Editing Enduring Stockpile

{{short description|United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons post Cold War}}
{{No footnotes|date=February 2013}}
{{Weapons of mass destruction}}
The '''Enduring Stockpile''' is the [[United States]]' arsenal of [[nuclear weapon]]s following the end of the [[Cold War]]. {{As of|2025}}, it comprises 3,708 nuclear weapons. 

During the Cold War the United States produced over 70,000 nuclear weapons. By its end, the U.S. stockpile was about 23,000 weapons of 26 different types. The production of nuclear weapons ended in 1989, and since then existing weapons have been retired, dismantled, or [[Reserve fleet|mothballed]]. In 2021, the Department of Energy website stated the stockpile was the lowest it had been since 1960.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Maintaining the Stockpile|url=https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/maintaining-stockpile}}</ref>

Weapons in the Enduring Stockpile are categorized by level of readiness. The three levels are:

* '''Active Service''': fully operational, connected to a delivery system, and available for immediate use (e.g., [[ICBM]] silos and [[ballistic missile submarines]])
* '''Hedge Stockpile''': fully operational, but kept in storage; available within minutes or hours; not connected to delivery systems, but delivery systems are available (e.g., missile and bomb stockpiles kept at various Air Force bases)
* '''Inactive Reserve''': not in operational condition and/or do not have immediately available delivery systems, but can be made ready if needed.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+US Enduring Stockpile, 2004–present
!Type
!2004
!2025<ref name="t556">{{cite journal |last=Kristensen |first=Hans M. |last2=Korda |first2=Matt |last3=Johns |first3=Eliana |last4=Knight |first4=Mackenzie |date=2024-05-03 |title=United States nuclear weapons, 2024 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00963402.2024.2339170?needAccess=true |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |volume=80 |issue=3 |pages=182–208 |doi=10.1080/00963402.2024.2339170 |issn=0096-3402 |access-date=2025-04-06 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
|-
|ICBM
|1,490
|800
|-
|SLBM
|2,736
|1,920
|-
|Bomber
|1,660
|788
|-
|Total strategic
|5,886
|3,508
|-
|Total tactical
|1,120
|200
|-
|Total stockpile
|7,006
|3,708
|-
|Retired
|~3,000
|1,336
|}
{{As of|2025}}, the most common warhead in the nuclear arsenal is the [[W76]], installed on the majority of [[UGM-133 Trident II]] SLBMs. The only weapon capable of exceeding a 500 kiloton yield is the [[B83 nuclear bomb|B83]] gravity bomb, delivered by the [[Northrop B-2 Spirit|B-2 Spirit]].<ref name="t556" /> All are [[Thermonuclear weapon|thermonuclear weapons]], but the vast majority of weapons derive over 80% of their yield from [[Nuclear fission|fission]] of the primary and tamper, greatly increasing fallout.<ref name="q146">{{cite journal |last=Grams |first=Jon |date=2021-06-06 |title=Ripple: An Investigation of the World's Most Advanced High-Yield Thermonuclear Weapon Design |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794729/pdf |journal=Journal of Cold War Studies |publisher=The MIT Press |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=133–161 |issn=1531-3298 |access-date=2025-04-06}}</ref>

Bomber weapons include strategic [[B61 nuclear bomb|B61]] and [[B83 nuclear bomb|B83]] [[gravity bombs]], [[AGM-86 ALCM]] and several hundred spare warheads. The tactical weapons consist of 800 tactical B61 gravity bombs and 320 nuclear warheads for [[Tomahawk (missile family)|Tomahawk missile]]s. 

The [[START II]] Treaty called for a reduction to a total of 3,500 to 3,000 warheads, but was not ratified by the [[Russia]]n [[State Duma |Duma]]. The replacement 2002 [[Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty]] delayed reductions to 2012, with a limit of 2,200 operationally deployed warheads. The [[New START]] treaty signed in 2010 commits to lowering that limit to 1,550 warheads, and was ratified by the Russian Duma on 26 January 2011.

==See also==
* [[Stockpile stewardship]]
* [[Nuclear weapons and the United States]]
* [[Reliable Replacement Warhead]]
* [[Stockpile (military)|Stockpile]]
* [[Fogbank]]

== References ==
<references />

==External links==
*[http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Wpngall.html Nuclear Weapon Archive article on Enduring Stockpile]
*[http://es.rice.edu/projects/Poli378/Nuclear/f04.stratg_invent.html Estimated Strategic Nuclear Weapons Inventories (September 2004)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713034238/http://es.rice.edu/projects/Poli378/Nuclear/f04.stratg_invent.html |date=2018-07-13 }}

[[Category:Nuclear weapons of the United States]]