New Delhi:
Pakistan has 10 more nuclear weapons in its arsenal than India with both the countries doubling their stockpiles since 2007, according to Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ data.
The Nuclear Notebook Interactive Infographic provides a visual representation of the Bulletin’s famed Nuclear Notebook, which since 1987 has tracked the number and type of the world’s nuclear arsenals.
According to the infographic, neither of the countries possessed any nuclear warhead until 1997.
In 1998, when both the Asian countries conducted nuclear tests, India had three atomic weapons while Pakistan had only one. By 1999, they increased their respective tallies to 8.
Pakistan surged ahead of India by having 14 weapons as compared to the neighbour’s 13 in 2000. The figure increased gradually with India trying to match up with it.
In 2007, India had 50 nukes while Pakistan had 60. Both the countries have doubled up their stockpile since then, increasing it by 10 weapons every year.
In 2013, India had 110 nuclear weapons while Pakistan had 120.
According to the bulletin, China has been increasing its stockpile but at a slow pace. Until 2013, it had over 250 weapons.
However, the United States still has the largest nuclear stockpile (4,804), followed by Russia (4,480) and France (300). The global nuclear stockpile in 2013 was over 10,144.
United Kingdom has 225 while Israel has around 80 nukes.
The global nuclear stockpile was the highest in 1980s, which was also the period of Cold War when the two blocs -headed by the US and USSR - were competing with each other for supremacy.
There were around 55,255 nuclear heads at that time with USSR and US alone possessing around 30,000 and 24,000 weapons respectively. The figure rose significantly in 1986 and the global figure reached to over 64,000 warheads.
The figure, however dropped significantly by the end of the Cold War.
(Image source: Nuclear Notebook website)
