Topics: Donald Trump, Explained, Iran, News, UK News, US News, World News, Politics
Tensions between the United States and Iran have now surged to the highest point in decades after President Donald Trump ordered direct strikes that he said 'obliterated' key nuclear facilities across the Middle Eastern country on Saturday (21 June).
Iran, which has a population of over 90 million, remains the biggest adversary of the US in the region since the 1979 Islamic revolution, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled pro-Western leader Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Since then, the two nations have fought over a number of different issues including Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Iran’s backing of proxies in the region, and US political interference in the region.
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Last week, Israel, which has long considered Iran a threat, launched unprecedented strikes across Iran after accusing the nation of developing nuclear weapons.
Such Israeli claims have not been backed by any credible proof, but Trump nonetheless dragged the US into the war following the Israeli strikes.
Before the US targeted three Iranian nuclear facilities - Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo -, anti-nuclear campaigners had called Israel’s initial airstrikes 'illegal and unjust'.
"Israel is the only country in the region that has nuclear weapons," Susi Snyder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons told RTÉ News. "Iran does not."
"Iran was not posing an existential threat to Israel, and that is just a false narrative that Israel is portraying right now in order to justify what is honestly an illegal action," she said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has estimated that today, as many as 30 nations have nuclear capability.
However, only nine have nuclear weapons.
But what are these nine nations and how many nuclear weapons do they actually have? (per the Federation of American Scientists 2025). Well, here's the full list:
On top of that, there are also an additional six nations that host nuclear weapons, which are as follows: Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands for the United States, and Belarus for Russia.
The Associated Press reports that the first nations to have nuclear arms were the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom - a group known as the five original weapons states.
According to a report published earlier this year by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, it was found that the nine nuclear-armed states spent $100 billion (€87 billion) collectively on their arsenals in 2024.
Such a sum is equivalent of $3,100 (€2,705) per second, the report found.
