Five years ago, the Pentagon's Defense Science Board published a report equating the impact of Chinese and Russian capabilities to launch an "existential cyber attack" against the United States with the impact of a nuclear attack — and recommended that the United States be prepared to threaten the use of nuclear weapons to deter cyberattacks.
Which countries already have the capability to launch a nuclear missile, and how many warheads do they have?
We looked at which countries already have the capability to launch a nuclear missile, and how many warheads they have.
David Cameron provoked surprise today when he claimed that North Korea now possessed the capability to launch a nuclear strike against Britain.
Those interceptors have no bearing on Russia's capability to launch a nuclear attack and, as such, have no implications for the "strategic balance" in Europe.
Despite its threats, the country is not considered to have an advanced enough capability to launch a strike against the US.
"Our capability to launch a long-range, Iran-type mission today is worse than it was in 1980," says Noel C. Koch, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of the Pentagon's special operations and counterterrorist units from 1981 to 1986.
"We ascribe to them the capability to launch a missile that would have a weapon on it to reach parts of the United States, certainly including Alaska and Hawaii," he said in a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"We ascribe to them the capability to launch a missile that would have a weapon on it to reach parts of the United States, certainly including Alaska and Hawaii," he said at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The US government believes North Korea has the capability to launch a nuclear weapon against the homeland and stands ready to defend against any such attacks, a high-level US military official has said.
The shape of a possible deal has been evident for years, but Kim has raised the stakes, and perhaps the price, with his rapid development toward the capability to launch a nuclear-equipped intercontinental ballistic missile at U.S. territory.
