The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) reported a significant €10 billion increase in global spending on nuclear weapons in 2023 compared to the previous year.
Nine nuclear-armed states, including the United States, Russia, and China, have continued to modernize their arsenals, reflecting a deepened reliance on nuclear deterrence.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) highlighted that nuclear weapons have not played such a prominent role in international relations since the Cold War, according to Wilfred Wan, director of SIPRI’s weapons of mass destruction program.
This uptick in nuclear activity comes as Russia and Belarus recently commenced a second stage of drills aimed at training troops in tactical nuclear weapons, part of the Kremlin’s strategy to dissuade Western support for Ukraine.
In a separate report, ICAN noted that the nine nuclear-armed states spent a combined total of €85.4 billion on their nuclear arsenals in 2023, marking a €10 billion increase from 2022. The United States accounted for 80% of this increase.
Alicia Sanders-Zakre, ICAN’s Policy and Research Coordinator, pointed out a worrying trend of increased financial investment in nuclear weapons over the past five years.
China followed the U.S. with an expenditure of €11 billion, while Russia spent €7.7 billion. Sanders-Zakre criticized the spending, stating, “All this money is not improving global security; in fact, it’s threatening people wherever they live.”
SIPRI estimated that approximately 2,100 deployed warheads are maintained on high operational alert, predominantly by Russia and the U.S. Notably, China is believed to have placed some warheads on high operational alert for the first time.
Dan Smith, SIPRI’s director, expressed concern over the continuous increase in operational nuclear warheads, predicting that this trend is likely to accelerate in the coming years. He noted that Russia and the U.S. together possess nearly 90% of all nuclear weapons, with their military stockpiles remaining relatively stable in 2023.
However, Russia has reportedly deployed 36 more warheads with operational forces than it had in January 2023.
The SIPRI Yearbook 2024 revealed that transparency regarding nuclear forces has declined in both the U.S. and Russia since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This has heightened the importance of debates surrounding nuclear-sharing arrangements.
Following the invasion, Washington suspended its bilateral strategic stability dialogue with Russia, and Moscow subsequently announced the suspension of its participation in the New START nuclear treaty.
As of January 2023, the global inventory of nuclear warheads was estimated at 12,121, with about 9,585 in military stockpiles. Of these, 3,904 warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft, 60 more than in the previous year, with the rest in central storage.
In Asia, countries like India, Pakistan, and North Korea are pursuing capabilities to deploy multiple warheads on ballistic missiles. This capacity is already held by the U.S., Russia, France, the UK, and China, enabling a rapid potential increase in deployed warheads and posing a significant threat to more targets.
SIPRI emphasized that all estimates are approximate and that the institute annually revises its world nuclear forces data based on new information and updates to previous assessments.
