STOCKHOLM: The role of nuclear weapons has become more prominent and nuclear states are modernizing arsenals as geopolitical relations worsen, researchers said on Monday, urging world leaders to “step back and think”.
Diplomatic efforts to control nuclear weapons have also suffered major setbacks amid strained international relations over conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its annual yearbook.
“We have not seen nuclear weapons play 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 Russia announced in February 2023 that it was suspending participation in the 2010 New START treaty — “the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty that limits Russian and US strategic nuclear forces.”
SIPRI also noted that Russia conducted tactical nuclear weapons exercises near the Ukrainian border in May.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped up his nuclear rhetoric since the conflict in Ukraine began, warning in his February address to the nation that there was a “real” risk of nuclear war.
In addition, an informal agreement between the United States and Iran reached in June 2023 was canceled after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, SIPRI said.
According to SIPRI, the world’s nine nuclear-weapon states also “continued to modernize their nuclear arsenals and several deployed new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapon systems in 2023.”
The nine countries are the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.
In January, of an estimated 12,121 nuclear warheads worldwide, about 9,585 were in stockpiles for potential use, according to SIPRI.
About 2,100 were kept on “high operational alert” for 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 number of nuclear warheads continues to decline as Cold War-era weapons are phased out, unfortunately we continue to see an increase in the number of operational nuclear warheads year after year,” 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 worrying”.
The researchers also highlighted the “steady deterioration of global security over the past year”, as the impact of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza could 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 major powers to “step back and think. Preferably together.”