Nuclear weapons number continues to increase globally: SIPRI
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Nuclear countries are ramping up their nuclear arsenals in the first nuclear race since the Cold war.
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A Nuclear capable Trident II missile launched from a US submarine (US Navy)
In 2021, the nine nuclear powers had 12,330 nuclear warheads. Now in 2022, Britain, China, France, India, "Israel", North Korea, Pakistan, the United States, and Russia had 12,705 nuclear warheads. In total, the world has 375 fewer nuclear warheads according to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
In 1986, the total number of nuclear warheads was higher than 70,000 as the US and Russia have gradually reduced their massive arsenals. But this era of disarmament appears to be approaching an end and the risk of nuclear escalation is remerging, for the first time since the Cold-war era.
"Soon, we're going to get to the point where, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the global number of nuclear weapons in the world could start increasing for the first time", one of the co-authors of the SIPRI report, Matt Korda, told AFP.
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In the coming decades, nuclear arsenals “are expected to grow” the report states. More clearly, it has been stated on several occasions that President Vladimir Putin made reference to the use of nuclear weapons in defense of the existence of the Russian state.
Unofficially, countries such as China and Britain are also modernizing and ramping up their arsenals.
The situation has been deteriorating for some years, according to SIPRI, despite the UN nuclear weapon prohibition treaty entering into force in early 2021 and a five-year extension of the US-Russian "New START" treaty.
The overall number of weapons has decreased as the US and Russia "dismantle retired warheads," according to SIPRI, but the number of active weapons has remained "relatively stable."
90 percent of the world's nuclear arsenal is held by Moscow and Washington alone.
According to the institution, Russia is the world's largest nuclear power, with 5,977 warheads deployed, in stock, or waiting to be dismantled in early 2022, down 280 from a year ago. SIPRI estimates that about 1,600 of its warheads are functioning right now.
In the meantime, the US possesses 5,428 warheads, 120 fewer than last year, but 1,750 more deployed than Russia.
China is ranked third in terms of overall numbers, with 350, followed by France with 290, the United Kingdom with 225, Pakistan with 165, India with 160, and "Israel" with 90, according to SIPRI.
Last year, the United Kingdom announced that it would raise the maximum on its overall warhead stockpile and that it would no longer publish numbers for the country's operational nuclear weapons.
