen.
Nuclear weapons are made from non-renewable resources. So when we build them we create very concentrated bad environment areas near thei production and development and then storage. Of course there were people who describe this as an advantage of nukes, because we grab and connect very dangerous stuff and move it somewhere safe, but you think about it and explain me why that makes sense.
What Is The Cost?
Direct costs to nuclear programs are very large numbers. USA is the second country in the world in number of such weapons and nobody that we know is using them, we just work with them, train and keep them ready.
In average the USA spends about $35 to $40 billion per year for the nuclear program. Lot of money for any country and the only number we were able to publicly get. Who knows if it’s accurate or not.
Cost will vary from country to country and is mostly very tightly controlled and secret. When more numbers become available, we will try to publish them here.
To be continued …
Countries With Nuclear Warheads
Estimated Numbers In April 2023
Numbers are estimated, these are very protected data by every country. Some others are suspected to have such weapons, some countries have weapons located in other countries, so it gets even more complex. We will attempt to update this whenever it’s possible.
Includes Also Reserves and Non-Deployed Warheads.
| Country | Count |
| Russia | 5889 |
| USA | 5244 |
| China | 410 |
| France | 290 |
| UK | 225 |
| Pakistan | 170 |
| India | 164 |
| Israel | 90 |
| North Korea | 30 |
| South Africa | ??? |
| Turkey (USA weapons) | 50 |
| Italy (USA weapons) | 40 |
| Germany (USA weapons) | 20 |
| Belgium (USA weapons) | 20 |
| Netherlands (USA weapons) | 20 |
| Belarus | ??? |
| Kazakhstan | ??? |
| Ukraine | ??? |
| Canada (until 1984) | ??? |
| Greece (until 1984) | ??? |
| Total | 12662 |
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