Who owns the most nuclear bombs

Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Nuclear-armed countries are collectively in possession of 13, warheads, according to a report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

While the number of nuclear weapons in the world has dropped since last year, those that remain are highly sophisticated and therefore potentially more destructive. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. North Korea — 20 to 30 nuclear warheads. North Korea has increased its arsenal, which was at roughly 10 to 20 nuclear warheads in Israel — 80 to 90 nuclear warheads. That's also why a nuclear bomb is sometimes called an atomic bomb. Nuclear weapons release huge amounts of radiation - which can cause radiation sickness - so their actual impact lasts longer than the blast.

But they've only ever been used twice in history - against Japan in during World War Two where they caused huge devastation and enormous loss of life. The radiation from the bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima lasted several months and killed an estimated 80, people. And the bomb dropped on Nagasaki killed more than 70, people. In theory, pretty much anyone with the technology, intelligence and facilities.

But whether countries are allowed to or not? That's a whole other issue. This is because of something called the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons NPT - an agreement which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote disarmament. These five countries are called nuclear-weapon states - and are allowed to have weapons because they built and tested a nuclear explosive device before the treaty came into effect on 1 January Even though these countries have nuclear weapons, under the agreement, they have to reduce how many they have and can't keep them forever.

Israel which has never confirmed or denies the existence of its nukes , India and Pakistan have never joined the NPT, and North Korea left in Iran started its nuclear programme in the s and has always insisted its nuclear energy programme is peaceful. But there have been suspicions it was being used as a cover to develop nuclear weapons, which prompted the UN Security Council, US and EU to impose crippling sanctions from This led to an agreement in between Iran and other big powers, in which Iran signed a deal to scale back its nuclear energy programme in exchange for trade, but President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in May And now European countries have challenged Iran for not following the terms of the deal.

And after the escalating tensions between Iran and the US this year, President Trump has pledged that as long as he is president, Iran will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons. The history of Europe is breathtakingly complex, but this animation helps makes sense of 2, years of change on the European map. The history of Europe is breathtakingly complex. Empires rise and fall, invasions sweep across the continent, and modern countries slowly begin to take shape with the added bonus of an extremely dramatic instrumental.

The fall of Carthage left the Romans in control of territory in North Africa, and the ransack and destruction of the Greek city-state of Corinth also kickstarted an era of Roman influence in that region.

The peak of the Roman Empire is one of the more dramatic moments shown on this animated European map. At its height, under Trajan, the Roman Empire was a colossal 1. This enormous empire remained mostly intact until , when it was irreparably split into Eastern and Western regions.

Spurred on by severe drought conditions in Central Asia, the Huns reached Europe and found a Roman Empire weakened by currency debasement , economic instability, overspending, and increasing incursions from rivals along its borders.

The Huns waged their first attack on the Eastern Roman Empire in , but it was not until half a century later—under the leadership of Attila the Hun—that hordes pushed deeper into Europe, sacking and razing cities along the way.

The Romans would later get their revenge when they attacked the quarreling Goths and Huns, bouncing the latter out of Central Europe. Facing invasion from formidable Mongol forces, central European princes temporarily placed their regional conflicts aside to defend their territory. Though the Mongols were slowly pushed eastward, they loomed large on the fringes of Europe until almost the 16th century.

A pivotal moment for Lithuania came after a decisive win at the Battle of Blue Waters. This victory stifled the expansion of the Golden Horde, and brought present-day Ukraine into its sphere of influence. The end of the Holy Roman Empire highlights the extreme territorial fragmentation in Germany and neighboring regions, in an era referred to as Kleinstaaterei. Unification helped position Germany as a major power, and by the country had the largest economy in Europe.

The Ottoman Empire—a fixture in Eastern Europe for hundreds of years—was in its waning years by the beginning of the 20th century. The empire had ceded territory in two costly wars with Italy and Balkan states, and by the time the dust cleared on WWI, the borders of the newly minted nation of Turkey began at the furthest edge of continental Europe.

After the war, Germany again became fragmented into occupation zones—this time, overseen by the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. Germany would not be made whole again until , when a weakening Soviet Union loosened its grip on East Germany. In the decades following WWII, the political boundaries of the European map remained relatively stable—that is, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in When the dust settled, there were 15 breakaway republics , six of which were in Europe.

Bonus: If you liked the video above, be sure to watch this year-by-year account of who ruled territories across Europe. The index measures the social risk landscape of different cities across the globe, using three key pillars:. After calculating scores based on these three metrics, cities were then grouped into four categories to measure their level of social risk:.