Nuclear powers have modernized their atomic arsenals due to rising geopolitical tensionsincreasing spending in this area by a third in the last five years, according to two reports published this Monday.
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According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the nine nuclear-weapon States –Russia, United States, France, India, China, Israel, United Kingdom, Pakistan and North Korea-spent last year a total of 91,000 million dollars.
Although “the total number of nuclear warheads continues to decline as Cold War-era weapons are progressively dismantled,” there is an increase in the “number of operational nuclear warheads” from year to year by nuclear powers.
This report shows, along with another published by the Stockholm International Peace Studies Institute (SIPRI), that spending by these countries increased considerably as they modernized their nuclear weapons and even deployed new systems.
“I think it is reasonable to say that there is a nuclear arms race underway,” Melissa Parke, director of ICAN, told AFP.
Wilfred Wan, director of a program on weapons of mass destruction at SIPRI, said: “We have not seen nuclear weapons play such an important role in international relations since the Cold War.”
According to SIPRI, the total number of nuclear warheads in the world decreased slightly: at the beginning of the year there were 12,121, compared to 12,512 a year earlier.
A portion of these warheads must be dismantled, but 9,585 are available for potential use, nine more than last year.
And around 2,100 of these were kept on “high operational alert” for use in ballistic missiles.
The vast majority of nuclear warheads belong to Russia and the United States. Between the two countries they possess 90% of the nuclear weapons in the world.
Fighter aircraft (file photo).
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The details of how much is spent on nuclear arsenal in the world
For the first time, SIPRI estimated that China has “some nuclear warheads in a state of high operational alert”, that is, ready for immediate use.
Although “the total number of nuclear warheads continues to decline as Cold War-era weapons are progressively dismantled,” there is an increase in the “number of operational nuclear warheads” from year to year by nuclear powers. , according to Dan Smith, director of SIPRI.
According to ICAN, spending on nuclear weapons worldwide increased by $10.8 billion in 2023 from the previous year. The United States accounted for 80% of that increase.
The US share of total spending, at $51.5 billion, “is larger than that of all other nuclear weapons states combined,” ICAN said.
They are followed by China (11.8 billion) and Russia (8.3 billion).
Nuclear powers in total spent $2,898 per second last year to finance these weapons, according to the report. The amounts allocated to nuclear weapons increased by 33% since 2018 (which at that time stood at $68.2 billion), when ICAN began collecting the data.
In all these years, these countries invested some 387 billion dollars in these weapons, he added.
Parke denounced the “unacceptable use of public funds” and called these expenses “obscene.”
According to the director of ICAN, these funds represent more than what the World Food Program estimates is necessary to end world hunger. “And we could plant a million trees for every minute spent on nuclear weapons,” she added.
Chinese military exercises with helicopters near Taiwan.
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For its part, China assured this Monday that it follows a nuclear strategy of “self-defense” after the Stockholm International Peace Studies Institute (SIPRI) declared that the number of China’s warheads exceeded 410. to 500 between January 2023 and January 2024.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said today in a press conference that the Asian country’s nuclear strategy “maintains a high degree of stability, continuity and predictability.”
Lin criticized the investment of “huge sums of money” by the United States to upgrade its nuclear arsenal.
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