A new arms race?
After 35 years of decline, the number of nuclear weapons in the world will increase again in the next decade, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published on Monday, in a context of Russian atomic threat and tensions between the great powers
At the beginning of 2022, the nine nations endowed with “the bomb” (Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) possessed 12,705 nuclear warheads, some 375 fewer than at the beginning of 2021 , according to SIPRI estimates.
Since its all-time high in 1986 (over 70,000 head), this total has fallen more than fivefold with the regular decline of the huge US and Russian stockpiles built up during the Cold War.
But this era of disarmament is coming to an end and the risk of nuclear escalation is now the highest in the post-Cold War period, according to the Swedish center’s report.
“We will soon reach a point where, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the number of nuclear weapons in the world could start to increase, which is a really dangerous phenomenon,” said Matt Korda, one of the co-authors. Of the report.
Thus, the world arsenal should progress again “in the course of the next decade.”
The war in Ukraine has caused various explicit references to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the use of the atomic weapon, and the countries that possess it, for example China and the United Kingdom, carry out plans to modernize or develop their arsenals, according to the institute.