World War III: List of Countries With Nuclear Weapons As Israel-Iran War Escalates; Russia Tops With 5,449

The Israel-Iran war has entered its ninth day, and the centre of the conflict has become about the production of nuclear weapons

Currently, only nine countries in the world own nuclear weapons, and Israel is among the list, while Iran has yet to be in such a position

On the other hand, Russia and the United States own over 90 per cent of the nuclear warheads in the world, posing a potential threat to the existence of humanity.

Israel has continued its offensive attacks on Iran over the allegation that its regional neighbour was building a nuclear weapon, an allegation that the Iranian government has neither denied nor confirmed

The building of nuclear power is becoming the order of the day, as it appears that any country that has it would not be threatened by a world power. However, as against the desire of humanity, the likelihood that nuclear weapons would one day be used keeps growing, and the world is becoming more unstable.

According to Al Jazeera, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) made the broad conclusion in its Yearbook, which was published on Monday, June 16. The publication was a compilation of SIPRI’s recent research on conflicts, military expenditure and arms transfers.

SIPRI emphasised what it described as a dawning new arms race among the countries owning nuclear arms. According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), these countries have about 12,331 nuclear warheads.

ICAN stated that over 9,600 of these nuclear facilities are active military stockpiles, citing the report of the Federation of Atomic Scientists’ 2025 Status of the World’s Nuclear Forces. While noting a significant decline in the 70,000 warheads belonging to the nuclear-armed countries during the Cold War, there are tendencies for them to grow in the next decade, considering the vast capability of today’s forces.

At the moment, Russia is confirmed to be the highest owner of nuclear weapons with over 5,500. The United States followed Russia with over 5,044 nuclear weapons, which were hosted across Turkey, Italy, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. Russia and the USA owned 90 per cent of the total nuclear weapons across the world

ICAN reported that the total number of nuclear weapons owned by North Korea and Israel could not be confirmed. North Korea was estimated to have developed enough fissile material to develop between 40-50 individual nuclear weapons, while Israel reportedly has material for up to 200. It was estimated that Israel has 90 existing warheads.

Below is the full list of the countries with nuclear weapons and the number they have at present, according to ICAN: