All told, just 741 such warheads worldwide -- a fraction of the current U.S. arsenal -- could threaten with nuclear Armageddon more than half a billion people in the United States and other NATO nations, Russia, China, and worrisome "nuclear wannabes" such as Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Libya.

Nuclear arsenals far smaller than those currently deployed by the United States and Russia would remain a terrible threat to modern societies. The truth is that nuclear weapons are simply indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction; all of the complex scenarios of the U.S. nuclear war plan ignore the grotesque results that would occur if nuclear weapons were used. An honest acceptance of this reality should force a reevaluation of the war plan, and spur action to reduce the number of nuclear weapons to minimal levels.

NRDC "Assured Destruction" Calculations Using 1999 World Population Data

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