According to the declassified information, the U.S. had 3,748 nukes in the stockpile as of September 2023.
It also said that it had dismantled 69 of the world-ending weapons.
Nuclear tensions are on the rise across the world.
A nuclear disarmament protest in Berlin in 2021.© JOHN MACDOUGALL / Contributor
In 1985 there were 61,662 nuclear weapons in the world.
Most of them belonged to the U.S. and Russia.
A complex series of treaties between Russia and the U.S. facilitated the drawdown.
Both sides dismantled thousands of weapons.
For a while, the U.S. was breaking apart Russian missiles and using the uranium inside tofuel power plants.
Those sustained efforts have brought the global stockpile down to around 12,121.
But the old treaties are failing.
Russiapulled outof the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 2023.
Americas stockpile has remained steady over the last few years.
It said the same thing in February of 2024.
But something shifted and the numbers finally came loose.
From 1994 to 2023, the U.S. said it had dismantled a total of 12,088 warheads.
But that number gets smaller as the years go on.
The U.S. busted up 648 nukes in 2008, 239 in 2013, and 184 in 2020.
69 is a nice little number of dismantled nukes.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
Trump Says He Wants to Get Rid of Nukes.
