nuclearWeaponStatesR Documentation

Nations with nuclear weapons

Description

Data on the 9 nuclear-weapon states as of April 2019.

Usage

data(nuclearWeaponStates)

Format

A dataframe containing :

nation

The name of the country (character). The former USSR is listed here as Russia.

ctry

ISO 31661- alpha-2 two-letter country codes (character).

firstTest

Date of first test of a nuclear weapon.

For Israel, which has not publicly acknowledged that it has nuclear weapons, this uses the Date of the Vela Incident.

firstTestYr

lubridate::decimal_date(firstTest)

yearsSinceLastFirstTest

c(NA, diff(firstTestYr))

nuclearWeapons

number of nuclear weapons

nYieldNA, nLowYield, nMidYield, nHighYield

number of weapons for which the yield in (nYieldNA) = unknown or variable, (nLowYield) = at most 15 kt (kilotons), the size of the Hiroshima bomb, (nMidYield) = greater than 15 but less that 50 kt, and (nHighYield) = at least 50 kt.

popM, popYr

popM = estimated population in millions for year popYr, per the Wikipedia article for the indicated country on 2020-02-05.

GDP_B, GDPyr

GDP_B = nominal Gross Domestic Product in billions of US dollars for year GDPyr, per the Wikipedia article for the indicated country on 2020-02-05.

Maddison

Country code used by the Maddison Project.

startNucPgm

Estimated date of the substantive commitment of the country to obtain nuclear weapons. See 'Details' below

startNucPgmYr

lubridate::decimal_date(startNucPgm)

Details

Most of the contents of this dataset are easily defined and not controversial. That's not true for the date upon which each country started its nuclear program, coded in startNucPgm and startNucPgmYr. The following summarizes the rationale behind the selection of the date for each country in this dataset.

Source

Overview from World Nuclear Weapon Stockpile

firstTest from Wikipedia, "List of states with nuclear weapons"

US from Hans M. Kristensen & Robert S. Norris (2018) United States nuclear forces,2018, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 74:2, 120-131, doi:10.1080/00963402.2018.1438219

Russia from Hans M. Kristensen & Matt Korda (2019) Russian nuclear forces, 2019, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 75:2, 73-84, doi:10.1080/00963402.2019.1580891

UK from Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen (2013) The British nuclear stockpile, 1953-2013, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 69:4, 69-75s, doi:10.1177/0096340213493260

France from Robert S. Norris & Hans M. Kristensen (2008) French nuclear forces, 2008, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 64:4, 52-54, 57, doi:10.2968/064004012

China from Hans M. Kristensen & Robert S. Norris (2018) Chinese nuclear forces, 2018,Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 74:4, 289-295, doi:10.1080/00963402.2018.1486620

India from Hans M. Kristensen & Robert S. Norris (2017) Indian nuclear forces, 2017,Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 73:4, 205-209, doi:10.1080/00963402.2017.1337998

Israel from Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris (2014) Israeli nuclear weapons, 2014, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 70:6, 97-115, doi:10.1177/0096340214555409

Pakistan from Hans M. Kristensen, Robert S. Norris & Julia Diamond (2018)Pakistani nuclear forces, 2018, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 74:5, 348-358, doi:10.1080/00963402.2018.1507796

North Korea from Hans M. Kristensen & Robert S. Norris (2018) North Korean nuclear capabilities, 2018, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 74:1, 41-51, doi:10.1080/00963402.2017.1413062

Derek Bolton (2012) North Korea's Nuclear Program (2012-08, American Security Program, accessed 2020-07-15) https://www.americansecurityproject.org/ASP%20Reports/Ref%200072%20-%20North%20Korea%E2%80%99s%20Nuclear%20Program%20.pdf

Examples

data(nuclearWeaponStates)
plot(yearsSinceLastFirstTest~firstTest, 
    nuclearWeaponStates, type='h', xlab='', ylab='')
with(nuclearWeaponStates, 
  text(firstTest, yearsSinceLastFirstTest, ctry))