The prophecy is more than seeing into the future. For the prophecy sees without the element of time. For the prophecy sees things as they were, as they are, and as they always shall be.
USGS confirms a fifth minor earthquake centered in the Elgin area this week
ELGIN, S.C. — The US Geological Survey has confirmed a fifth minor earthquake within two days in the Lugoff-Elgin area of South Carolina.
Wednesday morning's rumbler occurred at 4:12 a.m. and registered 2.4 magnitude. The series of quakes began on Monday with a 3.3 magnitude at 2:18 p.m.. That first earthquake was followed up by three aftershocks that ranged in magnitude from 2.52 to 1.74. The latest one occurred just after 10 p.m. Monday evening.
The South Carolina Emergency Management Division says "swarms" of micro earthquakes are historically fairly common.
The recent quakes should not be strong enough to do much damage. Usually quakes registering a magnitude of 2 are the threshold of what a human might feel. Earthquakes of magnitude 4 would cause items to be thrown off shelves; magnitude 5 or 6 will cause cracks in walls and breaking windows; a quake registering a magnitude of 10 will cause complete destruction.
“We have answered the agency’s (IAEA) questions or politically motivated claims … that we think were baseless. These dossiers should be closed,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said, according to state TV’s website.
Among sticking points in the indirect talks between Iran and the United States to revive the 2015 nuclear deal appear to be questions about uranium traces found by the IAEA at old but undeclared sites in Iran.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani will return to Vienna on Sunday evening for the talks, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Bagheri Kani, who flew to Tehran last week for consultations with Iranian officials, will “pursue the negotiations with a clear agenda aimed at resolving” the remaining issues, IRNA said.
Iran has made clear it wants an end to the oil and banking sanctions that are hurting its economy, while insisting also on the lifting of human rights and terrorism-related curbs.
On Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said Tehran was ready to “immediately conclude” a deal in talks to revive its 2015 nuclear accord with world powers if Western powers show real will.
Ambirabdollahin is due on Tuesday to report to the Iranian parliament on the progress of the talks, local media said.
On Friday, a senior U.S. State Department official said negotiators had made significant progress in the past week or so on reviving the deal but very tough issues remained.
The pact was abandoned in 2018 by then-U.S. President Donald Trump, who also reimposed extensive sanctions on Iran.
The decision to disarm was portrayed at the time as a means of ensuring Ukraine’s security through agreements with the international community — which was exerting pressure over the issue — rather than through the more economically and politically costly path of maintaining its own nuclear program. Today, with Ukraine being swarmed by heavily armed invading Russian troops bristling with weaponry and little prospect of defense from its erstwhile friends abroad, that decision is looking like a bad one.
The tragedy now unfolding in Ukraine is underlining a broader principle clearly seen around the world: Nations that sacrifice their nuclear deterrents in exchange for promises of international goodwill are often signing their own death warrants. In a world bristling with weapons with the potential to end human civilization, nonproliferation itself is a morally worthwhile and even necessary goal. But the experience of countries that actually have disarmed is likely to lead more of them to conclude otherwise in future.
The betrayal of Ukrainians in particular cannot be understated. In 1994, the Ukrainian government signed a memorandum that brought its country into the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while formally relinquishing its status as a nuclear state. The text of that agreement stated that in exchange for the step, the “Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s territorial integrity has not been much respected since. After the 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea by Russia — which brought no serious international response — Ukrainian leaders had already begun to think twice about the virtues of the agreement they had signed just two decades earlier. Today they sound positively bitter about it.
“We gave away the capability for nothing,” Andriy Zahorodniuk, a former defense minister of Ukraine, said this month about his nation’s former nuclear weapons. “Now, every time somebody offers us to sign a strip of paper, the response is, ‘Thank you very much. We already had one of those some time ago.’”
Ukrainians are not the only ones who have come to regret signing away their nuclear weapons. In 2003, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi made a surprise announcement that his nation would abandon its nuclear program and chemical weapons in exchange for normalization with the West.
“Libya stands as one of the few countries to have voluntarily abandoned its WMD programs,” wrote Judith Miller a few years later in an article about the decision headlined “Gadhafi’s Leap of Faith.” Miller, then just out of the New York Times, added that the White House had opted “to make Libya a true model for the region” by helping encourage other states with nuclear programs to follow Gaddafi’s example.
Libya kept moving forward. It signed on to an additional protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency allowing for extensive international monitoring of nuclear reserves. In return, sanctions against the country were lifted and relations between Washington and Tripoli, severed during the Cold War, were reestablished. Gaddafi and his family spent a few years building ties with Western elites, and all seemed to be going well for the Libyan dictator.
Then came the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Gaddafi found that the same world leaders who had ostensibly become his economic partners and diplomatic allies were suddenly providing decisive military aid to his opposition — even cheering on his own death.
Promises, betrayals, aggression: It’s a pattern that extends even to countries that have merely considered foreclosing their avenues to a nuclear deterrent.
Missile silos abandoned by the Gaddafi regime are left in the desert at a military base in Lona, Libya, on Sept. 29, 2011.
Photo: John Cantlie/Getty Images
Take Iran: In 2015, the Islamic Republic signed a comprehensive nuclear deal with the U.S. that limited its possible breakout capacity toward building a nuclear weapon and provided extensive monitoring of its civilian nuclear program. Not long afterward, the agreement was violated by the Trump administration, despite the country’s own continued compliance. Since 2016, when Trump left the deal, Iran has been hit with crushing international sanctions that have devastated its economy and been subjected to a campaign of assassination targeting its senior military leadership.
The nuclear deal was characterized at the time as the first step toward a broader set of talks over regional disputes between Iranian and U.S. leaders, who had been alienated since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Instead, the deal marked another bitter chapter in the long-troubled relationship between the two countries.
To date, no nuclear-armed state has ever faced a full-scale invasion by a foreign power, regardless of its own actions. North Korea has managed to keep its hermetic political system intact for decades despite tensions with the international community. North Korean officials have even cited the example of Libya in discussing their own weapons. In 2011, as bombs rained down on Gaddafi’s government, a North Korean foreign ministry official said, “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson.” That official went on to refer to giving up weapons in signed agreements as “an invasion tactic to disarm the country.”
Perhaps the starkest contrast to the treatment of Ukraine, Libya, and Iran, however, is Pakistan, which developed nuclear weapons decades ago in defiance of the United States. Despite being criticized at the time for contributing to nuclear proliferation and facing periodic sanctions, Pakistan has managed to insulate itself from attack or even serious ostracism by the U.S. despite several flagrant provocations in the decades since. Today Pakistan even remains a security partner of the U.S., having received billions of dollars of military aid over the past several decades.
Given the mortal hazards that nuclear weapons pose to life on Earth, nonproliferation remains a worthwhile collective goal. Humanity will not benefit from a renewal of the nuclear arms race, and the ideals behind a U.S.-backed rules-based liberal order are morally attractive. A world in which they were truly applied would probably be a fairer and more peaceful one than what has existed in the past, yet we must also recognize that the liberal order can and will fail. That lesson is especially true for small nations outmatched by great powers.
Given the tragedy we are witnessing in Ukraine today — where, despite its past assurances, the international community has remained a passive observer — leaders of small countries must be forgiven for thinking twice before sacrificing their deterrent, regardless of what the leaders of great powers already armed with nuclear weaponry may say.
(Newser) – Vladimir Putin on Sunday again raised the prospect of invoking the nuclear option—and not as a metaphor. In a televised address, the Russian leader announced he was putting the nation’s nuclear deterrent forces on high alert, reports the AP, which sees the move as a “dramatic escalation of East-West tensions.” In his speech, Putin said “aggressive statements” by NATO powers amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine has forced him to put the nuclear forces in a “special regime of combat duty.” (The development comes as Ukraine and Russia agreed to their first talks since the conflict began.)
Second time: As Axios notes, this is the second time Putin has rattled his nuclear sword amid the conflict. When he first sent troops over the border, he reminded the world that Russia was a leading nuclear power and warned that any nation interfering would face “consequences that you have never encountered in your history.”
Elaborating: “Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country,” Putin said Sunday.
Not to worry?Last week, Vox spoke to three analysts who said the chances Putin would go nuclear were slim to none. “I think there is virtually no chance nuclear weapons are going to be used in the Ukraine situation,” says Matthew Bunn of Harvard Kennedy School. That’s the gist of the piece, though Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, adds, “I’m more worried than I was a week ago.”
Then again: Sen. Marco Rubio, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, didn’t exactly set people’s mind at ease about the Russian leader’s state of mind with this tweet on Friday night: “I wish I could share more, but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with #Putin,” he wrote. “He has always been a killer, but his problem now is different & significant … It would be a mistake to assume this Putin would react the same way he would have 5 years ago.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a stark warning to the West following his invasion of Ukraine by stating that anyone who interfered “will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history”.
The threat of nuclear war has been considered by world leaders and civilians alike, despite Russia, the United States and UK all having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and therefore, on paper, agreeing to nuclear peace.
So how real is the risk that nuclear arms could be used? And what systems are in place to minimise that risk?
What is the NPT?
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, shortened to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is an international agreement signed by 191 countries intended to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
There are three main parts to the agreement: non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear energy.
Only four countries with nuclear capabilities have not signed the NPT, including Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea.
Who has nuclear weapons?
Nuclear weapons are known to be possessed by nine countries, but only five of these have signed the NPT.
Russia has the most, at 6,257, of which 1,458 are active (already deployed), 3,039 are available (can be deployed if needed) and 1,760 are retired (out of use and awaiting dismantlement).
The United States follows with 5,550 nuclear weapons in total, of which 1,389 are active, 2,361 are available, and 1,800 are retired.
Of the remaining NPT countries, China has 350 active nuclear weapons, France has 290, and the UK has 225.
Pakistan, India, and Israel have never signed the NPT but have 165, 156, and 90 available nuclear weapons respectively.
North Korea originally signed the NPT but became the only country to ever withdraw from it in 2003, and is currently believed to have around 40 to 50 nuclear weapons.
He added: “To anyone who would consider interfering from outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All the relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me.”
France’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on French television channel TF1 that this message was understood to be a threat of using nuclear weapons.
Has Nato responded?
Le Drian countered with his own mention of nuclear capabilities, however. He added: “I think Vladimir Putin must also understand that the Atlantic alliance (Nato) is a nuclear alliance. That is all I will say about this.”
Nato itself does not own any nuclear weapons but some United States-owned missiles are reportedly kept at six airbases across five European countries.
25 February 2022 14:16 UTC | Last update: 1 day 13 hours ago
As the month of Ramadan approaches, all the conditions for another explosion are still in place
Palestinians and activists take part in a protest in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem on 18 February 2022 (AFP)
On 14 February, Haaretz published an article with the headline “The East Jerusalem flashpoint that could ignite the entire Middle East”. In it, the journalist Nir Hasson wrote: “Sheikh Jarrah has again become the site of violent clashes, just as it did before last year’s war between Israel and Hamas.”
The Palestinians, and especially the young activists, are confident that the South African moment is coming sooner or later
“We don’t need provocations from people on either side inflaming tensions for political interests,” Bennett said on 14 February.
Given the latest raid by Israeli settlers on the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, and the violent clashes with its Palestinian inhabitants that followed, Israeli officials and media’s concerns about last May’s almost unprecedented Palestinian uprising do not seem far-fetched.
As Ramadan approaches once again, beginning at the start of April, there is a huge potential for conflict to erupt around possible Israeli restrictions on Palestinian access to parts of the Old City and al-Aqsa mosque during the Muslim holy month.
Ben Gvir’s act in Sheikh Jarrah, where 27 families have been fighting eviction since 2008, led to violent clashes between the Palestinian families and their supporters and Israeli security forces. Several protesters were injured while others were arrested.
It is this strong resistance by the Palestinian families to the recent assaults by settlers that has caused Israeli alarm, especially since this renewed local resistance has also brought pressure from Jerusalem-based international diplomats.
Acting with impunity
In the past few months, some Israeli circles held the belief that the popular resistance in Sheikh Jarrah had been exhausted by a number of factors: the continued Israeli siege of the neighbourhood, the weakness and incompetence of the Palestinian Authority, and the failure of Hamas to extract concessions, such as the easing of the blockade.
‘We’re not giving up our house’: The story of a Sheikh Jarrah family fighting Israeli expulsions
But Israel’s apparent desire to avoid further confrontation with the Palestinians doesn’t stem from humanitarian reasons. And Bennett’s criticism of Ben Gvir’s provocative conduct is not because the prime minister is any less extreme or aggressive about denying the Palestinians’ right to self-determination
Rather it is because, firstly, Bennett sees Ben Gvir’s behaviour as directed against his government, as part of infighting within the settlers’ camp, split as it is over former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the corruption charges he is facing. Secondly, Bennett is not interested in any disruptions that might embarrass his new Arab Gulf allies
For Bennett, especially on the Arab and international scene, things seem to be going pretty well. On the domestic front, he is determined to fight off continued attempts from the right-wing opposition to bring his government down.
So the Palestinians are paying the price twice: firstly from the ongoing and brutal settler-colonial, ethnic-cleansing project; secondly from the infighting between the two camps over whoever can be more brutal in implementing the cleansing plans.
Last year, almost no one had been expecting scenes of the popular uprising like the ones we witnessed in East Jerusalem, especially centred around one small neighbourhood.
It was thought impossible that Palestinian resistance could overcome the huge obstacles that have been placed before it – physically, with the high separation walls that had been erected, making it difficult to unite Palestinians in one fighting front; and politically, with the security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli coloniser.
A young generation
That doesn’t mean we will necessarily see another intifada of the same scope and intensity during the upcoming holy month of Ramadan, even though all of the conditions for another explosion are still in place. It could happen before Ramadan, or it could be months or years from now.
Israeli occupation army detains a Palestinian man during a protest in the al-Yusufiye cemetery near the Lion’s Gate entrance to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, on 29 October, 2021 (AFP)
But one thing is certain – as long as the apartheid settler-colonial regime continues with its injustices, brutalities and atrocities, the Palestinian people will continue to resist.
In recent years, we’ve seen the emergence of a young, militant generation, creative and brilliant at organising. They are skilled in using social media to overcome geographic and social fragmentation and reaching out to all Palestinians, wherever they are, as well as to the world.
The many minor uprisings, which are led by the youth, are the driving force behind the human rights organisations framing Israel as an apartheid state
These young people have decided not to wait for traditional leadership to save them, as it has proven incompetent and corrupt.
The birthing of a new leadership is underway. This will take years and will require much endeavour and sacrifice – but that’s what the future holds for us, with no other saviour in sight. The many minor uprisings, which are led by the youth, are the driving force behind the human rights organisations’ framing Israel as an apartheid state.
The Israeli apartheid government might have strong relations, economically and in terms of security, with world governments. But global civil society is undergoing a significant opinion shift against Israel. At every popular intifada, with every military deployment against Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip, Israel comes under fire from global civil society organisations. This is what disturbs Israel.
The Palestinians, and especially the young activists, are confident that the South African moment is coming sooner or later. This hope is what fuels their passion in the struggle for a free Palestine, where justice and equality can prevail on the ruins of the immoral and inhuman settler-colonial entity.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Awad Abdelfattah
Awad Abdelfattah is a political writer and the former general secretary of the Balad party. He is the coordinator of the Haifa-based One Democratic State Campaign, established in late 2017.
For much of 2020 and 2021, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) was unable to publish quarterly domestic uranium production figures as output failed to reach its reporting threshold. Figures have been published for the last two quarters, and according to the EIA’s latest report, the fourth quarter of 2021 saw a total of 9,978 pounds U3O8 (3.8 tU) produced from three facilities: the Nichols Ranch in-situ leach (ISL) project and Ross central processing plant, both in Wyoming, and the Crowe Butte operation in Nebraska. This was 88% higher than the third quarter total of 5,297 pounds.
“2022 begins with the highest uranium price in a decade and a positive global outlook for nuclear energy not seen in a generation,” Amir Adnani, CEO of Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) told shareholders this week.
The Texas-based company’s USD112 million acquisition of Uranium One Americas (U1A) from Rosatom’s Uranium One Group, completed in December, means it now has two production-ready ‘hub and spoke’ in-situ leach platforms with processing facilities in Wyoming and South Texas, as well as four fully installed wellfields, six additional permitted or development-stage satellite ISL projects, and a portfolio of “under-explored” projects, he said.
The company plans to expand capacity at the Hobson processing plant, which sits at the centre of its South Texas hub-and-spoke production platform, working towards amending its operation licence to increase production to four million pounds per year, doubling its current licensed capacity. The company also intends to advance the Burke Hollow ISL project “towards growth and production-readiness”, Adnani said.
In March 2021, UEC made its initial purchases under an initiative to build strategic inventory of physical uranium. The inventory will support future marketing and production efforts, accelerate cashflows and bolsters the company’s balance sheet as uranium prices appreciate, Adnani said. The company’s latest reported portfolio stands at 4.1 million pounds U3O8.
Meaningful programmes
Consolidated Uranium on 17 February announced it was planning and implementing initial work at three past-producing US uranium projects, described by CEO Philip Williams as the first “meaningful project-level work programmes” in the company’s history and “an important step in advancing these key US projects back toward production.”
The Toronto-based company is working in conjunction with Energy Fuels, from whom it acquired the Tony M, Daneros and Rim mines in July 2021. The three conventional uranium mines, which are in Utah, are located near Energy Fuels’ White Mesa mill, with which Consolidated has a toll-milling agreement.
Preparatory work at Lance
2022 is a “pivotal year” for Peninsula Energy as its prepares for a restart of operations at the Lance ISL project in Wyoming, the company’s CEO Wayne Heili said on 17 February.
The Australia-based company has allocated USD3.4 million for a programme of “early preparatory works” which it says would facilitate an accelerated restart of operations should a final investment decision be approved. The programme will include development work on a new mining area, the start of work to convert existing ISL facilities to low pH operation, and “limited” production operations at two existing mine units that were previously operated using alkaline ISL chemistry. Some portions of one unit – mine unit 2 – have already been restarted, with production streams going to the Ross plant for recovery of residual uranium.
The worst earthquake in Massachusetts history 260 years ago It happened before, and it could happen again. By Hilary Sargent @lilsarg Boston.com Staff | 11.19.15 | 5:53 AM On November 18, 1755, Massachusetts experienced its largest recorded earthquake. The earthquake occurred in the waters off Cape Ann, and was felt within seconds in Boston, and as far away as Nova Scotia, the Chesapeake Bay, and upstate New York, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Seismologists have since estimated the quake to have been between 6.0 and 6.3 on the Richter scale, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society. While there were no fatalities, the damage was extensive. According to the USGS, approximately 100 chimneys and roofs collapsed, and over a thousand were damaged. The worst damage occurred north of Boston, but the city was not unscathed. A 1755 report in The Philadelphia Gazette described the quake’s impact on Boston: “There was at first a rumbling noise like low thunder, which was immediately followed with such a violent shaking of the earth and buildings, as threw every into the greatest amazement, expecting every moment to be buried in the ruins of their houses. In a word, the instances of damage done to our houses and chimnies are so many, that it would be endless to recount them.” The quake sent the grasshopper weathervane atop Faneuil Hall tumbling to the ground, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society. An account of the earthquake, published in The Pennsylvania Gazette on December 4, 1755. The earthquake struck at 4:30 in the morning, and the shaking lasted “near four minutes,” according to an entry John Adams, then 20, wrote in his diary that day. The brief diary entry described the damage he witnessed. “I was then at my Fathers in Braintree, and awoke out of my sleep in the midst of it,” he wrote. “The house seemed to rock and reel and crack as if it would fall in ruins about us. 7 Chimnies were shatter’d by it within one mile of my Fathers house.” The shaking was so intense that the crew of one ship off the Boston coast became convinced the vessel had run aground, and did not learn about the earthquake until they reached land, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 1832, a writer for the Hampshire (Northampton) Gazette wrote about one woman’s memories from the quake upon her death. “It was between 4 and 5 in the morning, and the moon shone brightly. She and the rest of the family were suddenly awaked from sleep by a noise like that of the trampling of many horses; the house trembled and the pewter rattled on the shelves. They all sprang out of bed, and the affrightted children clung to their parents. “I cannot help you dear children,” said the good mother, “we must look to God for help.” The Cape Ann earthquake came just 17 days after an earthquake estimated to have been 8.5-9.0 on the Richter scale struck in Lisbon, Portugal, killing at least 60,000 and causing untold damage. There was no shortage of people sure they knew the impretus for the Cape Ann earthquake. According to many ministers in and around Boston, “God’s wrath had brought this earthquake upon Boston,” according to the Massachusetts Historical Society. In “Verses Occasioned by the Earthquakes in the Month of November, 1755,” Jeremiah Newland, a Taunton resident who was active in religious activities in the Colony, wrote that the earthquake was a reminder of the importance of obedience to God. “It is becaufe we broke thy Laws, that thou didst shake the Earth. … O what a Day the Scriptures say, the EARTHQUAKE doth foretell; O turn to God; lest by his Rod, he cast thee down to Hell.” Boston Pastor Jonathan Mayhew warned in a sermon that the 1755 earthquakes in Massachusetts and Portugal were “judgments of heaven, at least as intimations of God’s righteous displeasure, and warnings from him.” There were some, though, who attempted to put forth a scientific explanation for the earthquake. Well, sort of. In a lecture delivered just a week after the earthquake, Harvard mathematics professor John Winthrop said the quake was the result of a reaction between “vapors” and “the heat within the bowels of the earth.” But even Winthrop made sure to state that his scientific theory “does not in the least detract from the majesty … of God.” It has been 260 years since the Cape Ann earthquake. Some experts, including Boston College seismologist John Ebel, think New England could be due for another significant quake. In a recent Boston Globe report, Ebel said the New England region “can expect a 4 to 5 magnitude quake every decade, a 5 to 6 every century, and a magnitude 6 or above every thousand years.” If the Cape Ann earthquake occurred today, “the City of Boston could sustain billions of dollars of earthquake damage, with many thousands injured or killed,” according to a 1997 study by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The threat of nuclear war has been considered by world leaders and civilians alike, despite Russia, the United States and UK all having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and therefore, on paper, agreeing to nuclear peace.
So how real is the risk that nuclear arms could be used? And what systems are in place to minimise that risk?
There are three main parts to the agreement: non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear energy.
Only four countries with nuclear capabilities have not signed the NPT, including Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea.
Who has nuclear weapons?
Nuclear weapons are known to be possessed by nine countries, but only five of these have signed the NPT.
Russia has the most, at 6,257, of which 1,458 are active (already deployed), 3,039 are available (can be deployed if needed) and 1,760 are retired (out of use and awaiting dismantlement).
The United States follows with 5,550 nuclear weapons in total, of which 1,389 are active, 2,361 are available, and 1,800 are retired.
Of the remaining NPT countries, China has 350 active nuclear weapons, France has 290, and the UK has 225.
Pakistan, India, and Israel have never signed the NPT but have 165, 156, and 90 available nuclear weapons respectively.
North Korea originally signed the NPT but became the only country to ever withdraw from it in 2003, and is currently believed to have around 40 to 50 nuclear weapons.
He added: “To anyone who would consider interfering from outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All the relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me.”
France’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on French television channel TF1 that this message was understood to be a threat of using nuclear weapons.
Has Nato responded?
Le Drian countered with his own mention of nuclear capabilities, however. He added: “I think Vladimir Putin must also understand that the Atlantic alliance (Nato) is a nuclear alliance. That is all I will say about this.”
Nato itself does not own any nuclear weapons but some United States-owned missiles are reportedly kept at six airbases across five European countries.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, he also made a more nebulous threat: “No matter who tries to stand in our way or … create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”
Another part of his speech seemed to make his meaning clear. “Today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states,” Putin said. As justification for the invasion, Putin also made unfounded claims that Ukraine was on a path to build its own nuclear arsenal. “There’s no evidence of that at all,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.
The Russian invasion has relied entirely on conventional weapons — tanks rattling down highways, bombers flying overhead, ships landing in the port city of Odesa — and experts told Vox that in the absence of a shocking escalation, that isn’t likely to change.
Still, Putin’s remarks were a stark reminder that nuclear weapons aren’t just the boogeymen of a bygone age, but remain a key part of the security order that emerged after the end of World War II. By Kristensen’s count, Russia has about 6,000 nuclear weapons and the United States has about 5,500. Either nuclear arsenal is large enough to kill billions of people — but also to serve as a deterrent against attack.
In recent decades, the so-called nuclear order has remained fairly stable. The seven other countries known to have nuclear weapons have much smaller arsenals. Most countries in the world have signed onto the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which limits the development of nuclear weapons. We asked three researchers of nuclear arms control about the risks the world faces now and what we might be able to do about them.
While Putin’s remarks are certainly cause for concern — especially since they introduced the largest military operation in Europe since the Second World War — the scholars who spoke to Vox said a nuclear strike is still unlikely. “I think there is virtually no chance nuclear weapons are going to be used in the Ukraine situation,” said Matthew Bunn, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and former adviser to President Bill Clinton’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The main reason, Bunn said, is that the United States and its NATO allies have made it clear that they will not send troops to Ukraine. Without the threat of military intervention, Putin has little reason to use his nuclear weapons, especially since Russia has a staggering numbers advantage over the Ukrainian military.
“His objective is not to bring the world to nuclear war,” said Paul Hare, senior lecturer in global studies at Boston University. “His objective is to simply swallow Ukraine — and restore not just the [power of the] Soviet Union, but the Tsarist empire.”
Still, said Kristensen, “I’m more worried than I was a week ago.” He pointed out that NATO increased its readiness levels for “all contingencies” in response to Putin’s speech, and with increased military buildup comes increased uncertainty. “That’s the fog of war, so to speak,” Kristensen said. “Out of that can come twists and turns that take you down a path that you couldn’t predict a week ago.”
What does Russia’s nuclear arsenal look like? How does it compare to others in the world?
Russia’s roughly 6,000 warheads make it the country with the largest nuclear arsenal. Kristensen said most of those warheads are in reserves, with only about 1,600 deployed as land, sea, and air-based weapons, such as missiles in silos or bombs dropped by planes. (When the USSR fell apart at the end of the Cold War, there were nuclear weapons left behind on Ukrainian soil, but Ukraine returnedthem to Russia.)
The countries known to have nuclear weapons are Russia, the US, China, France, the UK, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. That includes every permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, which have been working to modernize their nuclear weapons over the past few decades, and three members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The total number of weaponshas dropped by about 80 percent since the end of the Cold War, from an estimated 70,300 in 1986 to 12,700 in early 2022.
That’s still a lot of nukes. “There has been much discussion about whether that means Russia has a sort of trigger-happy nuclear posture,” Kristensen said. “It’s hard to pin down. if Russian officials were asked to sit down around a table and entirely consider how many tactical nuclear weapons were needed, purely based on real, strategic rationales, I suspect that number would quickly drop to a lot less [than what it is today].”
Does Putin have a reason to consider using nuclear weapons?
From a strategic standpoint, the experts said, there’s no reason for Russia to use nuclear weapons. But they said Putin himself was the biggest source of uncertainty. “The element of emotion and anger that’s crept into Putin’s statements in particular is striking,” said Hare. “Normally we’ve associated Russia’s diplomatic style with a kind of laconic, almost sarcastic manner.”
It’s worth remembering, Kristensen added, that Putin often makes allusions to Russia’s nuclear arsenal as a show of strength. In 2015, he said in a Russian state TV documentary that he had considered putting Russian nuclear forces on alert during the Russian annexation of Crimea a year prior.
This could be a sign that Putin’s nuclear rhetoric is more bark than bite, but Kristensen wasn’t ready to say that for sure. “He lives in a very small bubble, and he’s deeply paranoid,” Kristensen said. “He’s willing to do really not very rational things.”
Is the fear of a nuclear war enough to stop countries from using nuclear weapons?
“The physical fact of a nuclear weapon’s destructive power absolutely creates fear,” said Bunn. Nuclear deterrence — the idea that one country wouldn’t dare attack another for fear of a nuclear strike — was the major security policy of the Cold War period, and experts say it remains very much alive today. As my colleague Zack Beauchamp recently wrote, the threat of nuclear weapons is the reason the US won’t send troops to Ukraine.
But nuclear deterrence clearly didn’t end all wars. The existence of nuclear weapons “didn’t help us in Vietnam, they didn’t help us in Iraq, they didn’t help us in Afghanistan,” Bunn said. “Nuclear weapons aren’t useful for the majority of the security and well-being challenges that the United States faces.”
Since the Cold War, it’s been widely accepted that nuclear deterrence would help ensure that the borders of Europe would not be challenged. The Ukraine crisis, said Hare, is casting some doubt on that idea. “The credibility of deterrence hasn’t been tested for decades,” Hare said. “The whole international order is sort of being thrown up in the air. Is the Ukraine attack going to be a prelude to an attack on, say, the Baltic states that are even more vulnerable, or is Putin going to be satisfied with Ukraine?”
The answer, Hare said, will shape how the United States and its NATO allies decide to deploy their forces — conventional and nuclear — around the world. “We’re starting to see large powers begin to sort of entertain the thought of limited tactical nuclear weapons use scenarios, in a way that they didn’t spend very much time thinking about 10 years ago,” said Kristensen. These are the sorts of unlikely scenarios that have been tossed around in war games as contingencies since the Cold War, and could entail strikes on isolated military targets that are far from population centers, for example.
“The theory is very much like it was during the Cold War,” Kristensen explained. “You just sort of have some smaller nukes that you can pop off here and there, to force an adversary to take an off-ramp during a conflict.”
Is the world doing a good job keeping nuclear weapons under control?
For the most part, global efforts to prevent nuclear weapons from spreading, like theNon-Proliferation Treaty, have been strikingly successful. But these efforts need constant attention and maintenance.“Globally, the nuclear order is in pretty bad shape,” said Bunn. North Korea continues to build up its nuclear arsenal, India and Pakistan appear to be engaging in an arms race to build up short-range tactical nuclear weapons, and hostility is ratcheting up between the US, Russia, and China.
“People should pay attention,” said Kristensen. “They have to be vigilant about holding their governments accountable, and make sure that the policies that are in place and the way they’re implemented are constructive, that they actually lead to improving the situation rather than making it worse.” A key US-Russia agreement to limit nuclear-armed missiles, known as the New START Treaty, is set to expire in February 2026, and the degraded relations between the United States and Russia will make negotiating a renewal much harder.
“The huge increase in US-Russian hostility will lead to increased risks of conflict and make it more difficult to work with Russia,” Bunn said. “Whether it’s working to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries or improving security for nuclear weapons and materials and facilities, all of that goes better if the United States and Russia are working together. And they’re not going to be doing that for some time to come.”
There is some good news, Bunn said. There are promising signs for the reinstatement of the Iran nuclear deal, which would affirm the principles of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. “It’s important to remember that only 5 percent of the countries in the world have nuclear weapons,” Bunn said. “Every other state has pledged to never develop nuclear weapons.”
For decades, Bunn added, about one in every 10 US lightbulbs was powered by uranium from decommissioned Russian warheads, which was sent to American nuclear power plants — a reminder that the world actively worked together to turn a tool of destruction into a force for good. “That’s remarkable,” Bunn said. “It’s never been true before in human history that the most powerful weapon available to our species was widely forsworn.”
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