France’s Nuclear Victims (and Correct Number of Weapons)
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| From Tanguy et Laverdure, Menace sur Mururoa, 1996. |
By Hans M. Kristensen
The news media reports that the French government has decided to “pay compensation to those suffering illnesses linked to radiation” from the French nuclear tests conducted in Northern Africa and the South Pacific between 1960 and 1996. This being the same state that for decades denied any health effects from the tests.
Many of the news reports quote FAS estimating the French nuclear arsenal at 348 warheads in 2008. For the record, our latest estimate made in July 2008 is about 300 warheads.
Additional Resources: French Nuclear Forces 2008 (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July 2008) | Status of World Nuclear Forces (FAS web site)
Without information, without factual information, you can’t act. You can’t relate to the world you live in. And so it’s super important for us to be able to monitor what’s happening around the world, analyze the material, and translate it into something that different audiences can understand.
Russia currently maintains nearly 5,460 nuclear warheads, with an estimated 1,718 deployed. This represents a slight decrease in total warheads from previous years but still positions Russia as the world’s largest nuclear power alongside the United States.
Nuclear weapons budgeting is like agreeing to buying a house without knowing the sales price, the mortgage rate, or the monthly payment.
The United States Air Force has forward deployed about one-third of its B-2 stealth bombers to Diego Garcia, or about half the B-2s considered fully operational at any given time.