Nuclear weapons are among the deadliest weapons of war. A strong blast wave, striking radiation and a powerful oscillation of the magnetic field make it a total destroyer of all living things for several decades to come.
A nuclear power is a country that is armed with nuclear warheads. Such a state is capable of independently conducting all the research necessary for production and assembling a deadly warhead, from parts to testing.
Members of the "nuclear club"
The first country to produce and test nuclear weapons was the United States of America. In the middle of the summer of 1945, the Americans detonated a nuclear bomb for the first time. And in August of the same year, the first tragedy occurred - American pilots dropped nuclear charges on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, completely wiping them off the face of the Earth.
Since then, the world has known what a tremendous destructive power nuclear weapons have. As a response to the Americans in 1949, the Soviet Union conducted nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk test site. Thus began the famous nuclear arms race.
France, Britain and China soon joined the leaders. In 1970, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed, in which five countries possessing the technologies for creating a nuclear bomb agreed not to transfer them uncontrollably to the rest of the world community.
The Nuclear Five has created an unofficial “nuclear club”. Russia inherited nuclear weapons from the USSR and joined the United States in the top two with the largest number of nuclear warheads.
Nuclear potential is constantly growing
The states of the modern world are striving to produce nuclear weapons, hoping to make them an instrument of political pressure and deterring military aggression. India tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and 1998, and Pakistan responded by creating a destructive bomb simultaneously, in the same 1974 and 1998.
The DPRK carried out nuclear tests between 2005 and 2013, adding them to the number of countries with deadly warheads. Israel is also considered a nuclear-armed state, although the government of the country did not give official confirmation of this fact.
Many states that have the ability to create a nuclear warhead have abandoned this idea. South Africa is the first country on the planet to independently produce and then destroy nuclear weapons.
Argentina, Libya and Brazil have also abandoned the use of nuclear warheads for various political reasons. According to scientists, Iran, Japan and Germany have the potential for the development and production of modern nuclear launch vehicles.
The modern world faces a serious choice between peaceful coexistence and an endless build-up of nuclear weapons. This choice will determine what the planet will look like in the 21st century.
