Nuclear-armed countries have increased expenditure on atomic weapons arsenals by a third in the last five years as they upgrade their stockpiles amid rising geopolitical tensions.
According to a new report from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), last year, the world’s nine nuclear-armed states jointly spent $91 billion on their arsenals.
That research, along with another from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), indicated that nuclear weapons states are drastically increasing investment as they modernize and even deploy new nuclear-armed weapons.
Melissa Parke, the chief of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), stated, “I think it is fair to say there is a nuclear arms race underway”.
Meanwhile, Wilfred Wan, head of SIPRI’s weapons of mass destruction programme, warned, “We have not seen nuclear weapons playing such a prominent role in international relations since the Cold War”.
SIPRI’s research showed the total estimated number of nuclear weapons in the globe declined slightly to 12,121 at the start of this year, down from 12,512 the previous year.
While some of those were older warheads set to be dismantled, it went on to say that 9,585 were in stockpiles for potential use, nine more than a year ago.
In addition, 2,100 ballistic missiles were kept on high operational alert.
“The United States and Russia possessed nearly all of them, but China was suspected for the first time of having some warheads on high operational alert”, SIPRI continued.
“While the global total of nuclear warheads continues to fall as Cold War-era weapons are gradually dismantled, regrettably we continue to see year-on-year increases in the number of operational nuclear warheads”, Dan Smith, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) director, noted.
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