tons of TNT. A modern ballistic missile may carry warhead yields up to 20
or more megatons.

Even the most violent wars of recent history have been relatively limited
in terms of the total destructive power of the non-nuclear weapons used.
A single aircraft or ballistic missile today can carry a nuclear explosive
force surpassing that of all the non-nuclear bombs used in recent wars.
The number of nuclear bombs and missiles the superpowers now possess runs
into the thousands.



Note 2: Nuclear Weapons Design


Nuclear weapons depend on two fundamentally different types of nuclear
reactions, each of which releases energy:

Fission, which involves the splitting of heavy elements (e.g. uranium); and
fusion, which involves the combining of light elements (e.g. hydrogen).

Fission requires that a minimum amount of material or "critical mass" be
brought together in contact for the nuclear explosion to take place. The
more efficient fission weapons tend to fall in the yield range of tens of
kilotons. Higher explosive yields become increasingly complex and
impractical.

Nuclear fusion permits the design of weapons of virtually limitless power.
In fusion, according to nuclear theory, when the nuclei of light atoms like
hydrogen are joined, the mass of the fused nucleus is lighter than the two