CHINA, PAKISTAN HAVE MORE NUCLEAR POWER
With 6,375 and 5,800 warheads, Russia and the US possess more than 90% of global nuclear weapons
NEW DELHI: China and Pakistan possess more nuclear weapons than India, according to a new yearbook released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday.
The think tank’s Yearbook 2020 pegs the number of nuclear warheads in the Chinese arsenal at 320, while the nuclear forces of Pakistan and India are estimated to have 160 and 150 weapons, respectively. The figures have been updated till January 2020.
“One must keep in mind that nuclear weapons are not warfighting weapons but only constitute a deterrence factor. Our no first use (NFU) policy suitably caters to the threat. While India keeps a sharp eye on this, it is imperative that our conventional capability accretion continues unhindered,” said Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur (retd), additional director general, Centre for Air Power Studies.
India and its neighbours were ranked in the same order by SIPRI last year too when China possessed 290 nuclear warheads, Pakistan 150-160 and India, 130140 warheads at the start of 2019.
The findings come at a time when India and China are caught in a border confrontation along the contested line of actual control in eastern Ladakh. Also, there is a noticeable military buildup on both sides of the border from Ladakh to Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh.
China is carrying out “significant modernisation” of its nuclear arsenal and developing a “so-called nuclear triad for the first time” made up of new land and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable fighter jets, SIPRI said in a statement announcing the launch of the yearbook.
“India and Pakistan are slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces,” it said.
The yearbook that “assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security”, found while there has been an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2019, all nuclear weapon-possessing countries continue to modernise their nuclear arsenals.
With 6,375 and 5,800 warheads, Russia and the United States together possess more than 90% of global nuclear weapons.
The nine nuclear-armed countries — the US, Russia, the United
Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — together account for an estimated 13,400 nuclear weapons as of January 2020.
“This marked a decrease from the 13,865 nuclear weapons that SIPRI estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2019. Around 3,720 nuclear weapons are currently deployed with operational forces and nearly 1,800 of these are kept in a state of high operational alert,” SIPRI said.
It also highlighted low levels of transparency in reporting on nuclear weapon capabilities.
“China now publicly displays its nuclear forces more frequently than in the past but releases little information about force numbers or future development plans,” the statement said.
“India and Pakistan make statements about some of their missile tests but provide no information about the status or size of arsenals,” it added.
India was the third-biggest military spender last year after the US and China, according to a SIPRI report. New Delhi’s defence spending grew by 6.8% to reach $71.1 billion in 2019, said the report on Trends in World in World Military Expenditure.