China and Britain are arming themselves
Neither country intends to abolish its nuclear weapons in any way, Kristensen told the German Press Agency. Instead, China is in the midst of a sweeping expansion of its nuclear arsenal, and Britain announced in 2021 that it would increase the upper limit of its total stockpile of warheads.
The number of nuclear weapons around the world has been steadily decreasing for decades. It now accounts for less than a fifth of what was in the arsenals of nuclear powers at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s. However, Sipri had already identified a reversal of the trend towards more modern nuclear weapons in the previous year. Germany does not have these weapons.
The five UN veto powers the US, Russia, Britain, France and China protested earlier this year that they wanted to take action against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. “We emphasize that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” the states said in a joint statement in early January.
Sipri complained that all five countries have expanded or modernized their arsenals since then. In the course of its war of aggression in Ukraine, Russia has even openly threatened the possible use of nuclear weapons. “While there have been some significant advances in both nuclear weapons control and nuclear disarmament in the past year, the risk of using nuclear weapons now appears higher than at any time since the height of the Cold War,” said Sipri’s director, Dan Smith.
Consequences of war uncertain
The new Sipri data refer to January 2022. A month later, Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s still a little early to draw conclusions about how Russia’s war of aggression will affect the world’s nuclear situation, Kristensen said.
However, the expert already sees an indirect effect: “The Russians are seeing that their conventional armed forces are not as good as they thought.” This is why Russia is likely to rely more on tactical nuclear weapons in the future. NATO is reacting to the war in Ukraine by emphasizing the importance of its nuclear weapons.
The risk of a nuclear confrontation has increased as a result of the war in Ukraine, Kristensen said. The danger is that the war could escalate into a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. Adding to the problems are the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan, escalating hostilities on the China-India border, and North Korea’s ongoing nuclear efforts.
“All these things add up. So it’s fair to say that we’re in a very precarious state right now,” Kristensen said. Above all, what’s needed now is a relaxation of nuclear rhetoric by the nuclear powers. It’s also a wake-up call to non-nuclear-weapon states. that they need to put a lot more pressure on nuclear-weapon states to back off from this bold policy. One criterion for that is a conference on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in New York in August.