India has surpassed Pakistan in terms of the number of nuclear weapons possessed by each country. India currently has around 180 nuclear weapons, compared to an estimated 170 nukes possessed by Pakistan.
Pakistan nuclear weapons: The possibility of a full-scale India-Pakistan war has exponentially after the barbaric April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, and the whole world fears that this could easily devolve into a nuclear conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations. Senior Pakistani officials, including its Defense Minister, have openly threatened to use the country’s nuclear arsenal against India in case of any ‘military misadventures’ by New Delhi, triggering the fear of an India-Pakistan nuclear war.
While both countries are indeed nuclear power and possess nuclear weapons capable of decimating vast swathes of each other’s territory, the fact remains that neither country has extensively tested its nukes, which are essentially collecting dust in highly-classified locations. This raises a critical question whether nuclear weapons remain active forever and whether they lose their potency or power over a period of time.
Do nuclear weapons have an ‘expiry’ date?
Contrary to popular belief, nuclear weapons require extensive maintenance as a nuclear bomb is made up of complex mechanical and electronic systems, which degrade over time. Critical components of nuclear warheads and bombs such as detonators and explosives which actually trigger the nuclear reaction, degrade and start losing reliability as time goes one.
According to experts, a nuclear bomb could have a functional lifespan ranging from 30 to 50 years, depending upon various factors such as maintenance, environment, quality of components, etc. Additionally, the structural integrity and electronic components of a nuclear weapon can be severely affected by exposure to high radiation levels, with the bomb’s lifespan reducing to as low as 10 years in extreme case.
Helium corrosion is another issue which shortens the life of a nuke as it corrodes the bomb’s internal components, reducing its chance of a triggering a successful detonation upon strike.
Tritium, a radioactive gas, is often used in modern nuclear weapons to increase the bomb’s explosive yield, but this comes with a major trade off because tritium has a short half-life of just 12 years, after which the gas loses its potency, and after 24 years, it turns into harmless helium gas.
Can inactive bombs be ‘revived’?
The radioactive fissile material such as plutonium or enriched uranium, which is the nuclear part of a nuclear bomb has a half-life ranging in thousands of years. Thus, even if critical components like detonators and explosive material become non-functional, the nuclear material itself would remain active.
So, in theory, an inactive nuclear bombs can be revived and made active again using proper methods. According to experts, a poorly maintained nuclear bomb poses a significant risk even if becomes defunct because of the nuclear material inside, which could trigger a nuclear catastrophe like Chernobyl.
Destructive capabilities of nuclear bombs
The destructive capabilities of a nuclear bomb depends on its yield, which is measured in kilotons or megatons of TNT. The bomb that leveled Hiroshima in 1945 and wiped out everything with a within a 1.6 km (1-mile) radius, with considerable damage extending as far back as up to3–4 km from the blast site, had a yield of 15 kilotons of TNT.
In contrast, modern nuclear bombs are far more powerful and deal exponentially more damage across a large area. For example, a one-megaton nuke can raze everything within a 4–5 km radius, cause extensive damage and radiation burns up to 10–15 km, while the radiation fallout could extend hundreds of kilometers from ground zero, depending on various factors such as natural barriers like mountains, wind direction/speed, and terrain.
For comparison, the USSR’s Tsar Bomba, which had a massive 50 megaton yield, making it the largest nuclear weapon ever tested openly, shattered windows of buildings located more than 900 km away, giving an idea of its destructive capability.
India has more nukes than Pakistan
Notably, India now has more nuclear warheads than Pakistan, which could result in major change in the strategic balance in South Asia, as per a recent report.
According to the latest report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), India has surpassed Pakistan in terms of the number of nuclear weapons possessed by each country. The report, citing data revealed by Status of World Nuclear Forces report, said that India currently has around 180 nuclear weapons, compared to an estimated 170 nukes possessed by Pakistan.
This is the first time in nearly two decades that India has surpassed Pakistan in the nuclear arms race, the report said.
