ANALYSIS – As we all know, Russia and the U.S. together possess almost 90% of all the nuclear weapons globally. This was recently confirmed by the latest report on world nuclear forces by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
But, as I have written previously here, China is the country to watch as it is engaged in a massive effort to catch up to the top two. And that will make for a far more dangerous world.
The independent Institute listed the other seven nuclear-armed states as the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel.
Meanwhile, the Swedish think tank says, the era of reducing nuclear stockpiles is ending, with China, Russia, India, and Pakistan all deploying more bombs.
“The big picture is we've had over 30 years of the number of nuclear warheads coming down, and we see that process coming to an end now,” SIPRI Director Dan Smith, said, according to VOA News.
SIPRI estimated that Israel's nuclear stockpile remained steady at 90 warheads, but other estimates are that the country has upwards of 200 nukes. The UK and France are also said to keep their inventories unchanged. But the SIPRI report states:
[UK's] warhead stockpile is expected to grow in the future as a result of the British government's announcement in 2021 that it was raising its limit from 225 to 260 warheads. The government also said it would no longer publicly disclose its quantities of nuclear weapons, deployed warheads or deployed missiles.
North Korea's arsenal reportedly also grew but exact numbers are difficult to determine.
The institute says there are an estimated 12,512 warheads globally, of which 9,576 are in military stockpiles ready for potential use.
This is 86 more than a year ago. Stockpiles are different from total inventory which includes old warheads that are in storage or pending dismantling. And those numbers are far from the 70,000-plus nuclear warheads seen during the height of the Cold War in the 1980s.
But what is important is that 60 of those newly added nukes are Chinese.
China, the world's third-biggest nuclear power, is believed to have increased its number of warheads from 350 in January 2022 to 410 in January 2023. Some estimates are much greater than that.
And that arsenal is expected to keep growing, exponentially in the next few years.
“Depending on how it decides to structure its forces, China could potentially have at least as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as either the USA or Russia by the turn of the decade,” SIPRI wrote.
That will create a paradigm shift in the nuclear arms race.
So, while the world's nine nuclear-armed states are continuing to modernize their nuclear arsenals – and adding a few nukes here and there – China is the nation leading the charge in growing the number of nukes globally.
According to SIPRI:
‘China has started a significant expansion of its nuclear arsenal,' says 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). ‘It is increasingly difficult to square this trend with China's declared aim of having only the minimum nuclear forces needed to maintain its national security.'
The institute also said that nuclear arms control had suffered major setbacks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Washington suspended its bilateral strategic stability dialogue with Russia, and Moscow announced in February that it was suspending its participation in the New START nuclear treaty.
But as I have argued and Team Trump also emphasized, China is unconstrained by any nuclear arms control agreements.
So, unless it is included in any future negotiations, the entire nuclear arms control process has become fairly moot, if it ever was of any real value.
Chinas been doing this since 1953 to date