I hate to be a pessimist but there are currently seven countries that possess nuclear weapons, and seven countries with the technology to easily construct a nuclear weapon. It is estimated that there are 27,000 warheads in the world, with the U.S. possessing roughly 10,000 warheads. Scary times to be alive...
136373
We've beaten the odds so far, but probability has way of catching up to up you. Let's look at current crisis.\n\nTargeting sites in a nuclear war with Iran, or any country in the region, would involve widespread nuclear contamination and large numbers of casualties. It would be impossible to limit this to Iran alone. And even in extreme circumstances, the only clear requirement for high-yield strategic nuclear weapons would be on some selected command and control facilities; their use would have to be restricted to a small number of targets because of fallout considerations.\n\nIf Iran did acquire atomic bombs, it would put pressure on other countries in the region to do the same. Many Arab countries believe it is unfair that Israel has nuclear weapons. If Arab countries, notably Saudi Arabia but also Egypt and possibly Syria, found themselves caught between a nuclear-armed Israel and a nuclear-armed Iran, it would greatly increase pressures to pursue their own nuclear options. \n\nThis could result in a regional arms race in the Middle East which is likely to be quite destabilizing, given the number and intensity of conflicts and instabilities in the region. \n\nBecause of Murphy's Law, the conflict could escalate into a major confrontation between US and Russia/China, especially when long range missiles are fired by the US at Iran (for instance), it could be interpreted by early warning systems in Russia and China as an attack against them. \n\nThe military people call it "accidental or false attribution". How does China know the missile is headed for Iran and not them? By the time the flight path is determined, it could be too late to form a retaliatory response, hence, it's better to "launch on warning". A global nuclear exchange could be initiated in a nuclear war in the Middle \n\nThere's been over 20 close calls during the Cold War and Post Cold eras, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the accidental training tape incident at NORAD in the late 1970's, to the more recent 1995 incident involving a Norwegian science satellie launch. The hair triggers nearly put the world into a nuclear inferno. Most people in the world did not know how close they've come for the nuclear sword of damacles to come tumbling down on the heads. \n\nEven today, we only stand 28 minutes from a nuclear at any given time. The aging Russian early warning systems and their reduced security after the break-up of the Soviet Union should be real concerns. \n\nIf anything, a nuclear war will be the result of accidental launches from a false alarm from the two 'strategic' superpowers.
145745
Threat to humanity?  Yes.  Waving around nuclear weapons and making threats can have ill effects on EVERYONE IN THE WORLD.  The world powers have a stake in the interests of the middle east. OIL.  Iran is power crazed, prideful and hateful.  They have a lot of the worlds oil and now they can make nukes.  No wonder North Korea and Iran are buddies.
567945
Untrue.  The WMDs were mostly shell warheads and could be fired at any time because the propellent charge is not a part of the warhead in larger shells.  Degraded is relative.  Instead of one shell killing 1500 people - about what happened with the Kurds - it might only kill 500.  However, the Kurds were more dispersed than NYC, for example.  These shells could kill millions of people - still, and for decades to come.   What's really scary is reports that most of the more valuable WMDs were sent to Syria and form there to the Sudan.
92966
Militarily there are three answers.\n\nThe most advanced- United States\nMost man power- China\nSleeping Dragon- Russia (The still have a large stockpile of nuclear weapons, they still are conducting research, and if they had to mobilize it would take them a while but they could do it.)\n\nThe chances of a nuclear war-  Depends on the context, global nuclear war, slim.  A theater wide nuclear exhange, i wouldn't be surprised to see one in my life time.\n\nWhere do i live- US
202630
No. Lots of countries have WMD.\nWhat are we waiting for, let's get N. Korea and Iran!!!\n\nIt actually WAS our duty to act as the police of the world but now it is not since we are not moral anymore--I.E. torture of prisoners, locking them away without trials or lawyers or telling them the charges, etc.\n\nWe no longer have the moral high ground in the world.\nWe are no better than a third world country morally now.
24588
THE U.S. has more nukes than we know what to do with.  Any idiotic country that would openly attack us  deserves to die in a nuculear holacost for their stupidity.
367943
Yes, we have nukes.  Yes, we have chemical weapons.  We also have landmines.\n\nWe call them "special weapons" or "multipliers."
61741
You can go to the CIA world factbook they will give you the list of countries.  Scroll down and bingo get the number of countries.  Hope this helps.
257538
The US has plenty, thank you for asking.  Better still, we have the capability to stick them into any room anywhere in the world.  And we have the industrial capacity to make more.\n\nYour question assumes the US will attack anyone who has WMDs.  That is misinformed.  Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel all have WMDs.  We don't attack them.  South Africa used to have WMDs.  We didn't attack them.\n\nNone of those countries have used WMDs in the last 60 years, including the US.  But Saddam did, both against the Iranians and against his own people.  It was his own stupidity that got him attacked.  All he had to do was let the UN verify that he had no WMDs and dismantle the production factories and he would still be in power.\n\nNone of those countries have announced that it is their official policy to destroy another country, as Iran has done about Israel.  Iran does not need nuclear power to generate electricity.  It has enough natural gas to generate all the electricity it could possibly use for 500 years.  With Saddam gone, Iran is not threatened by any of its neighbors.  What possible use could Iran have for a nuclear bomb?  Oh yeah, that Israel thing.  Israel is not a threat to Iran--unless Iran tries to get a nuclear bomb.\n\nIf Iran gets close to getting a nuclear weapon, they had better hope its the US that attacks them.  We are good enough to do it while only killing several thousand people.  If Israel has to do it, Iran could lose millions.\n\nFor those idiots who think the US armed Iraq: most of the Iraqi tanks were T-72s, T-62s and T-55s, the rest of their tanks were Type 59 and Type 69, the airplanes were MiGs, the SAMs were SA-7s and SA-9s, the rifles were Kalashnikovs.  In case you don't know, all of that is Russian, except the Type 59 and 69 tanks, which are Chinese.  Their artillery was a mixture of Russian and Canadian/US design.\n\nWhen the US military destroyed the Iraqi army, we destroyed Russian and Chinese tanks, not US tanks.  When we bombed Iraqi missle sites, we bombed Russian missiles, not US missles.  When we shot down their jets, we shot down Russian airplanes, not US planes.  When we picked up the rifles their soldiers dropped, we picked up Russian and Chinese rifles, not US ones.  How devoid of reason do you have to be to fail to see who armed Iraq?
598170
Not every state is backwards and forces their citizens to register their firearms like New York does.  How it compares with other countries is really hard to tell because I've heard stories about people in England loosing firearms before they were banned there.  There are places that the USSR sold weapons to during the cold war (and we did to).  While there is official numbers no one really knows how many firearms there are, the same as not everyone knows how many knives there are.
30975
yes, they are developing "bunker buster" cruise missles that "dig" underground and explode. They also make "tactical nukes" which are essentially low yeild nukes fired from a cannon. and there is of course the uranium shells used by U.S. tanks in Iraq. They use uranium to harden the steel of the shells to better pierce armor, although these are not specifically "nukes" they have a lot of the nasty side effects like cancer causing radiation. I don't know if the U.S. still makes ICBM's, but I'm pretty sure they do. I know the most recent ICBM's are multiple warheads essentially 7 nukes in one, each with a blast zone exponentially larger than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
147247
NO CONDITION.\n\nI happen to live in Latin America, and I have studied American history for years and I wouldnt like the U.S. creating another Hiroshima, or another Nagasaki. Truth is that the U.S. thinks retaliation is all about extermination.\n\nIt's ignorance really.\nThe Cold War and the arms race would not have happened if the idea of nuclear bombs had not been introduced. The truth is that people are getting way too plain crazy nowadays and talking about all-out nuclear war as if it were nothing; as if it wasnt human lives that you were talking about.\n\nThere are so many people dying every single day of poverty, AIDS, and hunger, to name some. We dont need people dying because of some WMD hitting some less developed country. \n\nViolence will never be the answer, in my opinion. It's not the answer to terrorism, it's not the answer to anything. It's an oversimplified response people like to throw out in the air because it seems easier.\n\nIf you start using WMD's, where will it all stop? Where? \n\nYou cant wash away blood with some more blood.
414791
More of a threat to the world than at any other time. It is not just a few small bands of nutjobs, but there are state sponsors, like Iran and Syria. Then there are the proliferators of WMD and delivery technology, like the North Koreans with their missiles, like the Pakistani nuclear scientist, like the Iranians will be. The ties between these states and terrorists - like Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah - means that eventually, they will get WMD.\n\nAnd all it takes is one incident, and the genie is out of the bottle.\n\nAnd retreating from Iraq is going to make that threat even worse.
634297
In reference to another post there is no working star wars program in place, we are just as vulnerable to a missile attack today as we were fifty years ago, now the likelihood of a large scale nuclear attack is much much lower without the soviets runnin around, though it is always possible that by some computer error that a launch will take place from either us or the russian silos, afterwards if we don't convince each other that it was a mistake it would probably lead to a full scale nuclear exchange, now that covers the U.S. and Russia, but don't forget the other nuclear nations out there such as Pakistan and India which are pretty much where the U.S. and Soviets were twenty years ago, so on that side of the planet I would say within the next two years that there is a 20% possibility of a nuclear exchange barring any massive change in policy or major event such as some sort of military incident betweent those two countries. It is possible that there could be a nuclear device smuggled and detonated in the U.S. by some terrorist organisation but that would not lead to a nuclear war, unless the perpetrators of such an attack posessed a nuclear arsenal. Let me just say that with today's great technology a nuclear device does not have to be any bigger than a briefcase and with lax border control and nearly unlimited funding for terrorist organisations in addition to lack of intelligence on nuclear material around the world it is very possible that some terrorist organisation may suceed in detonating a device on American soil. Let's all hope that never happens
345454
I think it very likely that some people will survive.  We have a great track record of tolerating and adapting to some pretty extreme conditions.  I expect there are some secret hideaways that would even allow a few folks to survive a "nuclear winter" scenario, and start repopulating without the technology.  Obviously, any less serious scenario will allow even more flexibility for means of survival.  Right now, today, I do not believe there is a practical possibility of more than two nuclear devices being detonated -- those few who might be otherworldly enough to use them do not, praise Allah and thank God, have the means to use more.  The tragic military, political, economic, and environmental consequences would immediately and eventually kill tens of millions of people, perhaps hundreds of millions, and alter the conditions of life for the billions remaining..  but "billions remaining" is a great lot of survivors to be tolerating and adapting to conditions.  We'll manage.
592517
koreans  aren't a threat, what is a few nukes compared to the 12 000 the US already own? is there any greater threat to the world than The US Star Wars project? I don't think so.\n\nis there a greater threats than a country that already use nuke on another or have an history of violence and coersion on poor people?
96335
Most countries i believe have the technology. Its actually about producing it. I believe our government and the UN have treaties about the amount of nuclear power to have for each countries.