A-bombs and the population of the top 100 countries.

Below is a list of countries by population from the Wikipedia plus an estimate of the number of A-bombs  those countries possess, also from Wikipedia. The population of a given country is then divided by the total number of A-bombs that country is reported to possess. This gives a rough estimate of the number of a given nation’s people represented by one bomb. The resultant figure ranges widely, with every sixteen thousand Russians being represented by one A-bomb, whereas the British, with a population about half the size of Russia and who have had the bomb just as long, have only one bomb for every three hundred thousand citizens or about one twentieth as many. Some, if not most, of these A-bombs may be H-bombs, which are one thousand times more powerful, but I have no way of knowing what any given country possesses so I let it all be called A-bombs.

A huge number of bombs per population represents a potentially offensive posture by  that nation and a small but substantial number represents a more defensive posture. No sane leader is going to attack a country with one hundred deliverable A-bombs even if they have thousands more in reserve themselves.

The huge number of A-bombs worldwide, listed on the chart, is based on the mid 1960s stockpiles which were trimmed down with the SALT agreements, but one must suspect that they could be reassembled in a few days if the country actually thought it was about to be attacked. The actual numbers of bombs possessed by any country is a Top Secret and may not even be known with precision even by the head of state of the country possessing them. Pakistan’s bombs, for example, were reportedly under exclusive control of their military at one time. See, The Seventh Decade p. 45 by Jonathan Schell where President Bhutto was informed by the American CIA director of her own countries bombs. It is worrisome that even smaller countries feel they need these weapons and in large numbers relative to their size. Does a small country such as Israel which is 1/200th the size of China need the same Earth destroying weapons and if so why not another country 1/200 the size of that one. That would be a town sized country of only 40,000 people, like Monaco. Who is to say what is needed? After all, every nation has potential enemies. When every one of the top 100 countries has A-bombs what is the chance that one country by accident might set off one of their bombs and start a major war?

Therefore, we humans if we have a fragment of forethought should prepare for the Doomsday eventuality and make Earth Arks, some Life Havens, some Gene Barrels and a South Pole seed bank. Even simple mistakes and random errors will bring about a conflict and precipitate a Doomsday sooner or later.

Country Population Bombs Nationals / bomb Humans / bomb
Flag of World World 6,737,600,000 20-60,000 112,293 112,293
1 China 1,327,300,000 160-400 3,118,250 16,844,000
2 India 1,140,720,000 100-400 2,851,800 16,844,000
3 USA 305,682,000 5,535 55,227 1,217,271
4 Indonesia 228,780,000 0 0 -
5 Brazil 188,118,000 0 0 -
6 Pakistan 164,880,000 ~60 2,748,000 112,283,000
7 Bangladesh 158,665,000 0 0 -
8 Nigeria 148,093,000 0 0 -
9 Russia 141,900,000 8,800 16,125 765,636
10 Japan 127,690,000 0 0 -
11 Mexico 106,682,500 0 0 -
12 Philippines 90,457,200 0 0 -
13 Vietnam 87,375,000 0 0 -
14 Germany 82,169,000 0 0 -
15 Ethiopia 79,221,000 0 0 -
16 Egypt 75,549,000 0 0 -
17 Turkey 70,586,256 0 0 -
18 Iran 70,495,782 0 0 -
19 France
64,473,140 350 184,209 19,250,285
20 Thailand 63,038,247 0 0 -
21 Congo 62,636,000 0 0 -
22 UK 61,186,000 200 305,930 33,688,000
23 Italy 59,619,290 0 0 -
24 Burma 48,798,000 0 0 -
25 S. Korea 48,224,000 0 0 -
26 S. Africa 47,850,700 0 0 -
27 Ukraine 46,191,022 0 0 -
28 Spain 46,063,500 0 0 -
29 Colombia 44,603,000 0 0 -
30 Tanzania 40,454,000 0 0 -
31 Argentina 39,745,613 0 0 -
32 Sudan 38,560,000 0 0 -
33 Poland 38,115,967 0 0 -
34 Kenya 37,538,000 0 0 -
35 Algeria 33,858,000 0 0 -
36 Canada 33,432,000 0 0 -
37 Morocco 31,224,000 0 0 -
38 Uganda 30,884,000 0 0 -
39 Iraq 28,993,000 0 0 -
40 Peru 28,750,770 0 0 -
41 Nepal 28,196,000 0 0 -
42 Venezuela 28,018,018 0 0 -
43 Malaysia 27,730,000 0 0 -
44 Uzbekistan 27,372,000 0 0 -
45 Afghanistan 27,145,000 0 0 -
46 Saudi Arabia 24,735,000 0 0 -
47 N. Korea 23,790,000 10 2,379,000 673,760,000
48 Ghana 23,478,000 0 0 -
49 Taiwan 23,007,007 0 0 -
50 Yemen 22,389,000 0 0 -
51 Romania 21,528,600 0 0 -
52 Australia 21,487,170 0 0 -
53 Mozambique 21,397,000 0 0 -
54 Syria 19,929,000 0 0 -
55 Madagascar 19,683,000 0 0 -
56 Sri Lanka 19,299,000 0 0 -
57 Côte d’Ivoire 19,262,000 0 0 -
58 Cameroon 18,549,000 0 0 -
59 Angola 17,024,000 0 0 -
60 Chile 16,827,000 0 0 -
61 Netherlands 16,468,072 0 0 -
62 Kazakhstan 15,422,000 0 0 -
63 Burkina Faso 14,784,000 0 0 -
64 Niger 14,226,000 0 0 -
65 Malawi 13,925,000 0 0 -
66 Ecuador 13,867,761 0 0 -
67 Cambodia 13,388,910 0 0 -
68 Guatemala 13,354,000 0 0 -
69 Zimbabwe 13,349,000 0 0 -
70 Senegal 12,379,000 0 0 -
71 Mali 12,337,000 0 0 -
72 Zambia 11,922,000 0 0 -
73 Cuba 11,268,000 0 0 -
74 Greece 11,215,000 0 0 -
75 Chad 10,781,000 0 0 -
76 Belgium 10,666,866 0 0 -
77 Portugal 10,617,600 0 0 -
78 Czech Republic 10,424,926 0 0 -
79 Tunisia 10,327,000 0 0 -
80 Hungary 10,035,000 0 0 -
81 Serbia 9,527,100 0 0 -
82 Dominican R
9,760,000 0 0 -
83 Rwanda 9,725,000 0 0 -
84 Belarus 9,690,000 0 0 -
85 Haiti 9,598,000 0 0 -
86 Bolivia 9,525,000 0 0 -
87 Guinea 9,370,000 0 0 -
88 Sweden 9,242,595 0 0 -
89 Benin 9,033,000 0 0 -
90 Somalia 8,699,000 0 0 -
91 Burundi 8,508,000 0 0 -
92 Azerbaijan 8,629,900 0 0 -
93 Austria 8,340,924 0 0 -
94 Switzerland 7,647,600 0 0 -
95 Bulgaria 7,640,238 0 0 -
96 Israel 7,337,000 100-200 36,685 33,688,000
97 Honduras 7,106,000 0 0 -
Hong Kong 6,985,260 0 0 -
98 El Salvador 6,857,000 0 0 -
99 Tajikistan 6,736,000 0 0 -
100 Togo 6,585,000 0 0 -

In a worst case scenario it could be assumed that the maximum likely number of bombs 60,000 were each of the 1 Megaton size (some are much large but most are much smaller) and that would mean there are approximately 60,000 Megatons of TNT equivalent already prepared for humanities destruction.

The 6,800,000,000 world population divided by 60,000,000,000 tons of TNT means your share, dear reader, equals 0.1133 Tons of TNT or to make it into pounds 0.1133 times 2000 equals 226.6 pounds (about 100 Kilograms) of TNT set aside for your destruction. That guess is probably accurate to a decimal point either way. Perhaps you would consider the Earth Ark project as a less crazy way to invest your tax dollar than making more A-bombs.


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  1. [...] the stage to instantly trigger a major war. When that war occurs, and there are somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 A-bombs available right now ready to go, there will not be a slow roll-over of the population curve as shown by the [...]

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