World headed for new era of nuclear rearmament: SIPRI

The number of nuclear weapons in the world is set to rise in the coming decade after 35 years of decline as global tensions flare amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, researchers said Monday.

The nine nuclear powers Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, the United States and Russia had 12,705 nuclear warheads in early 2022, or 375 fewer than in early 2021, according to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The number has come down from a high of more than 70,000 in 1986, as the US and Russia have gradually reduced their massive arsenals built up during the Cold War. But this era of disarmament appears to be coming to an end and the risk of a nuclear escalation is now at its highest point in the postCold War period, SIPRI researchers said.

“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”, Matt Korda, one of the co-authors of the report, told AFP.

After a “marginal” decrease seen last year, “nuclear arsenals are expected to grow over the coming decade”, SIPRI said. During the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has on several occasions made reference to the use of nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile several countries, including China and Britain, are either officially or unofficially modernising or ramping up their arsenals, the research institute said. “It’s going to be very difficult to make progress on disarmament over the coming years because of this war, and because of how Putin is talking about his nuclear weapons”, Korda said.

These worrying statements are pushing “a lot of other nuclear armed states to think about their own nuclear strategies”, he added. Despite the entry into force in early 2021 of the UN nuclear weapon ban treaty and a five-year extension of the US-Russian “New START” treaty, the situation has been deteriorating for some time, according to SIPRI.