SIPRI warns of trend reversal in nuclear weapons decline

World powers such as the US, Russia and China are rapidly modernizing their nuclear arsenals, researchers from SIPRI said in a new report.

Although the world’s overall stockpile of nuclear weapons has decreased since last year, the number of operationally deployable weapons is on the rise, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its Yearbook report published on Monday. 

At the beginning of 2021, the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and NorthKorea possessed a total of 13,080 nuclear warheads, a decrease of 320 from the previous year. 

These figures include retired warheads which are set to be dismantled. Without those retired warheads, the total global arsenal rose from 9,380 to 9,620 from 2020 to 2021. 

At the same time, the report says the number of deployable weapons increased from 3,720 to 3,825 over the previous year. These weapons are either mounted on missiles or located on active bases.

SIPRI researchers say the report shows worrying trends regarding global nuclear arsenals. 

“The overall number of warheads in global military stockpiles now appears to be increasing, a worrisome sign that the declining trend that has characterized global nuclear arsenals since the end of the Cold War has stalled,” SIPRI researcher Hans M. Kristensen said.