There have been misunderstandings between The United States and Russia on issues such as Ukraine, North Korea, and NATO expansion, but the U.S. has an advantage over the Kremlin: The size of its economy. The American Gross National Product is much larger than the Russian one, so, in theory, the U.S. should be able to have more Nuclear Weapons. Besides, U.S. nuclear weapons should be far more powerful. The reality is different, as Russia is a very militaristic nation, and has been since the Soviet Union. Below are some facts:

Population and economy

According to a report by Trading Economics, Russia's population is less than half of the U.S.

population and the Russian economy is less than $1.3 trillion, while the American economy exceeds $18 trillion. The difference is about fourteen to one, though the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Russia is larger than the Spanish GDP and smaller than South Korea. When making comparisons we have to take into account that the cost of living is not the same, so, there must be some adjustments to measure the sizes of the American and Russian economies.

Size of nuclear arsenals

According to a report by International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, the Kremlin owns 7,000 nuclear weapons. The United States was the first country to have a nuclear weapon, but today it is in second place with 6,800 nukes.

As we can see, although the U.S. economy is much bigger than the Russian economy, it doesn't mean that America has more nukes. The Kremlin has about three percent more nuclear weapons than the United States, and also more lethal weapons. Both countries have by far the greatest nuclear arsenals in the world, with no close rivals.

Whose nuclear weapons are more powerful?

According to a report by The Telegraph, there are almost 15,000 nuclear weapons on our planet capable of killing millions of people. The B-83 is the largest nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, and it's capable of killing 1.4 million inhabitants in the first 24 hours, and an additional 3.7 million people would be injured.

The Tsar Bomba was detonated by the USSR, and if it were dropped on New York it would kill 7.6 million people and hurt 4.2 million. Moscow has more powerful nuclear weapons, and Donald Trump stated a short time ago that he wanted to increase the nuclear capabilities of the United States. This is no surprise because he knows the reality that we live in these days.