Nuclear security

Trends in World Nuclear Forces, 2016

As of January 2016, nine states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea)—possessed approximately 4120 operationally deployed nuclear weapons (see table 1). If all nuclear weapons are counted, these states together possessed a total of approximately 15 395 nuclear weapons (see figure 1), compared to approximately 15 850 in 2015. While the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world continues to decline, none of the nuclear weapon-possessing states are prepared to give up their nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future.