"If we are to avoid the drudgery of war, if we are to avoid being plunged across the abyss of atomic destruction, we must transcend the narrow confines of nationalism. Nationalism must give way to internationalism." — Martin Luther King Jr., July 19, 1953
As of 2015, the United States and Russia have control of approximately 93 percent of all nuclear weapons. This staggering statistic is the legacy of the decades-long period of paranoia known as the Cold War.
In the United States, a country far more transparent about its stocks than Russia, nuclear weapons are divided into three categories: 2,080 deployed, 2,680 in storage and 2,340 that are "retired" — an odd way of saying they are simply in line to be dismantled. One missile blows up Manhattan, Tokyo's Setagaya Ward or Higashiosaka, to put those numbers in perspective.