Nuclear weapons: Peace researchers warn of new nuclear arms arms

In view of the highly tense world situation, the Stockholm Peace Research Institute Sipri warns of a renewed armaments betting of the nuclear powers. As can be seen from the new annual report of the independent institute, the global nuclear arsenals are increasingly being expanded and modernized.

Almost all of the nuclear weapons states in 2024 continued to find themselves in intensive modernization programs, retrofitted existing weapons and added to them newer versions, the peace researchers write. A dangerous new nuclear arms arms emerges – and at a time when it is extremely bad about the contracts for armaments control.

More than 12,000 atomic explosive heads worldwide

Sipri estimates the global total stock of nuclear warheads on 12,241. There are around 9,614 of this for potential use in military stocks – that is about 29 more than in the previous year. An estimated 3,912 of the explosive heads were therefore placed on rockets or on active bases, including around 2,100, which were kept in high operational. All of these values ​​depict the status in January 2025.

Nine countries of the earth are considered nuclear powers. These primarily include the USA and Russia, which still has almost 90 percent of all nuclear weapons due to the Cold War. In addition, there are Great Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel, which still does not publicly admit to being in the possession of nuclear weapons. Germany has no nuclear weapons.

Escalation between Israel and Iran

According to Sipri, renewed atomic debates in Europe, Middle East and East Asia indicate that potentially other states could develop their own nuclear weapons. The atomic efforts of Iran see the peace researchers increasingly influenced by the escalating conflict with Israel: While the potential advantages of nuclear deterrence are discussed in domestic political debates, Iranian leadership in discussions with the United States about a revival of the nuclear agreement with the West, willingness to be readily reluctance, the report says.

A few days ago, Israel had started major attacks on Iranian cities and nuclear facilities and, among other things, justified this by the fact that Iran “strives for the building of an atomic bomb in the near future. Tehran has always denied this.

Soon more nuclear weapons in the world for the first time?

The global number of nuclear weapons has decreased continuously for decades – at peak times of the Cold War, it was more than five times as high as today. This decline is mainly due to the fact that Russia and the United States gradually dismantled explosive heads.

In contrast, Sipri has been watching an increase in the number of operational nuclear weapons for a long time. While the pace of dismantling is slowing down, the provision of new weapons accelerates at the same time. In other words, it looks that more new nuclear weapons will soon be provided than old ones are discarded. The overall stock could increase for the first time in the next few years.

“The era of reducing the global number of nuclear weapons, which has lasted since the end of the Cold War, ends,” says Sipri expert Hans Kristensen. “Instead, we observe a clear trend towards growing nuclear arsenals, intensified nuclear rhetoric and the termination of armaments control agreements,” he warns.

Dramatic location in armaments control agreements

Several disarmament and control contracts have suffered greatly in recent times. In 2019, under the then and today’s President Donald Trump, the United States terminated the Inf-Treaty to do without land-based atomic short and medium-range missiles and a year later also announced the withdrawal from the contract Open Skies on international military observation flights. As a result, Russia had also announced the open Skies exit.

In 2022, after his invasion of Ukraine, Russia took out his resignation from the disarmament contract on conventional armed forces in Europe (KSE contract). At that time, the country of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin also overruled the last major atomic disarmament contract with the USA. Since then, discussions about a successor agreement have been on hold. If there is no solution, the contract expires in February 2026.

In the shade of Washington and Moscow, a third leading nuclear power, which, according to Sipri is in the middle of the comprehensive modernization and expansion of her nuclear weapons, is increasingly crystallizing in the shadow. China. The Chinese stocks are estimated by the institute on around 600 nuclear explosive heads. That is now more than France (290) and Great Britain (225).

“China’s nuclear weapons arsenal grows faster than that of every other country: around 100 new explosive heads a year since 2023,” says the Sipri report. Tendency: continued to rise.

“Nuclear weapons do not guarantee security”

Then there would be India and Pakistan. After the latest confrontation between the two rival nuclear powers, there has been a ceasefire among them since mid -May. There was a risk of transforming a conventional conflict into a nuclear crisis, explains Sipri expert Matt Korda. “This should be an urgent warning for states that want to increase their dependence on nuclear weapons.”

The recent hostility between India and Pakistan showed that nuclear weapons did not prevent conflicts, he says. “It is crucial to remember that nuclear weapons do not guarantee security.”

The same thing is to see at the peace organization Greenpeace. “The combination of nuclear armament and the strengthened nationalist and populist forces in the nuclear weapons states is afraid,” says Greenpeace armor-up expert Alexander Lurz. Germany is part of this global upgrading with the purchase of nuclear weapons-capable F-35 combat jets for the nuclear participation itself.