FACTBOX-Capabilities of the world's nuclear powers

UK: FACTBOX-Capabilities of the world's nuclear powers.

19:58 ET
Reuters English News Service
(C) Reuters Limited 2002.

LONDON, Jan 5 (Reuters) - India and Pakistan are massing troops and weapons along their volatile border in the biggest military build-up the region has seen in almost 15 years, stoking fears of war between the world's newest nuclear powers.

The world has five "official" nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.

Other countries - including Pakistan and India - are known to be nuclear-capable. However, this could mean possession of a few nuclear devices that could be packed on to warplanes and dropped as "dirty bombs" rather than sophisticated warheads deployed on missiles.

Estimates of the global nuclear stockpile range from 24,700 to 33,300 weapons. Following is a summary of the estimated capabilities of declared and undeclared nuclear powers.

- UNITED STATES: The United States has more than 7,000 strategic nuclear warheads; with some 1,670 tactical warheads and stocks, the arsenal numbers about 10,000-12,000. The United States is the only country to station land-based nuclear weapons outside its borders.

- RUSSIA: Russia has roughly 6,000 deployed strategic nuclear warheads but the arsenal jumps to some 20,000 when stored and tactical warheads are added in. Like the United States, it keeps some 2,000-2,500 weapons on high-alert status.

- FRANCE: France has an estimated 400-482 strategic and 20 non-strategic nuclear warheads.

- BRITAIN: Britain has an estimated 160 strategic and 100 non-strategic nuclear warheads. Its Trident submarines, one of which is continuously on submerged patrol, are capable of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles.

- CHINA: China has an estimated 140-290 strategic and 120-150 non-strategic nuclear warheads. It has only one working ballistic missile submarine.

- PAKISTAN: Pakistan says its "minimum nuclear deterrent" includes ballistic missiles that can hit deep inside India. Analysts put the Pakistani arsenal at between 10 bombs at the time of its May 1998 nuclear tests and up to 48 now.

- INDIA: Scientific and arms monitoring groups around the world estimate India has between 55 and 110 bombs. Most analysts believe the figure is towards the lower end.

- NORTH KOREA: The West suspects that Pyongyang might already have a small number of warheads, perhaps as many as 10, and two devices that could be carried by truck, boat or aircraft. Despite a 1994 accord that froze its nuclear programme, it has made no move to work with international inspectors trying to analyse its past atomic arms programme.

- ISRAEL : Israel is generally regarded as having nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Experts say it may have produced as many as 200 nuclear weapons. Others say it has enough estimated weapons-grade fissile material to produce 100 weapons.

- IRAQ: Iraq's nuclear programme was dismantled after its defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. Western experts say the country had been about two or three years away from producing a crude bomb. It is trying to reconstitute its nuclear programme.

- IRAN: Iran is widely suspected by military experts of pursuing a nuclear weapons programme but it not considered to have capability.

NOTE - Figures have been compiled from estimates of independent analysts, Abolition 2000, the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Nuclear states do not declare figures for tactical nuclear weapons, which include a broad range of devices from landmines and artillery shells to air-dropped or missile-launched warheads. (additional reporting by John Chalmers in BRUSSELS).

Non-strategic nukes are artillery rounds (8 inch and 155 mm) ranging from .5kt to 2.5kt. I was an assembler on one of these bases in northern Italy. Our unit (platoon size) had 2 teams of assemblers and 2 security teams. My team would assemble the different packages into the actual nuke round in case of war. We would then turn it over to an Italian Artillery Unit to actually fire, under our supervision. Officially, during that tour I wasn't in the U.S. Army. Our designation was "NATO Advisers to Italian Troops". While I was never privy to our exact mission, (what we'd shoot at)as we were stationed only 40k's south of the Brenner Pass,I assume that would have been our target. Team 2 carried out most of their field problems in the Dobbiacho/Brunico area...so it's safe to assume their target would have been a mountain pass in that area that also leads to Austria. It was pretty good duty....for a 44 man unit, we had 2 cooks, a mess sergeant, and 2 full time Italian KP's. We never had to do anything around there but make our bunks and clean our rooms, the Italians did the rest! Civvy's only when you left the site (unless traveling in a military vehicle). Locked and loaded in transit. Long list of bars in the town (down the mountain) that were off-linits...and we could never, never, tell anyone where we stationed. Our cover story was that we were stationed at the Southern European Task Force Headquarters in Vicenza. All of us had secret clearances. We were locked down tight during the Greek/Turk dispute over Cypress, and again when Nixon resigned, and again when Saigon fell. Similiar sites in Greece and Turkey were really locked down during that war. Paul Cella, one of our cooks, was killed when the Red Brigades bombed the train station in Milan. Another friend of mine was killed in Turkey along with 3 other guys while standing at a damn bus stop!! That was a drive-by. Garland and I went to nuke school together at FT. Sill, Ok. It was long, hard, tense hours (on duty) but they took care of us pretty well. We lived in a single building (except officers and senior NCO's who lived in one guesthouse in the village.) We had a day room, a library, and a different movie every night (the old 16mm reels and projector). We used to have to go to an ASA site further up the valley to get our movies each week....they actually sent them down by ski lift. A squad of airforce guys ran our commo...they lived like kings.....ALL of them lived off post and always....always....wore civvy's! While nothing like combat, it was duty that was both very good and very bad....but seldon boring! One shooting incident, New Years Eve 1975. Italian perimeter guards blew away a car that failed to stop at the first checkpoint...turned out to be a couple of teen-agers out looking to park and got lost in the snowstorm.....we got locked down for awhile after that too. We were buzzed by private planes, spied on, and stuff like that....but the site was atop a pretty barren mountain with one road up (or down) and only an ancient farming village nearby. I remember the Italian sentries were, for the most part, terrible....but they did have dogs and would turn them loose between the outer and inner perimeter fences (never at the same time of day) and those dogs were damned good! The perimeter was kept mowed to the ground for something like 150 yards in all directions for a good, clear field of fire. The Italians weren't very good soldiers...but they were trigger happy (even shot at one of our guys one night who was drunk and tried to climb the wall, rather than check in at the gate). The bunkers could have withstood just about anything a terrorist could have thrown at us (in the mid 1970's).Anyway, the difference between a tactical and strategic nuke is, for the most part, yield. One blocks a mountain pass, one blows up at major city.