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, or North Korea)—possessed approximately 4120 operationally deployed nuclear weapons. If all nuclear weapons are counted, these states together possessed a total of approximately 15 395 nuclear weapons, 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.

This Fact Sheet estimates the nuclear weapon inventory of the nine nuclear-weapon possessing states and highlights some key aspects of the states’ recent nuclear-force developments.