Stockpiles of nuclear weapons available for use increased in 2022

Five of the world's nine nuclear-armed nations drove up the global arsenal of nuclear weapons available for use, an international watchdog program reported.

China, India, North Korea, Pakistan and Russia all increased their stockpiles of warheads in 2022, according to new findings Wednesday from the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor.

The total number of nuclear warheads available for use worldwide – including those held by France, Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom – rose to 9,576 in early 2023, equal to the destructive power of 135,000 Hiroshima bombs.

That's an increase of 136 warheads available for use from early 2022.

“This increase is worrying, and continues a trend that started in 2017," said Grethe Østern, the Ban Monitor's editor. "If this does not stop, we will soon see an increase also in the total number of nuclear weapons in the world for the first time since the Cold War."

Each year, including 2022, the total global inventory of nuclear warheads, including ones that have been retired or are waiting to be dismantled, has dropped.

"This is only still true because Russia and the United States each year dismantle a small number of their older nuclear warheads that have been retired from service," said Hans Kristensen, a contributor to the Ban Monitor who directs the Nuclear Information Project.

Nuke 'do not deter aggression'

At the start of 2023, the nine nuclear-armed nations had 12,512 nuclear warheads, down from 12,705 a year earlier, said the Ban Monitor produced by Norwegian People's Aid and the Federation of American Scientists.

That includes 2,936 nuclear warheads that are retired and waiting to be dismantled.

All of the nine nuclear-armed nations have refused to join the first legally binding treaty to ban nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or TPNW, ratified by 68 countries, became international law in January 2022.

The Ban Monitor notes those nations' conduct "is not compatible with the TPNW, including by continuing to develop, produce and stockpile nuclear weapons," and 35 other nations without nuclear arms "also contravened one or more of the prohibitions of the TPNW" by encouraging others to keep them on their behalf.

Earlier this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced its first change to the iconic Doomsday Clock in three years, saying the world is now 90 seconds away from midnight, the symbolic hour of apocalypse.

Over the past year, the Monitor Ban said, Russia's invasion of Ukraine led fears of nuclear war to surge to its highest levels since the Cold War. NATO said Russia’s plan to store tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is “dangerous and irresponsible."

“The Ukraine crisis has demonstrated that nuclear weapons do not create peace or stability," said Henriette Westhrin, secretary-general of Norwegian People’s Aid. "They do not deter aggression, but enable conventional wars and incentivize risk taking that could lead to nuclear war.”