On July 20, the United States revealed that it has 3,748 nuclear warheads in its military stockpile. These are weapons that are ready to use, with estimated yields that range from 8 kilotons to more than 300 kilotons.
Declassifying the total number of warheads for the first time since 2021, the Biden Administration called its decision an act of transparency “important to nonproliferation and disarmament efforts.”
Some think that it was a miscalculation, a mistake; others assert this as an act of deterrence.
The FAS reports that the United States has nuclear weapons in twenty-four geographical locations in eleven states and five European countries. The number of locations will increase over the next decade as nuclear storage capacity is added to three U.S. bomber bases.
The location with the greatest number of nuclear weapons, 2,485, is the Kirtland Underground Munitions and Maintenance Storage Complex south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Most of its weapons are retired and awaiting dismantling at the Pantex Plant in Carson County, Texas.
Washington State, home of the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific and the ballistic missile submarines at Naval Submarine Base Kitsap, holds 1,620 warheads.
450 warheads are mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles in silos in Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, and North Dakota.
1,100 warheads are deployed on fourteen Ohio-class submarines each carrying up to twenty-four Trident missiles, which themselves are capable of carrying up to five warheads. Six are based at Kings Bay, Georgia, and eight are based in Silverdale, Washington.
300 are at bomber bases in the United States—200 at the Minot, North Dakota, Air Force base, and 100 at Whiteman Air Force Base in Johnson County, Missouri.
100 tactical bombs are currently stored in underground vaults in five NATO countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.