According to calculations by the pressure group International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), global spending on nuclear weapons is estimated to increase by 13 percent in 2023 to a record high of $91.4 billion.
of New TotalThe figure, up $10.7 billion from last year, is largely due to a big boost in the U.S. defense budget amid geopolitical uncertainty caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas.
Icahn added that all nine of the world’s nuclear weapons states are increasing spending, with China listed as the second-biggest spender with a budget of $11.9 billion, but Beijing’s total is well below the United States’ $51.5 billion.
Russia is the third biggest spender at $8.3 billion, followed by the UK ($8.1 billion) and France ($6.1 billion), but estimates for autocracies and three countries that have not declared nuclear programs (India, Pakistan and Israel) are complicated by a lack of transparency.
Susie Snyder, one of the study’s authors, warned that nuclear-armed states “would be spending $100 billion a year on nuclear weapons,” money that could be used for environmental and social programs.
“These billions of dollars could have been used to fight climate change and save the animals and plants that support life on Earth from extinction, not to mention improve health and education services around the world,” Snyder said.
In the past five years, since ICAN began tracking nuclear weapons spending has soared by 34 percent, or $23.2 billion, with US spending up 45 percent and UK spending up 43 percent over that period, and on current trends will exceed $100 billion by 2024.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly referred to his country’s nuclear arsenal and warned the West about direct military intervention in Ukraine since launching a full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russia also began a series of drills in May simulating the use of tactical nuclear weapons near the Ukrainian border.
Other data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipli) showed the number of active nuclear warheads also increased slightly to 9,585, mainly due to China increasing its nuclear arsenal from 410 to 500.
The largest nuclear powers have remained the same since the 1950s: the United States and Russia, which together possess about 90 percent of all nuclear warheads. Russia has 4,380 deployed or stored warheads, while the United States has 3,708, the researchers added.
“We estimate that Russia has deployed approximately 36 more nuclear warheads to its operational forces compared to January 2023,” the Shipry researchers said, but added that there is no solid evidence that Moscow has deployed nuclear missiles in Belarus, despite public statements by Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Britain’s nuclear arsenal is estimated to remain at 225 (France has 290), but three years ago Britain announced it would increase its nuclear cap to 260 Trident warheads to counter threats from Russia and China.
“Nuclear weapons have never played such a significant role in international relations since the Cold War,” said Wilfred Wang, head of Shipley’s weapons of mass destruction program.
He compared the number of deployed nuclear warheads to a joint statement signed by the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia in 2022. Building on earlier statements, the five countries declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
