Quote:
Originally Posted by ClockWorkAngel
I would definitely advocate for not getting rid of nukes, nukes are basically a failsafe. If both sides have nukes, they take one another as hostages, they can't fire a nuke, it'll spell doom for them, in this way the balence of power is somewhat maintained. The big reason everyone doens't want other countries to get nukes is that the nukes cause problems. Especially in the hands of a deranged lunatic.
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The trick is to have a sufficient number but no more than that. With the new weapons, if we could get everyone down to a few hundred that would be enormous -- saving money, maintenance, potential for accidents, items vanishing, etc ...
Estimates (culled from wiki on
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists):
United States 4,075 / 5,535
Russia (former
Soviet Union) 5,200 / 8,800
United Kingdom 160
France <350
China 160-400
India 100-140
Pakistan ~60
North Korea 0-10
Israel 100-200 (based on warhead material)