GENEVA: The world’s nuclear powers, and China in particular, increased investment in their arsenals for a third consecutive year in 2022 amid swelling geopolitical tensions, two reports showed on Monday.
The world’s nine nuclear-armed states jointly spent US$82.9 billion on their arsenals last year, with the United States accounting for more than half of that, according to a new report from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) meanwhile released a report showing that the total number of nuclear warheads held by Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States was down to 12,512 at the outset of this year, from 12,710 at the start of 2022.
While some of that included older warheads scheduled to be dismantled, SIPRI said that 9,576 were in “military stockpiles for potential use” – 86 more than a year earlier.
“We are approaching, or maybe have already reached, the end of a long period of the number of nuclear weapons worldwide declining,” SIPRI director Dan Smith told AFP.
“BEGINNING TO TICK UP”
Pointing to the stockpile of usable nuclear warheads, Smith said that “those numbers are beginning to tick up”, while adding that they remain far below the more than 70,000 seen during the 1980s.
The bulk of the increase was in China, which increased its stockpile from 350 to 410 warheads.
India, Pakistan and North Korea also upped their stockpiles and Russia’s grew to a smaller extent, from 4,477 to 4,489, while the remaining nuclear powers maintained the size of their arsenals.
Russia and the United States together have almost 90 per cent of all nuclear weapons.
“The big picture is we’ve had over 30 years of the number of nuclear warheads coming down, and we see that process coming to an end now,” Smith said.