France will expand its nuclear arsenal and extend its deterrence to other European countries, this in a significant shift in its nuclear defense policy. During a speech on March 2 in Brittany, France, President Emmanuel Macron said the move is in response to an increasingly unstable strategic environment. “The next 50 years will be an era of nuclear weapons,” he said.
Addressing naval officers in front of a nuclear submarine at the Île Longue base near the port of Brest, he announced that France’s stockpile would rise from its current level of about 300 warheads.
The French president also said that eight other European countries—the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, and Denmark—had agreed to join a new “advanced deterrence” strategy.
For all kinds of reasons, certain nations have strict and often scary defense policies, including arming themselves with nuclear weapons. With a global nuclear stockpile close to 13,000, it's scary to imagine that most of these are much more powerful than the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki! But which countries host the most nuclear weapons? Click on to find out.