Nuclear Weapons: Terms You Should Know

These are countries with the capability of producing and using nuclear weapons. Since the U.S. and Russia conducted their first nuclear tests in the 1940s, eight other countries have joined the nuclear club – including South Africa, which subsequently dismantled its nuclear arsenal, the only country to have done so. The latest country to join the nuclear club was North Korea, which carried out its first successful test in 2006. The other nations with nuclear weapons are China, Pakistan, India, Israel, the U.K., and France.

These are nuclear weapons that are smaller and less powerful than full-scale bombs. Also known as non-strategic nuclear weapons of NSNWs, they’re meant to be used in a battlefield situation, delivered by various means, including short-range missiles, gravity bombs, artillery, and torpedoes. Such weapons are not limited by any arms control treaty. The U.S. Department of Defense estimates that Russia has about 2,000 of these weapons of various kinds (the U.S. has a small number of just one type, the B61 nuclear gravity bomb), and there has been some concern that Russia would use them in its war against Ukraine. However, Russia’s ambassador to Britain, Andrei Kelin, recently told the BBC that this was unlikely, and that according to his nation’s military rules, such weapons would only be used if Russia’s existence was threatened.

As nuclear weapons became more powerful, the strategy on how to use them evolved. A first strike, also called a preemptive nuclear strike, is an all-out attack on an opponent’s nuclear arsenal that prevents an enemy from responding with an attack of its own.

Once the Soviet Union reached nuclear parity with the U.S., the nuclear strategy shifted to what became known as mutually assured destruction. In this scenario, both sides maintained nuclear arsenals so massive that either could survive a nuclear attack and still launch a powerful counter strike. This was also called “balance of terror,” in which neither side was likely to risk starting a nuclear conflict.

A cruise missile is a guided missile, launched from the sea or land, intended to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy. Self-navigating cruise missiles, based on the German V-1 terror weapon of World War II, can travel at supersonic or high subsonic speeds, and can fly at very low altitude trajectory. The warhead in a cruise missile is integrated into the vehicle, which is destroyed in the mission.

A ballistic missile is a missile that has a ballistic trajectory over most of its flight path after being launched high into the Earth’s atmosphere. The warhead from a ballistic missile detaches as the vehicle falls to Earth. The missile – it can be short-range, air-launched, or intermediate range – depends on gravity to reach its target. These missiles can be launched from ships or land-based facilities.

ICBM stands for Intercontinental ballistic missile. ICBMs can be mobile or based in silos. Land-based, nuclear-armed ballistic missiles have a range of more than 3,500 miles. They were first deployed by the Soviet Union in 1958 and contributed to the belief in a so-called “missile gap” between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. as promulgated by hawks in the U.S. The main U.S. ICBM is the silo-launched Minuteman missile.

Submarine-launched ballistic missiles that have ranges comparable to those of ICBMs include the Trident, deployed by the United States and Britain. Similar systems have been developed by Russia, China, and France. The U.S. Columbia class subs are an example of those capable of launching a ballistic missile.

Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, were originally developed in the early 1960s to permit a missile to deliver multiple nuclear warheads to different targets. Warheads on MIRVed missiles can be released from the missile at different speeds and in different directions. Some of these missiles can hit targets as far as 900 miles apart.

An air-to-surface missile or air-to-ground missile is designed to be launched from military aircraft such as bombers, attack aircraft, or fighter aircraft, among others, and strike targets on land, at sea, or both.

Long-range bombers have been an essential element in the arsenals of air forces equipped with nuclear weapons. The B-21 Strategic Bomber is an important part of the United States defense.

The F-35A fighter is an example of “dual-capable” aircraft, able to deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons.

Since at least the 1970s, U.S. nuclear strategy has been connected to the so-called triad – the combined capability of launching weapons from air, land, and sea (including from submarines). Russia and China eventually adopted the same strategy.