Historical nuclear weapons stockpiles and nuclear tests by country

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_stockpiles_and_nuclear_tests_by_country 

This article shows various estimates of the nuclear weapons stockpiles of various countries at various points in time. This article also shows the number of nuclear weapons tests conducted by each country at various points in time.Nuclear weapons stockpiles[edit]

Graph of nuclear testing

The United States nuclear stockpile increased almost exponentially between 1945 and 1965, but then began declining after peaking in 1966.^[1] In 2012, the United States had several times fewer nuclear weapons than it had in 1966.^[2] The Soviet Union joined the nuclear club in 1949 and had its nuclear stockpile increase very rapidly until 1986, when it peaked under Mikhail Gorbachev.^[1]After the decrease of Cold War tensions and eventually the end of the Cold War, the Soviet and Russian nuclear stockpile decreased by over 80% between 1986 and 2012.^[2] The U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles are projected to continue decreasing over the next decade.^[3]The United Kingdom joined the nuclear club in 1952 while France joined it in 1960. The British and French nuclear stockpiles peaked at about 500 nuclear weapons in 1981 and 1992, respectively.^[1]

U.S. and USSR/Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles/inventories, 1945–2006. The failing Soviet economy and the dissolution of the country between 1989-91 which marks the end of theCold War and with it the relaxation of the arms race, brought about a large decrease in both nations stockpiles. The effects of the Megatons to Megawatts can also be seen in the mid 1990s, continuing Russia's reducing trend. A similar chart focusing solely on quantity of warheads in the multi-megaton range is also available.^[4]Moreover total deployed US & "Russian" strategic weapons increased steadily from the 1980s until the Cold War ended.^[5]

China joined the nuclear club in 1964 while its nuclear stockpile increased until the early 1980s, when it stabilized.^[1] India joined the nuclear club in 1974, while Pakistan joined the nuclear club in the 1980s.^[1][6] Both India and Pakistan currently have around one hundred nuclear weapons.^[2] Pakistan's nuclear stockpile has been increasing at a very fast rate, and it is speculated that Pakistan might have more nuclear weapons than the United Kingdom within a decade.^[7] South Africa successfully built six nuclear weapons in the 1980s, but dismantled all of them by the end of the 1990s after the end of apartheid.^[8] North Korea joined the nuclear club in 2006 or before.^[9][1] Without negotiations and "other proper measures", North Korea could increase its current nuclear weapons stockpile by several times by 2016.^[10] A United States Defense Intelligence Agency report from 1999 projected that both Iran and Iraq will join the nuclear club and have 10-20 nuclear weapons in 2020.^[11] However, it is worth pointing out that this report was written before the overthrow of Iraqi dictatorSaddam Hussein and before info indicating that Iraq already gave up its nuclear weapons program by 1999 was released.^[11]

Over 2,000 nuclear explosions have been conducted, in over a dozen different sites around the world. Red Russia/Soviet Union, blue France, light blue United States, violet Britain, black Israel, orange China, yellow India, brown Pakistan, green North Korea and light green (territories exposed to nuclear bombs)

Global Nuclear Weapons Stockpiles (1945-2025)^[1]

Country	1945	1950	1955	1960	1965	1970	1975	1980	1985	1990	1995	2000	2005	2013[2]	Future projections
United States of America	2	299	2,422	18,638	31,139	26,008	27,519	24,104	23,368	21,392	10,904	10,577	8,360	7,700	3,620 (for 2022)[3]
Russia/The Soviet Union	0	5	200	1,605	6,129	11,643	19,055	30,062	39,197	37,000	27,000	21,500	17,000	8,500	3,350 (for 2022)[3]
United Kingdom	0	0	14	42	436	394	492	492	422	422	422	281	281	225	180 (for around 2025)[12]
France	0	0	0	0	32	36	188	250	360	505	500	470	350	300
China	0	0	0	0	5	75	180	205	243	232	234	232	235	250	150-220 (for 2020)[11]
Israel	0	0	0	0	0	8	20	31	42	53	63	72	80	80	65-85 (for 2020)[11]
India	0	0	0	0	0	0	0[9]	1[9]	3[9]	7[9]	14[9]	28[9]	44	90-110	50-70 (for 2020)[11]
South Africa	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0[9]	3[9]	6[9]	0[9]	0	0	0	0[11]
Pakistan	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0[9]	4[9]	13[9]	28[9]	38	100-120	150-200 (for 2021)[13]
North Korea	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0[9]	0[14]-1[9]	0[14]-2[9]	0[14]-2[9]	8[9]	6-8	28-48 (for 2016)[10]
Iran	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	10-20 (for 2020)[11]

Even before the United States of America started the nuclear club in 1945, some countries (most notably Nazi Germany) unsuccessfully attempted to build nuclear weapons.^[15]

Nuclear weapon tests[edit]

Number of Nuclear Weapons Tests by Country (1945-2013)^[16]

Country	1945-49	1950-54	1955-59	1960-64	1965-69	1970-74	1975-79	1980-84	1985-89	1990-94	1995-99	2000-04	2005-09	2010-14	Cumulative total
All countries	9	63	228	362	344	277	273	265	174	43	14	0	2	1	2,055
United States of America	8	43	145	198	230	136	96	84	71	21	0	0	0	0	1,032
Russia/The Soviet Union	1	17	65	147	85	101	126	116	56	1	0	0	0	0	715
United Kingdom	0	3	18	4	1	1	4	8	4	2	0	0	0	0	45
France	0	0	0	12	19	32	37	51	41	12	6	0	0	0	210
China	0	0	0	1	9	6	10	6	2	7	4	0	0	0	45
Israel	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
India	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	5	0	0	0	6
South Africa	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Pakistan	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6	0	0	0	6
North Korea	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	1[17]	3

From the first nuclear test in 1945, worldwide nuclear testing increased rapidly until the 1970s, when it peaked.^[16] However, there was still a large amount of worldwide nuclear testing until the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.^[16] Afterwards, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed and ratified by the major nuclear weapons powers, and the number of worldwide nuclear tests decreased rapidly.^[16] India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, but afterwards only North Korea conducted nuclear tests—in 2006, 2009, and 2013.^[18][16]

Atomic road trip

Here's a review of the book A Nuclear Family Vacation: Travels in the World of Atomic Weaponry by Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger from the Chicago Tribune.

Atomic road trip

Traveling the world in search of answers about the policies and purposes surrounding nuclear weapons

By Eric Arnesen
July 12, 2008

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War between the U.S. and its powerful communist opponent came to a quiet end. For almost half a century, the two superpowers had aimed ever-expanding numbers of increasingly powerful thermonuclear weapons at one another, fully knowledgeable that any attack by one side against the other would be met by a return rain of destruction that would likely lead to Armageddon.

The deep ideological and military conflict between the Soviets and the Americans did not result in a nuclear exchange; doomsday, happily, never arrived. But what happens "when a war ends," ask defense journalists Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger, and "the warriors don't go home?"

Arms-reduction treaties have dramatically reduced the number of nuclear weapons, and the U.S. last tested a nuclear weapon in 1992. Yet the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, Russia continue to spend vast sums on research, development and maintenance of their shrinking nuclear arsenals. In the meantime, a small but growing number of other nations have joined, or are seeking to join, the nuclear club. The specter of nuclear detonation continues to haunt our imagination.

In "A Nuclear Family Vacation," the husband-and-wife team of Hodge and Weinberger set off to explore "the powerful role nuclear weaponry still plays in today's world" by embarking on a cross-country—and eventually overseas—adventure into the world of what they call nuclear tourism. Over two years they traveled to Alamogordo, N.M., site of the world's first nuclear detonation, and to various museums devoted to the history of nuclear weapons, former missile silos and test sites, current research installations and other military headquarters. Their later travels took them to the Marshall Islands, Russia, the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan and Iran.

The phenomenon of nuclear tourism, they tell us, "is experiencing something of a renaissance," attracting to decommissioned bunkers, museums and the like unspecified but significant numbers of people drawn by "a mix of cold War nostalgia and morbid curiosity." Albuquerque boasts a National Atomic Museum with interactive exhibits for children, Albert Einstein action figures and Little Boy shot glasses (named after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945) in its gift shop. In Las Vegas, a 3-year-old Atomic Testing Museum, partially funded by Lockheed Martin, displays Cold War paraphernalia—comic books, cereal boxes and Christmas ornaments reflecting an "atomic motif"—along with a model fallout shelter from the 1950s. North of the city, the Nevada Test Site draws busloads of retirees and thousands of others make the "pilgrimage" to the original Trinity site in New Mexico; in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the Energy Department promotes its own "nuclear heritage" with bus tours around its facility there.

While Hodge and Weinberger are hardly alone in putting Cold War destinations on their holiday itinerary, their account indirectly suggests that nuclear tourism is a niche market appealing to a limited audience. Just how many people visit these sites, their reasons for doing so, what they got out of the experience and how profitable nuclear tourism is are questions left unasked and unanswered.

The atomic vacation angle seems more a gimmick to lure in readers than the intended subject of the book. (Though, to be fair, their informal travelogue is usually engaging and often amusing). Beyond the catchy imitation-neon-sign typeface and the mushroom cloud at the end of the highway on the book's cover is a more serious work about the state of nuclear policy and the role of nuclear specialists in a post-Cold War world. Given the vast sums expended on nuclear weapons today, what do the scientists, contractors and military officials see as their purpose? What, in fact, do they actually do?

Hodge and Weinberger spend more time on the road interviewing officials at government offices, laboratories and military installations than they do checking out atomic museums. (Much of their vacation time, it seems, consisted of being subjected to countless dull PowerPoint presentations by bureaucrats justifying what they do.) The questions they pose are important, the answers they receive more than a little disturbing.

"Where was the debate over nuclear strategy?" they ask. "We had spent two years traveling the world to understand how nations view nuclear weapons. We came away less convinced than ever that there was any strategy to speak of." American nuclear programs, they conclude, constitute "a complex adrift, grasping for meaning and purpose." In the absence of meaningful political leadership, there is only "strategic ambivalence." Missing from their countless conversations was "any discussion about the purpose of the nuclear arsenal."

Hodge and Weinberger certainly found true believers as well as those who creatively seek to recast their mission for a post- 9/11 world: to meet a terrorist threat, develop anti-ballistic-missile systems, or otherwise diversify their funding streams to protect their institutional existence. The Bush administration's push for the development of a "nuclear bunker buster" may have "failed to gain much traction," and anti-ballistic-missile tests have hardly lived up to their promoters' hype. Yet the government continues to pour "hundreds of millions of dollars into an effort to revive nuclear weapons production."

What struck Hodge and Weinberger, however, was more a sense of drift and purposelessness than fervent belief. Some military brass seemed to recognize clearly that nuclear weapons "were no longer a growth business." The two journalists discovered "malaise at Los Alamos," where scientists were uninspired by serving as a mere "repair shop for nuclear weapons." Even the recruitment of "top-notch scientists . . . was becoming an uphill battle, particularly in an era when new graduates didn't see the need for nuclear weapons." As one lieutenant colonel from the Air Force Academy admitted, weapons developers are " 'a dying breed.' " Many of their interviewees had pragmatically if unenthusiastically adapted to the task of dismantling weapons or ensuring their effectiveness in the absence of actual testing (through, for instance, "stockpile stewardship" and by developing the Reliable Replacement Warhead).

The "greatest challenge—and perhaps danger—. . . is the lack of any coherent nuclear strategy for dealing" with the variety of threats we face today, they conclude. Indeed, while they express "a respect for the patriotism and dedication of those who toil in the nuclear weapons complex," they ultimately fear it is "an enterprise that had lost its way."

"A Nuclear Family Vacation" leaves the impression that America's nuclear endeavor is an idea whose time has come and gone, one with little place in a post-Cold War world whose threats—even nuclear ones—are profoundly different after 9/11. Our nuclear arsenal, they conclude, "serves many purposes, but no particular end." The weapons infrastructure "continues to exist merely because no one has come up with a compelling reason to shut it down."

Given their punch line, it is surprising that Hodge and Weinberger do not wade deeply into the substance of nuclear strategy or politics, or challenge too directly the people with whom they talked. By and large they ask questions, listen and record the responses, saving their evaluations for later. As for anti-nuclear activists—who have been around almost as long as the Bomb has—they make only cameo appearances in their pages, offering little by way of substantive criticism of policy, past or present.

Why take a nuclear family vacation, the authors rhetorically ask. To remind us "of a threat to which we've become inured." Most nuclear tourists likely have something else in mind when they pack up the kids for their outings to missile-test sites or atomic museums. Defense journalists like Hodge and Weinberger obviously have an agenda that informs their itinerary. And they succeed admirably in reminding us that nuclear weapons have "never really gone away" and in calling attention to the crucial public debates that are not taking place. The questions they pose are significant and overdue; the answers they receive unsettling. The account of their travels may not resolve difficult political and military questions, but they remind us that the purpose and future of our nuclear arsenal are too important to be left to those whose jobs remain dependent upon its perpetuation.

National Atomic Testing Museum

Originally published here: http://forums.govteen.com/anthropology-geography-diary/181409-atomic-tourism-5-print.html
National Atomic Testing Museum 

I’m going to start doing a variety of post on the atomic history here in the Las Vegas Valley. But before I start those, Las Vegas is home to the Smithsonian’s National Atomic Testing Museum.

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Smithsonian’s National Atomic Testing Museum Website

Those visiting Las Vegas in the 1950s probably saw massive mushroom clouds rise from the Nevada Test Site (NTS). NTS was the country’s nuclear testing location just 65 miles outside the city. In fact, some casinos even offered people seats so they could sit and watch. 
Operating for almost four decades, from 1951 to 1992, NTS had a total of 928 announced nuclear tests (100 atmospheric, 828 underground) and played a major part in the Cold War. The state no longer conducts these tests, but the National Atomic Testing Museum preserved all of the history, propaganda, controversy and much more.

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That's what it feels like when you step into the 10,000-square foot National Atomic Testing Museum. In late 1991, Congress chartered the museum as the country's only official atomic museum.An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum houses interactive displays, short films, timelines and real equipment from the former testing site. You can even toy with some gizmos and gadgets, including testing your own radioactivity.

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From testimonies of on-site workers to facts about the Cold War and the bombing at Hiroshima, the museum will make you feel like you've gone back in time. In addition, the wall panels and touch screens throughout the attraction provide answers to the following: Why nuclear weapons? Why was Nevada a major test site? What impact did this type of testing have in Las Vegas in the 1950s? And what role did Albert Einstein play in all of this? If the composition of nuclear bombs sounds too complex, the museum includes a Disney cartoon to help break things down.

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The world events and pop culture timeline (1940s - 1990s) along the walls is also a fun read and includes information on all of the historical atomic bombings. To get a true feel of an explosion, stick around for the 10-minute movie inside Ground Zero Theatre, designed to look like a bunker. This experience not only takes you back in time with rich history, but you'll feel bursts of air and vibrations from your seat. 
Just outside the theater, take a magnifying class and see before/after photos of mannequins exposed to the blast. And just past the underground test area exhibit, there's a button you can press to set off a bomb (don't worry -- it only sets off a scene you'll see on a movie screen). Take a moment to browse through the Today and Tomorrow Gallery, which showcases a piece of the Berlin Wall (symbolizing the end of the Cold War) and World Trade Center artifacts. 

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If you're a fan of "X-Files," "Roswell" or anything out of this world, a visit to the Atomic Testing Museum's Area 51 display hits the spot. Read news articles on the first reported UFO sightings, biographies on investigative journalists and information on high-tech test planes. See what you look like in the mirror (from the perspective of an alien) and try on a pair of goggles to have alien eye vision. You'll also see an A-12 pressure suit up close.

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