GENEVA (AN) — The global inventory of nuclear weapons fell almost 2% but the number of ready-to-use warheads is dangerously on the rise.
As the nine nuclear-armed nations modernize their arsenals, some have deployed new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapons systems, a Swedish think tank reported on Monday.
The overall number of nuclear warheads worldwide fell to 12,512 as of January 2023, down from 12,710 a year earlier, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI.
Of those, 9,576 were kept in military stockpiles for potential use – 86 more than in January 2022 – and 40% of those warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft.
Even more alarming, around 2,000 warheads, nearly all belonging to Russia and the United States, were kept in a state of high operational alert. That means they're already fitted onto missiles, or stored at air bases that have nuclear bombers.
"Overall, the number of nuclear warheads in the world continues to decline. However, this is primarily due to the USA and Russia dismantling retired war heads," SIPRI said. "Global reductions of operational warheads appear to have stalled, and their numbers are rising again."
Separately, a report by a Geneva-based coalition of NGOs found nine nations collectively spent US$82.9 billion on nuclear weapons in 2022, the third consecutive year such spending increased.
That's up by US$2.5 billion from 2021, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, said in its report, and the United States accounted for US$43.7 billion, or 53% of all of last year's spending.
By comparison, China spent US$11.7 billion and Russia spent US$9.6 billion, or 14% and 12%, respectively, of what the nine nations collectively invested in their nuclear arms programs.
Risks of miscalculation
Russia, with 5,889 nuclear warheads, and the United States, with 5,244, have 89% of the world's nuclear weapons among them.
Each country has more than 1,000 previously retired warheads they are gradually dismantling. But it's getting hard to keep track of both their militaries, SIPRI said, in the wake of Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022.
Making matters worse, Washington suspended its bilateral strategic stability dialogue with Russia while Moscow suspended its participation in the New START nuclear accord signed in 2010 by leaders Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev.
"In this period of high geopolitical tension and mistrust, with communication channels between nuclear-armed rivals closed or barely functioning, the risks of miscalculation, misunderstanding or accident are unacceptably high," SIPRI Director Dan Smith said.
"There is an urgent need to restore nuclear diplomacy and strengthen international controls on nuclear arms," he said. "We are drifting into one of the most dangerous periods in human history."
China's expanding arsenal
Russia, which had 5,977 nuclear warheads a year earlier, dismantled 88 that were retired from military service, according to SIPRI's figures, which also show that the United States, which had 5,428 a year earlier, added 16 to its ranks.
The rest are maintained by China (410), France (290), India (164), Israel (90), North Korea (30), Pakistan (170), and the United Kindom (225).
China's nuclear arsenal grew 17% in a year, up from 350 a year earlier – and might have as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as Russia or the U.S. by 2030.
"China has started a significant expansion of its nuclear arsenal," said SIPRI's Hans Kristensen, who also heads the Federation of American Scientists' Nuclear Information Project.
"It is increasingly difficult to square this trend with China’s declared aim of having only the minimum nuclear forces needed to maintain its national security," he said.
Matt Korda, a researcher at SIPRI and the project headed by Kristensen, said most of the nuclear-armed nations hardened their rhetoric about why the weapons are important, and some even gave "explicit or implicit" threats to maybe use them.
‘This elevated nuclear competition has dramatically increased the risk that nuclear weapons might be used in anger for the first time since World War II," he said.
It's a turnaround from the January 2021 when world peace advocates celebrated the first legally binding treaty to ban nuclear weapons becoming international law.
Some 122 nations among the 193-nation United Nations General Assembly approved the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017, starting the process of ratification.
That same year, ICAN, which includes 650 partner oranizations in 110 countries, won the Nobel Peace Prize for its "groundbreaking efforts" to achieve the treaty and its work in more broadly drawing attention to the dangers of nuclear weapons.
Under the treaty, global peace advocates can for the first time argue that any nation possessing nuclear arms has aims incompatible with international law. None of the nine nuclear-armed nations joined or ratified the treaty, however, and NATO also opposed it.
