Conflict · Deep dive

The arsenals
we forgot

4 min read · Data: FAS Nuclear Notebook, via Our World in Data

At the peak of the Cold War, humanity had built more than 60,000 nuclear warheads — enough to end modern civilisation many times over.

Operation Crossroads Baker nuclear test, Bikini Atoll, 1946
Baker, 1946. The Operation Crossroads underwater test at Bikini Atoll — one of the first images to make the scale of the weapon visible. U.S. Department of Defense, public domain (Wikimedia Commons).

Two countries account for the overwhelming majority: Russia, with roughly 4,400 warheads, and the United States, with around 3,700. Everyone else — China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — together holds a small fraction of the total.

Warheads by country, 1945 to today. Note the build-up, the post-1986 collapse — and the newer arrivals.
The global stockpile today is roughly a fifth of its Cold War peak — but the club has quietly grown.

The good news hides in the shape of the curve: after 1986, arms-control treaties cut the superpower stockpiles dramatically, and the world total fell from tens of thousands to around twelve thousand. The quieter news is horizontal spread — the number of states that hold the weapon has kept rising.

Nuclear-armed states
The nine. States known to hold nuclear weapons, shaded by arsenal size. Base map: Natural Earth (public domain).

Fewer weapons, held by more hands: the Cold War arithmetic got smaller, but not necessarily simpler.

Source: Federation of American Scientists (Nuclear Notebook), via Our World in Data. Test your intuition

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