Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised his nuclear rhetoric since the start of the conflict in Ukraine.
Stockholm:
The role of atomic weapons has become more prominent and nuclear states are modernizing their arsenals as geopolitical relations deteriorate, researchers said Monday, urging world leaders to “step back and reflect.”
Diplomatic efforts to control nuclear weapons have also suffered major setbacks amid tense international relations due to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its annual yearbook.
“We have not seen nuclear weapons playing such a prominent role in international relations since the Cold War,” Wilfred Wan, director of SIPRI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Program, said in a statement.
The research institute noted that in February 2023 Russia announced that it was suspending participation in the 2010 New START treaty – “the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty limiting Russian and US strategic nuclear forces.”
SIPRI also noted that Russia carried out tactical exercises with nuclear weapons near the border with Ukraine in May.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised his nuclear rhetoric since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, warning in his address to the nation in February that there was a “real” risk of nuclear war.
Furthermore, an informal agreement between the United States and Iran reached in June 2023 was annulled after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October, SIPRI said.
– ‘Extremely worrying’ –
According to SIPRI, the world’s nine nuclear-weapon states have also “continued to modernize their nuclear arsenals and several have deployed new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapons systems by 2023.”
The nine countries are the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.
As of January, of the estimated 12,121 nuclear warheads worldwide, about 9,585 were in storage for potential use, according to SIPRI.
About 2,100 were kept on “high operational alert” about ballistic missiles.
Almost all of these warheads belong to Russia and the United States – which together possess nearly 90 percent of all nuclear weapons – but for the first time China was believed to have some warheads on high operational alert.
“While the global total of nuclear warheads continues to fall as Cold War-era weapons are gradually dismantled, we regrettably continue to see annual increases in the number of operational nuclear warheads,” said SIPRI Director Dan Smith.
He added that this trend is likely to continue and “probably accelerate” in the coming years, describing it as “extremely concerning.”
The researchers also highlighted the “continued deterioration of global security over the past year”, as the impact of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza can be seen in “almost every aspect” of issues related to arms and international security.
“We are now in one of the most dangerous periods in human history,” Smith said, urging the world’s great powers to “step back and reflect.
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