We all know that nuclear weapons, as the strongest weapons on the planet earth, have extremely huge destructive power, and their lethality is self-evident. The development of nuclear weapons requires large investment and very high level of technology. Therefore, it is not something that ordinary countries can have.
It is worth mentioning that today, in the world, including the five permanent members of the United Nations, only 9 countries have nuclear weapons, and the three countries with the most nuclear weapons are Russia, the United States and China. Since we are now in a peaceful era, it is difficult for large-scale wars to break out. Therefore, the main purpose of these countries to develop nuclear weapons is to deter other countries to a certain extent, and it is only used as a deterrent weapon. Also hardly ever used in real areas of war except the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombings.
So since nuclear weapons cannot be used at will, how do these nuclear-armed countries maintain their nuclear weapons, and will they expire if they don’t use them for a long time? Let’s take a look at it.
Generally speaking, if a nuclear weapon is not used for a long time, it may exceed its shelf life, and the service life of a nuclear warhead is about 20 years. However, the shelf life of a nuclear warhead is not static, and the specific situation should be analyzed in detail. Precise preservation and maintenance of nuclear warheads may greatly increase the service life of nuclear warheads, thereby saving more production costs.
Of course, if the nuclear warhead expires, it needs to be replaced, maintain aging parts, or dismantle it, take out the conventional ammunition used for detonation, decompose it into nuclear parts and non-nuclear parts, and then recycle the parts. They are destroyed to reduce nuclear pollution and strengthen the protection of the environment.
Therefore, in order to continue to maintain the number of nuclear weapons and the nuclear threat to other countries, it is necessary to have a detailed nuclear weapons development plan at this time, record the production time of each nuclear weapon, and record its expiration date, so that it can be replaced so as not to have a greater impact on the development of military forces after the expiration date has passed.
In addition, according to relevant data, one-third of Russia’s annual military expenditure is used to maintain nuclear warheads, while the United States separately allocates about 40 billion US dollars as the maintenance cost of nuclear warheads. Why is the maintenance cost of nuclear weapons so staggering? The main reason is that the current total number of nuclear warheads in the world is about 15,000, and United States, Russia and China account for the vast majority. The larger the number, the higher the natural maintenance cost.
Therefore, not only the development of nuclear weapons requires huge investment, but also the maintenance and upkeep of nuclear weapons requires huge investment to maintain the daily expenses of nuclear weapons, which is also an astonishing amount. This is a huge expense for any country.
In short, as a deterrent weapon, although nuclear weapons are powerful, there are many difficulties behind them, which make many countries with nuclear weapons face huge challenges in the development of nuclear weapons. Therefore, countries with nuclear weapons, all should proceed from reality, seek truth from facts, and use nuclear weapons prudently in order to make due contributions to the promotion of world peace and development. This is also the great significance of the existence of nuclear weapons.