Nuclear powers are modernizing their arsenals in the face of increasing geopolitical tensions around the world, with spending in this area increasing by a third over the past five years, according to two reports published Monday.
According to a report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the nine nuclear-weapon states (United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, India, Israel, Pakistan and South Korea North) spent as a whole last year 91 billion dollars (85 billion euros). It shows, along with another report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), that these countries have significantly increased their spending as they modernize their nuclear weapons, or even deploy new ones. “I think it’s fair to say that a nuclear arms race is underway,” ICAN director Melissa Parke told AFP.
Wilfred Wan, director of the Weapons of Mass Destruction program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), said that “since the Cold War, nuclear weapons have never played such an important role in international relations.
According to Sipri, the total estimated number of existing nuclear warheads in the world has decreased slightly: the world had 12,121 at the start of the year compared to 12,512 a year earlier. Some of these warheads must be dismantled, but 9,585 are available in stocks for potential use, nine more than last year. And 2100 are kept on “high operational alert” – that is, ready for immediate use – for ballistic missiles.
Almost all of these nuclear warheads belong to Russia and the United States, which alone possess 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. Sipri also estimates for the first time this year that China holds “a few warheads on operational alert”.
Even though “the total number of nuclear warheads continues to decline as Cold War-era weapons are gradually dismantled”, an increase in the “number of operational nuclear warheads” is observed from year to year from the share of nuclear powers, indicated Dan Smith, director of Sipri.
According to ICAN, global spending on nuclear weapons increased by $10.8 billion in 2023 year-on-year, with the United States accounting for 80% of this increase.
The United States’ share of total spending, $51.5 billion, “is greater than that of all other nuclear-armed countries combined,” according to ICAN. This is followed by China ($11.8 billion) and Russia ($8.3 billion). The British significantly increased their spending (+17% to $8.1 billion), for the second year in a row.
Nuclear powers as a whole spent $2,898 per second last year to finance these weapons, according to the report. Spending on nuclear weapons has jumped 33% since 2018 (to $68.2 billion) when ICAN began collecting this data. These countries have spent some 387 billion on these weapons over the years, according to the report.
