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One of my friends thinks that Japan has nuclear bombs, I dont think that it is true but can someone please clear it up for me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Takaja ( talk • contribs) 01:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
No. They don't. 62.232.4.58 ( talk) 07:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC) duh!thats why US bombers destroyed some parts of japan . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Supersaiyan474 ( talk • contribs) 17:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Why is Sweden and Germany there? They don't have any nuclear weapons. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
81.229.73.179 (
talk)
10:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
That's what you think and what we want the world to believe… seems to work out just fine --
89.246.24.122 (
talk)
21:09, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
please any administrator do not block my account i have refrence for my answer if u need proof.conact me before blocking my account please
So, for those editing the page and trying to reinstill the list of states with former nuclear weapons programs and other nuclear capable countries, please talk here to give your explanation for why these sections should be included on the page. This is stupid; NP Guy, myself, and others have put forth reasons for why these sections should be deleted (see below), if you disagree, then put forth an argument for keeping them, but let's not do this stupid "undo" drill for days on end. CP Guy July 21
Seriously, I think we've raised enough concerns about the "states formerly possessing nuclear weapons programs" and "other near nuclear states," that I think we can delete them. I've made my case, others have made this case, are there any objections? CP Guy, July 13
Ok, I'm deleting those two sections, since I've had no nays. CP Guy, July 16
So, I've changed the page three times now, trying to address the issues in the list of states formerly possing nuclear weapons and other nuclear capable states. Each time, edits have been undone by folks who I can only infer have not been following these discussions, as they indicated that I have provided no justification for editing (which I've been doing since March). Thus, I give you Wikipedia.
It is said that America has 7068 NOT the 5000 that the Page states
Along with that Russia has 8232 nuclear warheads Britain only has 180 not 200 (im from Britain i would know) France has 348 and both India and Pakistan have 30-40 estimated
US intelligence prooved that pakistan has more than india ;pakistan:25-100 ,india:a handful(about five) Supersaiyan474 ( talk) 17:39, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Evidence is the book/Encyclopedia "The Times: A Complete History of the World" by Overy, Richards 2004 and has been updated every 2 years. It is highly regarded. I can give the full list of the Warheads, type (submarine based, defence etc) if it is needed. PastryTarget 21:47 11 July 2007
Precise number of warheads is classified. Any number put down is an estimate. Getting down the tens or even single numbers is not a helpful endeavor. Moreover, you "cite" an encyclopedia; a reference in an encyclopedia is not "evidence." CP Guy, 11 July.
The numbers here for the US and Russia are dramatically different from this source: http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab19.asp Bsharvy 14:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Obviously, North Korea claims to have nuclear capability, but the size of the explosions measured were not in the kiloton range. It was either a misfire or a hoax. It makes no sense to include it.
-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 ( talk) 04:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
The source for North Korea was tagged 'unreliable', but GlobalSecurity.org is in the 'Best of the Web' directory of Forbes.com. Joshua Issac ( talk) 12:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
The links here for countries in their entries are really rather misleading. Some are outright links to a country - '''[[Germany]]''' - While Germany is a signatory of the NPT... - whilst others link to detail articles - '''[[Canada and weapons of mass destruction|Canada]]''' - Canada has a well developed....
This is somewhat confusing, and means that the highly useful daughter articles are quite hard to notice - especially since the casual reader can't easily tell which sections have daughter articles. Any ideas how best to deal with this? Shimgray | talk | 16:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
It cannot be possible that China has only 130 nuclear warheads. According to other sources, the number is much higher: [1] -- Arado 17:29, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Am currently writing a book that deals with this. According to most of my sources it is widely believed by Western analysts that China, having a relatively low priority for their Second Artillery, and an implied LOW (Launch-On-Warning) doctrine it is supposed that the stockpile only refers to the bare minimum of strategically necessary active warheads. However lack of transparency muddles this considerably (any of you amateur war buffs know this from doing a simple Google on 'Chinese Arsenal') so one must go with not only the modern dynamics of the PLA as it moves fully into the realm of 'Modern-Limited Warfare' but with accurate counts of the missiles appropriated to the task as well as an assimilation of reliable and mostly unbiased sources. I would like to change the number to 400+ because after the research I have conducted it is clear that following bristling maneuvers across the Straits [Taiwan] and the 1999 Yugoslavian\Kosovo war the CMC initiated a robust program to build 100-200 strategic warheads every year. Of course one can only speculate as to actual figures but the 100+ estimates are almost a decade old now. If no one has an objection I would like to change this. Feedback? -- Beifakah 18:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
GOOD Magazine claims China had 200-250 Nuke bombs in 2006, and they were increasing, meaning they should have more now.
Ohlmert gives a list of countries with nuclear weapons: America France Russia und Israel, in an interview in German TV. Is this offical enough to promote Israel into the status of an offical nuclear power?-- Stone 16:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
i've just heard politics analysts telling that france gave nuclear bombs to israel in the ~50/60s & 80s:
heard this in N'ayons pas peur des mots (nov.13, 2006) on i-télé ([www.itele.fr])
Cliché Online 19:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Charles Pasqua is a vice-Interior Minister, he said Churchill proposed a union with France and de Gaulle was against it. Christine Clerc (journalist and writer) was the person i was refering to, she said nobody knows what de gaulle would have done at last. this political talk show was produced in december 2006 (cf. ending credits) but was first broadcasted on january 16, 2007 which is around the same period the BBC unveiled the frangleterre secret plan from a british POV that is different than the french one of course. channel is LCP and the shwo is named Où, Quand, Comment, l'Histoire? Cliché Online 20:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Why is there even a section entitled "List of Nuclear Capable States"? The list provided here is not exhaustive, and does not offer metrics on how to define "nuclear capable". Does "nuclear capable" mean access to the full fuel cycle? A stockpile of weapons usable material? Weapons design? CONOPS development? Doctrine? Second strike capability? We should either tighten up precisely what this means, or get rid of it. March 20, 2006
Canada should be removed from the nuclear-capable states.
There are two factors here and unless they can be proved wrong,Canada should not be on the list:
Canada's geographic location as America's direct neighbor makes all it's facilities (yet alone the entire country) easily vunerable to an American missile strike. If the USA was able to detect Pakistan's nuclear activites by satellite,then there's no way Canada can work on a bomb that goes undetected by the Americans. It is unlikely the USA would tolerate another nuclear armed state,particularly on their own borders.
The author should consider these factors if he/she is to keep Canada on the list of nuclear capable states. Nadirali 08:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)Nadirali
I agree I was wrong about the political feasibility.However,I'd like to point out that uranium and plotonium bombs are independant from each other.Pakistan for example has a mainly uranium made bomb,but has not much record of possesing or formely possessing a plotonium bomb.True that roughly 90% of a nuclear bomb would require either of these materials,there are still materials unkown to the rest of the world except nuclear or former nuclear powers. Pakistan for example is alleged to have "traded"(note that doesnt necessarily mean providing materials at all) the technoligy with N.Korea in exchange for Nodhong missiles. Basically,no country can just aquire a bomb,even if they had the materials.The technoligy must be provided or researched,that is every component,not to mention the secret components. I do not find it difficult to belive Canada may be able to build nuclear weapons considering how advanced they are in nuclear technology,not to mention them having among the largest uranium deposits in the world.I just think more evidence should be provided of Canada's capability to build a proper warhead. Nadirali 06:27, 17 December 2006 (UTC)Nadirali
A suyash 18:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC) The nuetrality of this article seems disputed and it shows that it is acting as the voice of united states, not a neutral one. firstly, israel is suspected to have 200 nuclear weapons. who is suspecting that? certainly united nations can't accuse or suspect any of its member without any proof. it must be united states. secondly, nuclear test by india showed that how use of uranium is secretly diverted from civilian purpose to military.when united states and other countries tested the same in a mass scale, then what was it? was it a good use of uranium? this article must be rated as its neutrality is very much disputed.
It is also interesting that the main articles for US, UK and France are titled 'US and Nuclear Weapons' and so on, but when the ones for China, Pakistan and others are titled 'Pakistan and Weapons of Master Destruction' and so on. May not have been conscious, but consistent nevertheless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiuser999 ( talk • contribs) 05:15, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
In the opening paragraph of the article the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is mentioned but only by the initials NPT. I would suggest that the first usage be in the long form and that it link to the article on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Some one has put wrong numbers at least at active warheads of Russia. I'm 100% sure that there is more than 100 and so said also this article some days ago.
I think it needs to be commented that U.S.A has more weapons than Iran in the section where US accusations against Iran are discussed, this is in order to put the situation in context. -- RuleBrittania 20:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Israel declared itself officially, as a nuclear power since. North Korea will abolish its nuclear weapons. -- 195.56.211.69 10:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I deleted the Spanish section; there was no Spanish nuclear weapons program ever. Even the paragraph that listed it noted that they only developed a feasibility study.
The paragraph on Spain is unintelligible. From the looks of the grammar, it may have been written by a beginning English speaker or directly translated from the contributor's native language. The paragraph was added by 87.220.31.203 in the last three edits made on February 23, 2007:
I have removed the paragraph for now - I started editing, but it is too incoherent in places (and there's no point in trying to make sense of false or speculative information!). I am hoping someone who knows more about the situation will be able to clarify further and validate the information soon as this is a Featured List.
Spain has a significant nuclear power program ( world-nuclear.org) and has been helping other programs for quite a while, but I don't know anything about past or possible weapon programs. Spain does not have a profile on the Nuclear Threat Initiative ( nti.org) which offers a lot of information on such activity, but it certainly seems they are capable, putting them in the same class as Italy and Norway. There are a few articles related to Spain's nuclear program: Search results from NTI; first few abstracts I browsed - successful establishment, 1982, general chronology, 1988, illegally exporting plutonium to France, 1990. Spain signed the NPT in 1987. - Slow Graffiti 08:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
there never was a Spanish nw program. See above about the 18 former nuclear weapons programs. Please reference more then one source before you declare a state of having had a nw program. 22 march 2007
I'm a relative newbie to Wiki so would like some help please. In the UK entry I tried to edit the last sentence to include the name of the UK submarine fleet (Vanguard) and the fact that they are nuclear powered thus: "It maintains the Trident ballistic missile fleet of four 'Vanguard' class nuclear powered submarines." However, can someone change the links so that 'Trident' goes to the missile page (link goes to Vanguard at the mo) and create a link so that Vanguard goes to the submarine page? Thanks Andywebby 11:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I deleted the section "list of nuclear capable countries." It listed states without providing any solid metrics of what constitutes capability, other than saying that these states could develop NW within a range of weeks to several years. Under these terms, any state on the planet would be considered nuclear capable, since it takes several years to develop nuclear weapons. Moreover, not all capability is the same, as was intimated by this list, which included a span of technologically advanced states as Germany, as well as those developing states like Lithunia. Take Lithuania as an example: The article stated that it has one of the largest nuclear power reactors in the world. Perhaps, but this does not indicate whether or not they have access to the full fuel cycle, i.e., the ability to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium to levels suitable to weapons grade. Moreover, nothing is said about their ability to acquire raw uranium, including the mining and milling necessary for a weapons program, and nothing is said about their weapons designing or machining capabilities. Beyond this, nowhere in the article is there any discussion of what is necessary for an aresenal: development of doctrine, concept of operations, delivery methods, etc. This is shoddy, shoddy work. Unless we can tighten this up, leave it out. 22 March 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.53.219.36 ( talk) 21:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC).
In the UK, Germany of the 1933-1945 era is simply referred to as "Germany" on many occasions. In the US, the term "Nazi Germany" is used but "Imperialist Japan" is never used. Some see that as subtle racism as one may think "it's ok to call the Japanese the bad guys but the Germans, those tall, blue eyed, white guys, we can't. Let's just say 'the Nazis did this or that' not 'the Germans committed genocide, etc.' ". Anyway, it's not necessary to debate the above because "Nazi Germany" was not the official name of the country nor was it used by the Germans at the time. The term "Great Satan America" is not used for the United States in this article because, despite common usage in some countries, it's not the official name of the U.S. VK35 22:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
can't remember where i red the charles de gaulle was the last nuclear armed carrier deployed by a country. are you sure the uss enterprise's nuclear capable aircraft are actually armed? Shame On You 20:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
A number of countries are listed either has having had nuclear wepons program or as being suspected of having nuclear weapons programs, for which there is scant evidence. I think the resulting map is highly misleading. I am aware of substantial evidence that the following countries had nuclear weapons programs:
I think the evidence in most of the other cases is weak or speculative. The citations do not support the claimed existence of nuclear weapons programs.
And the list of nuclear capable countries is a complete mishmash. It seems like a random and completely unsystematic listing of countries with widely varying capabilities.
The article mentions an "escargot crisis" as a reason for the French research on nuclear weapons. The links is escargot and has nothing to do with any crisis. Is it a joke ? was there a real Escargot incident ? Thanks-- Franchute 14:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Look at what this staement says, not that pakistan has they following amount of nuclear weopons but that estimates from different sources range from 40 and higher. Therefore that is not the number of nuclear weopans this countries possess but what different sources exclaim that pakistan possess. I will change back to the previous reliable source number known. if someone dissagrees please present a reliable source for your point of veiw. Mandeep 619 ( talk) 18:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Incorrect statement:
“Pakistan is known to have proliferated enrichment technology to North Korea, in exchange for the North Korean IRBM Nodong missiles ( which Pakistan calls Ghauri ), enabling North Korea to conduct its first nuclear test in 2006.”
There is no evidence Pakistan proliferated enrichment technology to North Korea. If there is, please provide reference.
There is no evidence that Pakistan exchanged Nuke tech for Nodong missile. Pakistan president in his book “in the line of fire” said that Pakistan bought Nodong tech from North Korea with hard cash.
North Korea’s Nuclear program is based on Plutonium. Pakistan’s Nuclear program is based on enriched Uranium. The device North Korea detonated in 2006 was a Plutonium based device. They got the Plutonium from their Nuclear Reactor. Pakistan had nothing to do with North Korea’s Nuclear test.
Nodong is an MRBM not an IRBM. IRBM starts from 3000 Km onwards. Ghauri missile is based on the Nodong missile. It is not the exact copy of Nodong.
I have changed the above statement to the following:
“A.Q. Khan is suspected to have proliferated enrichment technology to North Korea, although there is no evidence to back this allegation.” Raza0007 02:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
This is a really, really bad page. There are no metrics for what constitutes a near nuclear weapons state, the number of states with actual, abandoned NW programs is well documented (read any recent issue of Nonproliferation Review), and yet... We have this crappy page. Can someone wiht the time please go back, read the list of 18 countries that rolled back (see the November 2006 issue of Nonproliferation Review for the full list) and revamp this page? It is really, really bad, and anyone who understands proliferation issues laughs at this page. (added by 69.143.20.172, 00:25, May 30, 2007)
Here are an overview of problems: The list of "former NW programs" do not include some of the earliest programs, such as Indonesia (1964-1966 under Sukarno), Norway (1946-1962), and Italy (1958-1962). However, in includes in the list of former NW programs Spain and Poland, even though they are not considered by the combating WMD community to have ever had NW programs. Moreover, their entries do not even present any evidence that there ever was a "program." This begs the question, they are included... why?
The synopses of the states formally having NW program is poor in the extreme. While a majority of the 18 voluntary NW rollback countries are included, they, like NPguy stated, are not presented in any systematic fashion, but merely include some seemingly random facts.
Some basic facts are wrong throughout the page. One example: Brazil is listed as having ratified the Treaty of Tlateloco in 1968. This is not entirely correct, they signed it with reservations, including asserting the right to develop PNEs (peaceful nuclear explosives, indistinguishable technically from rudimentary atomic bombs), and became full members of the treaty in the mid-1990s.
Regarding the states suspected of clandestine NW programs... What are the metrics for making this assertion? Who suspects them? Suspects them of what specifically?
Regarding the virtual nuclear powers: Wow, is this a bad mish-mash of nonsense. Once again, what are the metrics for saying a state is a near or virtual nuclear power? What is their access to fissile material? What kind of access to weapons usable (80% or higher of HEU or Pu) or weapons grade (90% or higher) material do they have? How much can they make indigenously per year? What is their compentancy in the R&D aspects of weaponization? Can they create warheads, or old 1940s style bombs? How about ballistic missile delivery capabilities? How about second strike capabilites or their development of strategic doctrine (to say nothing of CONOPS)? The article states that these countries could be weapons capable within "several" years. What constitutes several? 5? 10? 20 years? Moreover, the cases are quite random. Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, ok, those could be virtual nuclear powers, with all the components of a modern arsenal articulated above within 5 years. But you are still missing other states that fall into this category, such as South Korea, Brazil, etc. Moreover, Bulgaria, Norway, Lithauania, and probably Italy would not be able to do this within 5 years. However, if you expand the metrics of "several" to include 10 years in your development timespan, then half the states on the globe qualify. Moreover, there is no discussion at all of the two main pillars of how serious entities concerned with proliferation (such as the US Government) assess proliferation potential, those being capability and intent assessments. So, the real utility of this entire section of the page is... what?
To finalize, this is a really, really bad page. There are lots of writings on the subjects of past and potential future proliferation (see the works of Mitchell Reiss, Leonard Spector, Lew Dunn, Peter Lavoy, Daniel Poneman, Robert Einhorn, Rebecca Hersman and Robert Peters, etc.), but none of these people who actually write seriously on the subject (the majority of their work is in books such as Bridled Ambition, The Nuclear Tipping Point, Nuclear Proliferation Today, etc.) are even cited? Why?
I think this page gets to the heart of the problem of wikipedia. People who know a small amount about a subject, but not much depth, present poorly understood information in a way that misleads people. Unless you really, really understand what you are talking about, don't post on wikipedia. This entire page is a testament to what is worst about wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.20.172 ( talk • contribs) 23:17, 30 May 2007
Thanks for the comments.
You mentioned sources: Here is a very short list of good sources:
General: Cirincioine, Joseph., Wolfsthal, Jon B., and Rajkumar, Miriam. Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats, Second Edition. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, 2005
Muller, Harald. “Compliance Politics: A Critical Analysis of Multilateral Arms Control Treaty Enforcement.” Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2000
Mitchell Reiss and Robert S. Litwak, ed., Nuclear Proliferation after the Cold War,. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, 1994
Yager, Joseph A. ed., Nonproliferation and US Foreign Policy. Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 1980
Campbell, Kurt M., Einhorn, Robert J. and Reiss, Mitchell B., ed. The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider Their Nuclear Choices. Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 2004
Dunn, Lewis A. Containing Nuclear Proliferation. International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1991
Levite, Ariel E. “Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited.” International Security, Vol. 27, No. 3, Winter 2002/2003
Martel, William C. and Pendley, William T. Nuclear Coexistence: Rethinking U.S. Policy to Promote Stability in an Era of Proliferation. Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, April 1994
Paul, A.V. Power Versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 2000
Reiss, Mitchell. Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain their Nuclear Capabilities. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington DC, 1995
Reiss, Mitchell. Without the Bomb: The Politics of Nuclear Nonproliferation. Columbia University Press, New York, 1988
Spector, Leonard S., and Smith, Jacqueline R., Nuclear Ambitions: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons 1989-1990. Westview Press, Boulder, 1990
Spector, Leonard S. Nuclear Proliferation Today. Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984.
Yager, Joseph A. Prospects for Nuclear Proliferation Rollback. Discussion Paper, Department of Energy, Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, Washington, DC July 6, 1992
For Former Soviet Republics, see:
Bertsch, Gary K. and Potter, William C., ed. Dangerous Weapons, Desperate States: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Routledge, New York, 1999
For Latin America: Redick, John R., “Military Potential of Latin American Nuclear Energy Programs,” International Studies Series, Sage Professional Paper, London, 1972
Redick, John R., “Nuclear Illusions: Argentina and Brazil,” Occasional Paper 25, Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, December 1995
Redick, John R., “The Tlatelolco Regime and Nonporliferation in Latin America,” in Quester, George H., Nuclear Proliferatin, Breaking the Chain, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1981
For Australia: Hymans, Jacques. “Isotopes and Identity: Australia and the Nuclear Weapons Option, 1949-1999.” Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2000
Walsh, Jim. “Surprise Down Under: The Secret History of Australia’s Nuclear Ambitions.” Nonproliferation Review, Fall 1997
Barletta, Michael. The Military Nuclear Program in Brazil. Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control, Palo Alto, 1997
Krasno, Jean. “Brazil’s Secret Nuclear Program.” Orbis, June 1994
For Egypt: Rublee, Maria Rost, “Egypt’s Nuclear Weapons Program: Lessons Learned,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 13, No. Nov. 2006
Gregory, Barbara M., “Egypt’s Nuclear Program: Assessing Supplier-Based and Other Developmental Constraints.” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, Fall 1995
Indonesia: Cornejo, Robert M. “When Sukarno Sought the Bomb: Indonesian Nuclear Aspiration s in the Mid-1960s.” Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2000
Italy: Nuti, Leopoldi. “’Me Too, Please’: Italy and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons, 1945-1975”, in Diplomacy &Statecraft, Vol. 4, No. 1, March 1993
Nuti, Leopoldi. “The F-I-G Story Revisted.” History of International Relations. L.S. Olschki, Florence, 1999.
Libya: Bhattacharjee, Anjali. and Salama, Sammy. Libya and Nonproliferation. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey, December 24, 2003
DeSutter, Paula A. Testimony of Paula A. DeSutter, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance, Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Department of State, Washington, DC, February 26, 2004
Indyk, Martin S. and Walker, Edward S., “What Does Libya’s Disarmament Teach About Rogue States,” Middle East Institute Policy Brief, April 7, 2004
Jentleson, Bruce W., and Whytock, Christopher A. “Who ‘Won’ Libya? The Force-Diplomacy Debate and Its Implications for Theory and Policy,” International Security, Vol. 30, No. 3, 2005/2006
Leverett, Flynt, “Why Libya Gave Up the Bomb,” New York Times, January 23, 2004
Miller, Judith, “How Gadhafi Lost His Groove,” The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2006
Miller, Judith, “Gadhafi’s Leap of Faith,” The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2006
Norway: Clive Archer and Ingrid Sogner, Norway, European Integration and Atlantic Security, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, 1998.
Erik Beukel, Norway’s Base Policy: Historical Interplay Between International Security Policy and Domestic Political Needs, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, 1977
Forland, Astrid. “Norway’s Nuclear Odyssey: From Optimistic Proponent to Nonproliferator.” Nonproliferation Review, Winter 1997
Romania: Aurel Braun, Romanian Foreign Policy Since 1965: The Political and Military Limits of Autonomy, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1978
Ilie Ceausescu, Romanian Military Doctrine: Past and Present, Columbia University Press, New York, 1988
South Africa: Purkitt, Helen E., and Burgess, Stephen F., South Africa’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2005
de Villiers, J.W., Jardine, Roger. and Reiss, Mitchell. “Why South Africa Gave Up the Bomb.” Foreign Affairs, November/December, 1993
Republic of Korea (South Korea): Englehardt, Michael J. “Rewarding Nonproliferation: The South and North Korean Cases.” Nonproliferation Review, Spring-Summer, 1996
Kang, Jungmin., Hayes, Peter., Bin, Li., Suzuki, Tatsujiro. and Tanner, Richard. “South Korea’s Nuclear Surprise.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January/February 2005
Kim Dae-Jung, “Abandoned at a Nuclear Crossroads,” Chosun Ilbo, March 12, 2007
Hayes, Peter. “The Republic of Korea and the Nuclear Issue,” in Asian Flashpoint: Security and the Korean Peninsula. ed. By Mack, Andrew. Allen & Unwin, Canberra, 1993
Sweden: Cole, Paul. Atomic Bombast: Nuclear Weapon Decision Making in Sweden 1944-1972. Henry L. Stimson Center Occasional Paper No. 26, Washington, DC, April 1996
Switzerland: Stussi, Jurg. Historical Outline on the Question of Swiss Nuclear Armament. Swiss Federal Administration, Bern, April 1996
Taiwan: Albright, David. and Gay, Corey. “Taiwan: Nuclear Nightmare Averted,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January-February 1998, Volume 54, Issue 1
Yugoslavia: Koch, Andrew. “Yugoslavia’s Nuclear Legacy: Should We Worry?” Nonproliferation Review. Spring-Summer 1997
Potter, William C., Miljanic, Djuro. and Slaus, Ivo. “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March-April 2000.Vol. 56, Issue No. 2
This is a SMALL, non-exhaustive bibliography examining those states that rolledback NW programs. This list of states who abandoned NW programs conforms with the one that Rebecca Hersman and Robert Peters laid out in the Nov. 2006 issue of Nonproliferation Review (see "Nuclear U-Turns).
The fact that only a very small handful of these are even included in the citations of this page is worrisome enough. However, what is worse, are the utter lack of definitions, metrics, and terms of reference.
I go back to my earlier statement, that their is no uniform means presented to assess states' capability and intent. While factual data needs a serious revamping, to be sure, we need to lay out some definitions and metrics, including: 1) What constitutes a nuclear program? 2) What constitutes capability? 3) What constitutes intent? 4) What measurements do we use to quantify capability/intent? 5) How do we measure levels of influence on states' decisionmaking to both proliferate and rollback? 6) How do we measure "nuclear capable" or "near nuclear" states?
And I'm not saying that we need to remake the wheel on all these issues, not at all. These questions all have answers in actual nonproliferation studies, both in the scholarship world and in the policy world. Understanding the nuances involved, however, requires reading books like those listed above, as well as many others. Putting a mish-mash of facts (many of which are simply not true) down without working through first principles and your fundamental methodological approach is a recipe for chaos, which is what we have on this page.
I understand your standpoint of "if you see a problem fix it," but we have a larger problem: This page, due to a lack of metrics, definitions, and terms of reference, does not work conceptually. It needs to be redone, from scratch. I would start with 1) eliminating the section talking about states that could become a nuclear power in the near term. It is so flawed, as to be unusable. 2) Eliminating the states suspected of having covert/clandestine programs. The Saudi paragraph is bad. 3) Seriously revamping the list of states that abandoned programs. And most importantly, 4) identify what your definitions, metrics, terms of reference, and scope will be. The nature of this project, however, is on the level of a book (or several, as there is an entire field out there that we're tyring to summarize). A project of this size requires a single editor, or a small, cohesive editorial board, which is fundamentally opposite of how wikipedia operates. This is why I say, this page demonstrates what is worst about wikipedia, why I think it got to be this bad (no single editor with established methodological parameters), and why I think the wikipedia experiment will ultimately fail (unfortunately). → CP Guy
This article is on Wikipedia featured lists! I do not want to belittle the hard work of all the people who have contributed to this article, but there is something fundamentally wrong with it. The heading of the article is "List of States with Nuclear Weapons" but the body of the article also includes states that only have a Nuclear Program. There is a huge difference between Nuclear weapons capability (Nuclear warheads design capability) and simple Nuclear program. In my opinion the only countries that should be listed under the heading “List of States with Nuclear Weapons” are the countries that currently possess Nuclear warheads (US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) and those countries that previously possessed Nuclear Warheads ( South Africa, former Soviet countries etc.). Any other country should not be included in this article. I mean, what is Saudi Arabia doing here. They don’t even have a Nuclear program of any kind. To include them in this article appears to be a joke of some kind. Even Iran. They have only managed to enrich Uranium to a level of 3%, what are they doing under the list of states with nuclear weapons? Even if they manage to enrich Uranium to 90%, the level required for a weapon, what are they going to do, throw a container of highly enriched Uranium at somebody! Iran should only be included in this article when they have successfully developed a Nuclear Warhead.
Either this article needs to be heavily edited or the name of the article needs to be changed to “List of States with Nuclear Programs and Nuclear Weapons” or simply “List of Nuclear States”.
Does anyone agree? -- Raza0007 03:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree Raza. This is an awful page that should be redone from the beginning. I've been trying to change it for months, and have ultimately given up on the effort. Good luck affecting a change.--CP Guy, 26 June, 2007
Yeah, its bad, and I've been trying to change it for a while. Even the bibliography is piss poor; the problem is anyone who knows stuff about the subject will know that this page is a joke, and those who don't, as you pointed out, will leave confused (at best) or misinformed (at worst, and probably more likely). Once again, to me, this page is the perfect example of what is bad about wikipedia.--June 27, 2007, CP Guy
MAJOR REWORKING OF PAGE
So, now that we've got this page taken off the "featured lists" page, can we start to actually clean up this page, starting with deleting "states with former nuclear weapons programs" and "nuclear-capable states"? CP Guy, 6, July
Point taken. Any other thoughts?--CP Guy, 8 July, 2007
Asterion, I'd disagree; the citations for the list of former nuclear weapons states is not sufficient, it is in fact quite poor. I put up a very truncated bibliography for list of states with former NW programs up in a previous section. A good list of citations should at least examine the major works done on states that engaged in NW rollback. This has not been done anywhere on this page, other then a few articles from FAS and Atomic Bulletin here and there (which is insufficient). I'd kill the entire section. CP Guy, July 10
Is it just the US which suspects Iran of having a nuclear weapons programme? Does not the IAEA share those suspicions? And surely also the UK, France and others? DSuser 20:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
And thats a good thing Supersaiyan474 ( talk) 17:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Someone, or perhaps several editors, keep making changes to the stockpile numbers in the article, but without changing the citations. If the reference says that Israel has 70-120 warheads, you can't use it so support a claim that Israel has 120-200 warheads. The numbers are certainly open to question, but to change the numbers requires a citation from a credible source. I also note that some of the citation links no longer work and probably need to be updated anyway. NPguy 03:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The UK is down for 750 but the wiki article on UK nuclear weapons states c.200. There has also been recent statements about who has the smallest number of nuclear weapons between the UK and China. 62.56.49.30 15:11, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know who thought it was a great idea to signal out Pakistan and North Korea as having a "proliferation record" but I think it is worth noting that
Lastly, sorting people by their "proliferation record" is by definition an inexact form of categorization. It is not a useful form of organization for a page like this. -- 24.147.86.187 ( talk) 03:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Correction, I do know who it was: User:Chanakyathegreat, who seems to have made it his pet project to post anti-Pakistan material on this page. I have no love for Pakistan, but let's keep things as neutral as possible, ok? -- 24.147.86.187 ( talk) 03:25, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
This might sound odd but, they don't seem to make mention in the sources whether they are talking about warheads as in the entire missile payload being one warhead or whether they are talking about warheads in the sense of each individual nuclear bomblet? A Trident D5, for example has 8 nuclear warheads within the missile, as I understand it (with the possibility to have more, but limited due to MRV treaties). Is this counted as 1 or 8 on the list? Narson ( talk) 15:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 7 |
One of my friends thinks that Japan has nuclear bombs, I dont think that it is true but can someone please clear it up for me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Takaja ( talk • contribs) 01:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
No. They don't. 62.232.4.58 ( talk) 07:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC) duh!thats why US bombers destroyed some parts of japan . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Supersaiyan474 ( talk • contribs) 17:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Why is Sweden and Germany there? They don't have any nuclear weapons. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
81.229.73.179 (
talk)
10:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
That's what you think and what we want the world to believe… seems to work out just fine --
89.246.24.122 (
talk)
21:09, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
please any administrator do not block my account i have refrence for my answer if u need proof.conact me before blocking my account please
So, for those editing the page and trying to reinstill the list of states with former nuclear weapons programs and other nuclear capable countries, please talk here to give your explanation for why these sections should be included on the page. This is stupid; NP Guy, myself, and others have put forth reasons for why these sections should be deleted (see below), if you disagree, then put forth an argument for keeping them, but let's not do this stupid "undo" drill for days on end. CP Guy July 21
Seriously, I think we've raised enough concerns about the "states formerly possessing nuclear weapons programs" and "other near nuclear states," that I think we can delete them. I've made my case, others have made this case, are there any objections? CP Guy, July 13
Ok, I'm deleting those two sections, since I've had no nays. CP Guy, July 16
So, I've changed the page three times now, trying to address the issues in the list of states formerly possing nuclear weapons and other nuclear capable states. Each time, edits have been undone by folks who I can only infer have not been following these discussions, as they indicated that I have provided no justification for editing (which I've been doing since March). Thus, I give you Wikipedia.
It is said that America has 7068 NOT the 5000 that the Page states
Along with that Russia has 8232 nuclear warheads Britain only has 180 not 200 (im from Britain i would know) France has 348 and both India and Pakistan have 30-40 estimated
US intelligence prooved that pakistan has more than india ;pakistan:25-100 ,india:a handful(about five) Supersaiyan474 ( talk) 17:39, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Evidence is the book/Encyclopedia "The Times: A Complete History of the World" by Overy, Richards 2004 and has been updated every 2 years. It is highly regarded. I can give the full list of the Warheads, type (submarine based, defence etc) if it is needed. PastryTarget 21:47 11 July 2007
Precise number of warheads is classified. Any number put down is an estimate. Getting down the tens or even single numbers is not a helpful endeavor. Moreover, you "cite" an encyclopedia; a reference in an encyclopedia is not "evidence." CP Guy, 11 July.
The numbers here for the US and Russia are dramatically different from this source: http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab19.asp Bsharvy 14:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Obviously, North Korea claims to have nuclear capability, but the size of the explosions measured were not in the kiloton range. It was either a misfire or a hoax. It makes no sense to include it.
-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 ( talk) 04:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
The source for North Korea was tagged 'unreliable', but GlobalSecurity.org is in the 'Best of the Web' directory of Forbes.com. Joshua Issac ( talk) 12:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
The links here for countries in their entries are really rather misleading. Some are outright links to a country - '''[[Germany]]''' - While Germany is a signatory of the NPT... - whilst others link to detail articles - '''[[Canada and weapons of mass destruction|Canada]]''' - Canada has a well developed....
This is somewhat confusing, and means that the highly useful daughter articles are quite hard to notice - especially since the casual reader can't easily tell which sections have daughter articles. Any ideas how best to deal with this? Shimgray | talk | 16:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
It cannot be possible that China has only 130 nuclear warheads. According to other sources, the number is much higher: [1] -- Arado 17:29, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Am currently writing a book that deals with this. According to most of my sources it is widely believed by Western analysts that China, having a relatively low priority for their Second Artillery, and an implied LOW (Launch-On-Warning) doctrine it is supposed that the stockpile only refers to the bare minimum of strategically necessary active warheads. However lack of transparency muddles this considerably (any of you amateur war buffs know this from doing a simple Google on 'Chinese Arsenal') so one must go with not only the modern dynamics of the PLA as it moves fully into the realm of 'Modern-Limited Warfare' but with accurate counts of the missiles appropriated to the task as well as an assimilation of reliable and mostly unbiased sources. I would like to change the number to 400+ because after the research I have conducted it is clear that following bristling maneuvers across the Straits [Taiwan] and the 1999 Yugoslavian\Kosovo war the CMC initiated a robust program to build 100-200 strategic warheads every year. Of course one can only speculate as to actual figures but the 100+ estimates are almost a decade old now. If no one has an objection I would like to change this. Feedback? -- Beifakah 18:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
GOOD Magazine claims China had 200-250 Nuke bombs in 2006, and they were increasing, meaning they should have more now.
Ohlmert gives a list of countries with nuclear weapons: America France Russia und Israel, in an interview in German TV. Is this offical enough to promote Israel into the status of an offical nuclear power?-- Stone 16:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
i've just heard politics analysts telling that france gave nuclear bombs to israel in the ~50/60s & 80s:
heard this in N'ayons pas peur des mots (nov.13, 2006) on i-télé ([www.itele.fr])
Cliché Online 19:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Charles Pasqua is a vice-Interior Minister, he said Churchill proposed a union with France and de Gaulle was against it. Christine Clerc (journalist and writer) was the person i was refering to, she said nobody knows what de gaulle would have done at last. this political talk show was produced in december 2006 (cf. ending credits) but was first broadcasted on january 16, 2007 which is around the same period the BBC unveiled the frangleterre secret plan from a british POV that is different than the french one of course. channel is LCP and the shwo is named Où, Quand, Comment, l'Histoire? Cliché Online 20:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Why is there even a section entitled "List of Nuclear Capable States"? The list provided here is not exhaustive, and does not offer metrics on how to define "nuclear capable". Does "nuclear capable" mean access to the full fuel cycle? A stockpile of weapons usable material? Weapons design? CONOPS development? Doctrine? Second strike capability? We should either tighten up precisely what this means, or get rid of it. March 20, 2006
Canada should be removed from the nuclear-capable states.
There are two factors here and unless they can be proved wrong,Canada should not be on the list:
Canada's geographic location as America's direct neighbor makes all it's facilities (yet alone the entire country) easily vunerable to an American missile strike. If the USA was able to detect Pakistan's nuclear activites by satellite,then there's no way Canada can work on a bomb that goes undetected by the Americans. It is unlikely the USA would tolerate another nuclear armed state,particularly on their own borders.
The author should consider these factors if he/she is to keep Canada on the list of nuclear capable states. Nadirali 08:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)Nadirali
I agree I was wrong about the political feasibility.However,I'd like to point out that uranium and plotonium bombs are independant from each other.Pakistan for example has a mainly uranium made bomb,but has not much record of possesing or formely possessing a plotonium bomb.True that roughly 90% of a nuclear bomb would require either of these materials,there are still materials unkown to the rest of the world except nuclear or former nuclear powers. Pakistan for example is alleged to have "traded"(note that doesnt necessarily mean providing materials at all) the technoligy with N.Korea in exchange for Nodhong missiles. Basically,no country can just aquire a bomb,even if they had the materials.The technoligy must be provided or researched,that is every component,not to mention the secret components. I do not find it difficult to belive Canada may be able to build nuclear weapons considering how advanced they are in nuclear technology,not to mention them having among the largest uranium deposits in the world.I just think more evidence should be provided of Canada's capability to build a proper warhead. Nadirali 06:27, 17 December 2006 (UTC)Nadirali
A suyash 18:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC) The nuetrality of this article seems disputed and it shows that it is acting as the voice of united states, not a neutral one. firstly, israel is suspected to have 200 nuclear weapons. who is suspecting that? certainly united nations can't accuse or suspect any of its member without any proof. it must be united states. secondly, nuclear test by india showed that how use of uranium is secretly diverted from civilian purpose to military.when united states and other countries tested the same in a mass scale, then what was it? was it a good use of uranium? this article must be rated as its neutrality is very much disputed.
It is also interesting that the main articles for US, UK and France are titled 'US and Nuclear Weapons' and so on, but when the ones for China, Pakistan and others are titled 'Pakistan and Weapons of Master Destruction' and so on. May not have been conscious, but consistent nevertheless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiuser999 ( talk • contribs) 05:15, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
In the opening paragraph of the article the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is mentioned but only by the initials NPT. I would suggest that the first usage be in the long form and that it link to the article on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Some one has put wrong numbers at least at active warheads of Russia. I'm 100% sure that there is more than 100 and so said also this article some days ago.
I think it needs to be commented that U.S.A has more weapons than Iran in the section where US accusations against Iran are discussed, this is in order to put the situation in context. -- RuleBrittania 20:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Israel declared itself officially, as a nuclear power since. North Korea will abolish its nuclear weapons. -- 195.56.211.69 10:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I deleted the Spanish section; there was no Spanish nuclear weapons program ever. Even the paragraph that listed it noted that they only developed a feasibility study.
The paragraph on Spain is unintelligible. From the looks of the grammar, it may have been written by a beginning English speaker or directly translated from the contributor's native language. The paragraph was added by 87.220.31.203 in the last three edits made on February 23, 2007:
I have removed the paragraph for now - I started editing, but it is too incoherent in places (and there's no point in trying to make sense of false or speculative information!). I am hoping someone who knows more about the situation will be able to clarify further and validate the information soon as this is a Featured List.
Spain has a significant nuclear power program ( world-nuclear.org) and has been helping other programs for quite a while, but I don't know anything about past or possible weapon programs. Spain does not have a profile on the Nuclear Threat Initiative ( nti.org) which offers a lot of information on such activity, but it certainly seems they are capable, putting them in the same class as Italy and Norway. There are a few articles related to Spain's nuclear program: Search results from NTI; first few abstracts I browsed - successful establishment, 1982, general chronology, 1988, illegally exporting plutonium to France, 1990. Spain signed the NPT in 1987. - Slow Graffiti 08:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
there never was a Spanish nw program. See above about the 18 former nuclear weapons programs. Please reference more then one source before you declare a state of having had a nw program. 22 march 2007
I'm a relative newbie to Wiki so would like some help please. In the UK entry I tried to edit the last sentence to include the name of the UK submarine fleet (Vanguard) and the fact that they are nuclear powered thus: "It maintains the Trident ballistic missile fleet of four 'Vanguard' class nuclear powered submarines." However, can someone change the links so that 'Trident' goes to the missile page (link goes to Vanguard at the mo) and create a link so that Vanguard goes to the submarine page? Thanks Andywebby 11:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I deleted the section "list of nuclear capable countries." It listed states without providing any solid metrics of what constitutes capability, other than saying that these states could develop NW within a range of weeks to several years. Under these terms, any state on the planet would be considered nuclear capable, since it takes several years to develop nuclear weapons. Moreover, not all capability is the same, as was intimated by this list, which included a span of technologically advanced states as Germany, as well as those developing states like Lithunia. Take Lithuania as an example: The article stated that it has one of the largest nuclear power reactors in the world. Perhaps, but this does not indicate whether or not they have access to the full fuel cycle, i.e., the ability to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium to levels suitable to weapons grade. Moreover, nothing is said about their ability to acquire raw uranium, including the mining and milling necessary for a weapons program, and nothing is said about their weapons designing or machining capabilities. Beyond this, nowhere in the article is there any discussion of what is necessary for an aresenal: development of doctrine, concept of operations, delivery methods, etc. This is shoddy, shoddy work. Unless we can tighten this up, leave it out. 22 March 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.53.219.36 ( talk) 21:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC).
In the UK, Germany of the 1933-1945 era is simply referred to as "Germany" on many occasions. In the US, the term "Nazi Germany" is used but "Imperialist Japan" is never used. Some see that as subtle racism as one may think "it's ok to call the Japanese the bad guys but the Germans, those tall, blue eyed, white guys, we can't. Let's just say 'the Nazis did this or that' not 'the Germans committed genocide, etc.' ". Anyway, it's not necessary to debate the above because "Nazi Germany" was not the official name of the country nor was it used by the Germans at the time. The term "Great Satan America" is not used for the United States in this article because, despite common usage in some countries, it's not the official name of the U.S. VK35 22:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
can't remember where i red the charles de gaulle was the last nuclear armed carrier deployed by a country. are you sure the uss enterprise's nuclear capable aircraft are actually armed? Shame On You 20:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
A number of countries are listed either has having had nuclear wepons program or as being suspected of having nuclear weapons programs, for which there is scant evidence. I think the resulting map is highly misleading. I am aware of substantial evidence that the following countries had nuclear weapons programs:
I think the evidence in most of the other cases is weak or speculative. The citations do not support the claimed existence of nuclear weapons programs.
And the list of nuclear capable countries is a complete mishmash. It seems like a random and completely unsystematic listing of countries with widely varying capabilities.
The article mentions an "escargot crisis" as a reason for the French research on nuclear weapons. The links is escargot and has nothing to do with any crisis. Is it a joke ? was there a real Escargot incident ? Thanks-- Franchute 14:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Look at what this staement says, not that pakistan has they following amount of nuclear weopons but that estimates from different sources range from 40 and higher. Therefore that is not the number of nuclear weopans this countries possess but what different sources exclaim that pakistan possess. I will change back to the previous reliable source number known. if someone dissagrees please present a reliable source for your point of veiw. Mandeep 619 ( talk) 18:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Incorrect statement:
“Pakistan is known to have proliferated enrichment technology to North Korea, in exchange for the North Korean IRBM Nodong missiles ( which Pakistan calls Ghauri ), enabling North Korea to conduct its first nuclear test in 2006.”
There is no evidence Pakistan proliferated enrichment technology to North Korea. If there is, please provide reference.
There is no evidence that Pakistan exchanged Nuke tech for Nodong missile. Pakistan president in his book “in the line of fire” said that Pakistan bought Nodong tech from North Korea with hard cash.
North Korea’s Nuclear program is based on Plutonium. Pakistan’s Nuclear program is based on enriched Uranium. The device North Korea detonated in 2006 was a Plutonium based device. They got the Plutonium from their Nuclear Reactor. Pakistan had nothing to do with North Korea’s Nuclear test.
Nodong is an MRBM not an IRBM. IRBM starts from 3000 Km onwards. Ghauri missile is based on the Nodong missile. It is not the exact copy of Nodong.
I have changed the above statement to the following:
“A.Q. Khan is suspected to have proliferated enrichment technology to North Korea, although there is no evidence to back this allegation.” Raza0007 02:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
This is a really, really bad page. There are no metrics for what constitutes a near nuclear weapons state, the number of states with actual, abandoned NW programs is well documented (read any recent issue of Nonproliferation Review), and yet... We have this crappy page. Can someone wiht the time please go back, read the list of 18 countries that rolled back (see the November 2006 issue of Nonproliferation Review for the full list) and revamp this page? It is really, really bad, and anyone who understands proliferation issues laughs at this page. (added by 69.143.20.172, 00:25, May 30, 2007)
Here are an overview of problems: The list of "former NW programs" do not include some of the earliest programs, such as Indonesia (1964-1966 under Sukarno), Norway (1946-1962), and Italy (1958-1962). However, in includes in the list of former NW programs Spain and Poland, even though they are not considered by the combating WMD community to have ever had NW programs. Moreover, their entries do not even present any evidence that there ever was a "program." This begs the question, they are included... why?
The synopses of the states formally having NW program is poor in the extreme. While a majority of the 18 voluntary NW rollback countries are included, they, like NPguy stated, are not presented in any systematic fashion, but merely include some seemingly random facts.
Some basic facts are wrong throughout the page. One example: Brazil is listed as having ratified the Treaty of Tlateloco in 1968. This is not entirely correct, they signed it with reservations, including asserting the right to develop PNEs (peaceful nuclear explosives, indistinguishable technically from rudimentary atomic bombs), and became full members of the treaty in the mid-1990s.
Regarding the states suspected of clandestine NW programs... What are the metrics for making this assertion? Who suspects them? Suspects them of what specifically?
Regarding the virtual nuclear powers: Wow, is this a bad mish-mash of nonsense. Once again, what are the metrics for saying a state is a near or virtual nuclear power? What is their access to fissile material? What kind of access to weapons usable (80% or higher of HEU or Pu) or weapons grade (90% or higher) material do they have? How much can they make indigenously per year? What is their compentancy in the R&D aspects of weaponization? Can they create warheads, or old 1940s style bombs? How about ballistic missile delivery capabilities? How about second strike capabilites or their development of strategic doctrine (to say nothing of CONOPS)? The article states that these countries could be weapons capable within "several" years. What constitutes several? 5? 10? 20 years? Moreover, the cases are quite random. Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, ok, those could be virtual nuclear powers, with all the components of a modern arsenal articulated above within 5 years. But you are still missing other states that fall into this category, such as South Korea, Brazil, etc. Moreover, Bulgaria, Norway, Lithauania, and probably Italy would not be able to do this within 5 years. However, if you expand the metrics of "several" to include 10 years in your development timespan, then half the states on the globe qualify. Moreover, there is no discussion at all of the two main pillars of how serious entities concerned with proliferation (such as the US Government) assess proliferation potential, those being capability and intent assessments. So, the real utility of this entire section of the page is... what?
To finalize, this is a really, really bad page. There are lots of writings on the subjects of past and potential future proliferation (see the works of Mitchell Reiss, Leonard Spector, Lew Dunn, Peter Lavoy, Daniel Poneman, Robert Einhorn, Rebecca Hersman and Robert Peters, etc.), but none of these people who actually write seriously on the subject (the majority of their work is in books such as Bridled Ambition, The Nuclear Tipping Point, Nuclear Proliferation Today, etc.) are even cited? Why?
I think this page gets to the heart of the problem of wikipedia. People who know a small amount about a subject, but not much depth, present poorly understood information in a way that misleads people. Unless you really, really understand what you are talking about, don't post on wikipedia. This entire page is a testament to what is worst about wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.20.172 ( talk • contribs) 23:17, 30 May 2007
Thanks for the comments.
You mentioned sources: Here is a very short list of good sources:
General: Cirincioine, Joseph., Wolfsthal, Jon B., and Rajkumar, Miriam. Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats, Second Edition. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, 2005
Muller, Harald. “Compliance Politics: A Critical Analysis of Multilateral Arms Control Treaty Enforcement.” Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2000
Mitchell Reiss and Robert S. Litwak, ed., Nuclear Proliferation after the Cold War,. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, 1994
Yager, Joseph A. ed., Nonproliferation and US Foreign Policy. Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 1980
Campbell, Kurt M., Einhorn, Robert J. and Reiss, Mitchell B., ed. The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider Their Nuclear Choices. Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 2004
Dunn, Lewis A. Containing Nuclear Proliferation. International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1991
Levite, Ariel E. “Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited.” International Security, Vol. 27, No. 3, Winter 2002/2003
Martel, William C. and Pendley, William T. Nuclear Coexistence: Rethinking U.S. Policy to Promote Stability in an Era of Proliferation. Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, April 1994
Paul, A.V. Power Versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 2000
Reiss, Mitchell. Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain their Nuclear Capabilities. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington DC, 1995
Reiss, Mitchell. Without the Bomb: The Politics of Nuclear Nonproliferation. Columbia University Press, New York, 1988
Spector, Leonard S., and Smith, Jacqueline R., Nuclear Ambitions: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons 1989-1990. Westview Press, Boulder, 1990
Spector, Leonard S. Nuclear Proliferation Today. Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984.
Yager, Joseph A. Prospects for Nuclear Proliferation Rollback. Discussion Paper, Department of Energy, Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, Washington, DC July 6, 1992
For Former Soviet Republics, see:
Bertsch, Gary K. and Potter, William C., ed. Dangerous Weapons, Desperate States: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Routledge, New York, 1999
For Latin America: Redick, John R., “Military Potential of Latin American Nuclear Energy Programs,” International Studies Series, Sage Professional Paper, London, 1972
Redick, John R., “Nuclear Illusions: Argentina and Brazil,” Occasional Paper 25, Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, December 1995
Redick, John R., “The Tlatelolco Regime and Nonporliferation in Latin America,” in Quester, George H., Nuclear Proliferatin, Breaking the Chain, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1981
For Australia: Hymans, Jacques. “Isotopes and Identity: Australia and the Nuclear Weapons Option, 1949-1999.” Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2000
Walsh, Jim. “Surprise Down Under: The Secret History of Australia’s Nuclear Ambitions.” Nonproliferation Review, Fall 1997
Barletta, Michael. The Military Nuclear Program in Brazil. Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control, Palo Alto, 1997
Krasno, Jean. “Brazil’s Secret Nuclear Program.” Orbis, June 1994
For Egypt: Rublee, Maria Rost, “Egypt’s Nuclear Weapons Program: Lessons Learned,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 13, No. Nov. 2006
Gregory, Barbara M., “Egypt’s Nuclear Program: Assessing Supplier-Based and Other Developmental Constraints.” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, Fall 1995
Indonesia: Cornejo, Robert M. “When Sukarno Sought the Bomb: Indonesian Nuclear Aspiration s in the Mid-1960s.” Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2000
Italy: Nuti, Leopoldi. “’Me Too, Please’: Italy and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons, 1945-1975”, in Diplomacy &Statecraft, Vol. 4, No. 1, March 1993
Nuti, Leopoldi. “The F-I-G Story Revisted.” History of International Relations. L.S. Olschki, Florence, 1999.
Libya: Bhattacharjee, Anjali. and Salama, Sammy. Libya and Nonproliferation. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey, December 24, 2003
DeSutter, Paula A. Testimony of Paula A. DeSutter, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance, Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Department of State, Washington, DC, February 26, 2004
Indyk, Martin S. and Walker, Edward S., “What Does Libya’s Disarmament Teach About Rogue States,” Middle East Institute Policy Brief, April 7, 2004
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Leverett, Flynt, “Why Libya Gave Up the Bomb,” New York Times, January 23, 2004
Miller, Judith, “How Gadhafi Lost His Groove,” The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2006
Miller, Judith, “Gadhafi’s Leap of Faith,” The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2006
Norway: Clive Archer and Ingrid Sogner, Norway, European Integration and Atlantic Security, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, 1998.
Erik Beukel, Norway’s Base Policy: Historical Interplay Between International Security Policy and Domestic Political Needs, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, 1977
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Ilie Ceausescu, Romanian Military Doctrine: Past and Present, Columbia University Press, New York, 1988
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de Villiers, J.W., Jardine, Roger. and Reiss, Mitchell. “Why South Africa Gave Up the Bomb.” Foreign Affairs, November/December, 1993
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Kang, Jungmin., Hayes, Peter., Bin, Li., Suzuki, Tatsujiro. and Tanner, Richard. “South Korea’s Nuclear Surprise.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January/February 2005
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Hayes, Peter. “The Republic of Korea and the Nuclear Issue,” in Asian Flashpoint: Security and the Korean Peninsula. ed. By Mack, Andrew. Allen & Unwin, Canberra, 1993
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This is a SMALL, non-exhaustive bibliography examining those states that rolledback NW programs. This list of states who abandoned NW programs conforms with the one that Rebecca Hersman and Robert Peters laid out in the Nov. 2006 issue of Nonproliferation Review (see "Nuclear U-Turns).
The fact that only a very small handful of these are even included in the citations of this page is worrisome enough. However, what is worse, are the utter lack of definitions, metrics, and terms of reference.
I go back to my earlier statement, that their is no uniform means presented to assess states' capability and intent. While factual data needs a serious revamping, to be sure, we need to lay out some definitions and metrics, including: 1) What constitutes a nuclear program? 2) What constitutes capability? 3) What constitutes intent? 4) What measurements do we use to quantify capability/intent? 5) How do we measure levels of influence on states' decisionmaking to both proliferate and rollback? 6) How do we measure "nuclear capable" or "near nuclear" states?
And I'm not saying that we need to remake the wheel on all these issues, not at all. These questions all have answers in actual nonproliferation studies, both in the scholarship world and in the policy world. Understanding the nuances involved, however, requires reading books like those listed above, as well as many others. Putting a mish-mash of facts (many of which are simply not true) down without working through first principles and your fundamental methodological approach is a recipe for chaos, which is what we have on this page.
I understand your standpoint of "if you see a problem fix it," but we have a larger problem: This page, due to a lack of metrics, definitions, and terms of reference, does not work conceptually. It needs to be redone, from scratch. I would start with 1) eliminating the section talking about states that could become a nuclear power in the near term. It is so flawed, as to be unusable. 2) Eliminating the states suspected of having covert/clandestine programs. The Saudi paragraph is bad. 3) Seriously revamping the list of states that abandoned programs. And most importantly, 4) identify what your definitions, metrics, terms of reference, and scope will be. The nature of this project, however, is on the level of a book (or several, as there is an entire field out there that we're tyring to summarize). A project of this size requires a single editor, or a small, cohesive editorial board, which is fundamentally opposite of how wikipedia operates. This is why I say, this page demonstrates what is worst about wikipedia, why I think it got to be this bad (no single editor with established methodological parameters), and why I think the wikipedia experiment will ultimately fail (unfortunately). → CP Guy
This article is on Wikipedia featured lists! I do not want to belittle the hard work of all the people who have contributed to this article, but there is something fundamentally wrong with it. The heading of the article is "List of States with Nuclear Weapons" but the body of the article also includes states that only have a Nuclear Program. There is a huge difference between Nuclear weapons capability (Nuclear warheads design capability) and simple Nuclear program. In my opinion the only countries that should be listed under the heading “List of States with Nuclear Weapons” are the countries that currently possess Nuclear warheads (US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) and those countries that previously possessed Nuclear Warheads ( South Africa, former Soviet countries etc.). Any other country should not be included in this article. I mean, what is Saudi Arabia doing here. They don’t even have a Nuclear program of any kind. To include them in this article appears to be a joke of some kind. Even Iran. They have only managed to enrich Uranium to a level of 3%, what are they doing under the list of states with nuclear weapons? Even if they manage to enrich Uranium to 90%, the level required for a weapon, what are they going to do, throw a container of highly enriched Uranium at somebody! Iran should only be included in this article when they have successfully developed a Nuclear Warhead.
Either this article needs to be heavily edited or the name of the article needs to be changed to “List of States with Nuclear Programs and Nuclear Weapons” or simply “List of Nuclear States”.
Does anyone agree? -- Raza0007 03:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree Raza. This is an awful page that should be redone from the beginning. I've been trying to change it for months, and have ultimately given up on the effort. Good luck affecting a change.--CP Guy, 26 June, 2007
Yeah, its bad, and I've been trying to change it for a while. Even the bibliography is piss poor; the problem is anyone who knows stuff about the subject will know that this page is a joke, and those who don't, as you pointed out, will leave confused (at best) or misinformed (at worst, and probably more likely). Once again, to me, this page is the perfect example of what is bad about wikipedia.--June 27, 2007, CP Guy
MAJOR REWORKING OF PAGE
So, now that we've got this page taken off the "featured lists" page, can we start to actually clean up this page, starting with deleting "states with former nuclear weapons programs" and "nuclear-capable states"? CP Guy, 6, July
Point taken. Any other thoughts?--CP Guy, 8 July, 2007
Asterion, I'd disagree; the citations for the list of former nuclear weapons states is not sufficient, it is in fact quite poor. I put up a very truncated bibliography for list of states with former NW programs up in a previous section. A good list of citations should at least examine the major works done on states that engaged in NW rollback. This has not been done anywhere on this page, other then a few articles from FAS and Atomic Bulletin here and there (which is insufficient). I'd kill the entire section. CP Guy, July 10
Is it just the US which suspects Iran of having a nuclear weapons programme? Does not the IAEA share those suspicions? And surely also the UK, France and others? DSuser 20:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
And thats a good thing Supersaiyan474 ( talk) 17:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Someone, or perhaps several editors, keep making changes to the stockpile numbers in the article, but without changing the citations. If the reference says that Israel has 70-120 warheads, you can't use it so support a claim that Israel has 120-200 warheads. The numbers are certainly open to question, but to change the numbers requires a citation from a credible source. I also note that some of the citation links no longer work and probably need to be updated anyway. NPguy 03:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The UK is down for 750 but the wiki article on UK nuclear weapons states c.200. There has also been recent statements about who has the smallest number of nuclear weapons between the UK and China. 62.56.49.30 15:11, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know who thought it was a great idea to signal out Pakistan and North Korea as having a "proliferation record" but I think it is worth noting that
Lastly, sorting people by their "proliferation record" is by definition an inexact form of categorization. It is not a useful form of organization for a page like this. -- 24.147.86.187 ( talk) 03:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Correction, I do know who it was: User:Chanakyathegreat, who seems to have made it his pet project to post anti-Pakistan material on this page. I have no love for Pakistan, but let's keep things as neutral as possible, ok? -- 24.147.86.187 ( talk) 03:25, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
This might sound odd but, they don't seem to make mention in the sources whether they are talking about warheads as in the entire missile payload being one warhead or whether they are talking about warheads in the sense of each individual nuclear bomblet? A Trident D5, for example has 8 nuclear warheads within the missile, as I understand it (with the possibility to have more, but limited due to MRV treaties). Is this counted as 1 or 8 on the list? Narson ( talk) 15:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)