3. The United Kingdom
Number of warheads: Active 150, Reserve 65, total 215
Delivery method: Sea
The UK ranks 3rd on our list of countries with nukes. It was the third country in the world to acquire nuclear weapons. The program officially started in 1946. Although a number of British scientists were involved in Project Manhattan and made a significant contribution, the American’s feared that nuclear secrets would be leaked (as it turned out, they were right) and have thus refused to share their research with anyone, including British. This had caused much consternation in London, and British decided to pursue the development by themselves. In 1952 the first successful test bomb was detonated off the coast of Western Australia. Currently, the UK has only sea method of delivery, namely four Vanguard-class submarines armed with Trident Missiles. Similar to France, at least one of them has to be out on the sea at any given time.
