On May 3rd, the Obama administration formally disclosed the size of the Defense Department’s stockpile of nuclear weapons: 5,113 warheads as of September 30, 2009.
For a national secret, estimates by FAS analysts were only off by 13 warheads.
By the end of May, the new British government disclosed its total military stockpile of nuclear weapons. Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons that “the total number of warheads” will not exceed 225. Of those, “up to 160” are operationally available for deployment.
These disclosures are a monumental step toward greater nuclear transparency that breaks with outdated Cold War nuclear secrecy and will put pressure on other nuclear weapon states to reciprocate. FAS
Read more about the size of the nuclear weapons stockpiles:
United States
United Kingdom
