From the Telegraph:  The United States has become the first country to disclose an up-to-date figure for the number of weapons in its nuclear arsenal.

It has done so to encourage more openness from other nuclear states and to further President Barack Obama’s goal of global disarmament.

The Pentagon said 5,113 warheads were either operationally deployed, kept in active reserve or held in inactive storage. On a fact sheet detailing numbers that had been classified for decades, it said that the arsenal has been reduced by 84 per cent from its maximum level of 31,225 warheads at the end of 1967. …

Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, said: "We think it is in our national security interests to be as transparent as we can be about the nuclear programme of the United States."
 
"We think it builds confidence, we think it brings more people to an understanding of what President Obama is trying to do."  (photo: Getty)

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