Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday.
Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said.
Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely to be reversed in the coming years.
Photo: Reuters
“What we see now, first of all, is that the number of operational nuclear warheads is beginning to increase,” SIPRI director Dan Smith said.
This was especially the case with China, which SIPRI said had about 600 nuclear warheads and had added 100 new warheads in 2023 and last year.
“China is increasing its nuclear force steadily,” Smith said, adding that the country could reach 1,000 warheads in seven or eight years.
While that would still be well short of Russian and US arsenals, it would make China “a much bigger player,” Smith said.
He said the world faced new threats “at a particularly dangerous and unstable moment” for geopolitics, adding: “We see the warning signs of a new nuclear arms race coming.”
SIPRI counted a total of 12,241 warheads in January, of which 9,614 were in stockpiles for potential use.
The institute noted in its report that both Russia and the US had “extensive programs under way to modernize and replace their nuclear warheads.”
The UK was not believed to have increased its number of warheads last year, but given its 2021 decision to raise its limit on the number of warheads from 225 to 260, it was likely to increase in the future, the institute said.
Similarly, while France’s arsenal was believed to have remained steady at about 290, “its nuclear modernization program progressed during 2024.”
India and Pakistan both “continued to develop new types of nuclear weapon delivery systems in 2024.”
India had a “growing stockpile” of about 180 nuclear weapons at the start of this year, the institute said, while Pakistan’s arsenal remained steady at about 170 warheads.
SIPRI said that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program remained “central to its national security strategy,” estimating that it had about 50 warheads and was believed to possess “enough fissile material to reach a total of up to 90 warheads.”
Israel — which does not acknowledge its nuclear weapons — is also believed to be modernizing its arsenal, which SIPRI estimated was about 90 warheads at the start of the year.
Smith said that the looming nuclear arms race would not just be about “the numbers of warheads.”
“It’s an arms race which is going to be highly technological,” he said.
He added that it would be both in “outer space and in cyberspace,” as the software directing and guiding nuclear weapons would be an area of competition.
The rapid development of artificial intelligence will also likely begin to play a part, at first as a complement to humans.
“The next step would be moving towards full automation. That is a step that must never be taken,” Smith said.
“If our prospects of being free of the danger of nuclear war were to be left in the hands of an artificial intelligence, I think that then we would be close to the doomsday scenarios,” he said.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
RSS