The extracts below are from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook 2025
‘World’s nuclear arsenals being enlarged and upgraded ‘
'Nearly all of the nine nuclear-armed states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Israel—continued intensive nuclear modernisation programmes in 2024, upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions.
Of the total global inventory of an estimated 12 241 warheads in January 2025, about 9614 were in military stockpiles for potential use An estimated 3912 of those warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft and the rest were in central storage. Around 2100 of the deployed warheads were kept in a state of high operational alert on ballistic missiles. Nearly all of these warheads belonged to Russia or the USA, but China may now keep some warheads on missiles during peacetime.
Since the end of the cold war, the gradual dismantlement of retired warheads by Russia and the USA has normally outstripped the deployment of new warheads, resulting in an overall year-on-year decrease in the global inventory of nuclear weapons. This trend is likely to be reversed in the coming years, as the pace of dismantlement is slowing, while the deployment of new nuclear weapons is accelerating.
‘The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the cold war, is coming to an end,’ said Hans M. Kristensen, Associate Senior Fellow with SIPRI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme and Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). ‘Instead, we see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements.’
Russia and the USA together possess around 90 per cent of all nuclear weapons. The sizes of their respective military stockpiles (i.e. useable warheads) seem to have stayed relatively stable in 2024 but both states are implementing extensive modernisation programmes that could increase the size and diversity of their arsenals in the future. If no new agreement is reached to cap their stockpiles, the number of warheads they deploy on strategic missiles seems likely to increase after the bilateral 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) expires in February 2026.
The USA’s comprehensive nuclear modernisation programme is progressing but in 2024 faced planning and funding challenges that could delay and significantly increase the cost of the new strategic arsenal. Moreover, the addition of new non-strategic nuclear weapons to the US arsenal will place further stress on the modernisation programme.
Russia’s nuclear modernisation programme is also facing challenges that in 2024 included a test failure and the further delay of the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and slower than expected upgrades of other systems. Furthermore, an increase in Russia’s non-strategic nuclear warheads predicted by the USA in 2020 has so far not materialised.
Israel—which does not publicly acknowledge possessing nuclear weapons—is also believed to be modernising its nuclear arsenal. In 2024 it conducted a test of a missile propulsion system that could be related to its Jericho family of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Israel also appears to be upgrading its plutonium production reactor site at Dimona.
SIPRI Director Dan Smith warns about the challenges facing nuclear arms control and the prospects of a new nuclear arms race. Smith observes that ‘bilateral nuclear arms control between Russia and the USA entered crisis some years ago and is now almost over’. While New START—the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty limiting Russian and US strategic nuclear forces—remains in force until early 2026, there are no signs of negotiations to renew or replace it, or that either side wants to do so. US President Donald J. Trump insisted during his first term and has now repeated that any future deal should also include limits on China’s nuclear arsenal—something that would add a new layer of complexity to already difficult negotiations.
Smith also issues a stark warning about the risks of a new nuclear arms race: ‘The signs are that a new arms race is gearing up that carries much more risk and uncertainty than the last one.’ The rapid development and application of an array of technologies—for example in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), cyber capabilities, space assets, missile defence and quantum—are radically redefining nuclear capabilities, deterrence and defence, and thus creating potential sources of instability. Advances in missile defence and the oceanic deployment of quantum technology could ultimately have an impact on the vulnerability of key elements of states’ nuclear arsenals.
Furthermore, as AI and other technologies speed up decision making in crises, there is a higher risk of a nuclear conflict breaking out as a result of miscommunication, misunderstanding or technical accident.'
No comments:
Post a Comment