Weapon of mass destruction
The only country to have used a nuclear weapon in war is the United States, which dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. There are eight countries that have declared they possess nuclear weapons and are known to have tested a nuclear weapon, only five of which are members of the NPT. The eight are China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is one of the five nuclear-weapon states legally recognised as such under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). , nine countries have nuclear weapons. After the UK government announced its plans to refurbish its Trident missiles and build new submarines to carry them, it published a white paper on "The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent", in which it stated that the renewal is fully compatible with the United Kingdom's treaty commitments and international law. At the start of the House of Commons debate to authorise the replacement of Trident, Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, stated: