I kinda don’t want to bury my Reliable Replacement Warhead entry below but I just came across an interesting little article in The Times of London which cites former US Prez Jimmy Carter as stating that Israel has 150 nuclear weapons.

Notice the headline actually stated that Israel “had” 150 nuclear weapons. Carter left office in 1980.

So, how much nuclear weapons does Israel have? More importantly, how many targets does have Israel hold at risk? How would Tel Aviv rationalise a nuclear strategy built around 150-200 nuclear weapons?

This is the entry for Israel in the famed Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists nuclear notebook

… Although Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it possesses nuclear weapons, the DIA concluded in 1999 that Israel had produced 60–80 warheads. Israel is estimated to have produced enough fissile material for between 115 and 190 warheads. The DIA projected that Israel’s stockpile would increase only modestly by 2020…

It seems that Carter is claiming that the DIA estimate is too low. By weapons I assume he means actual warheads rather than quantity of fissile material. Or does he? The old timer might be confused or the DIA is under-estimating Israel’s warhead stockpile.