Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) launched its annual nuclear forces data, which assesses the current trends and developments in world nuclear arsenals. The data shows that while the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world continues to decline, none of the nuclear weapon-possessing states are prepared to give up their nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future.*
At the start of 2014 nine states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—possessed approximately 4000 operational nuclear weapons.
Slow and Modernizations Continue
Over the past five years there has been a steady decline in the overall number of nuclear warheads in the world (see table 2).
The decrease is due mainly to Russia and the USA—which together still account for more than 93 per cent of all nuclear weapons—further reducing their inventories of strategic nuclear weapons under the terms of the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START).
At the same time, all five legally recognized nuclear weapon states—China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA—are either deploying new nuclear weapon delivery systems or have announced programmes to do so.
India and Pakistan continue to develop new systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons and are expanding their capacities to produce fissile material for military purposes.
There is an emerging consensus in the expert community that North Korea has produced a small number of nuclear weapons, as distinct from rudimentary nuclear explosive devices.
For editors
The SIPRI Yearbook is a compendium of cutting-edge information and analysis on developments in armaments, disarmament and international security. Three major Yearbook data sets were pre-launched earlier in 2014: the SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing companies (31 January), international arms transfers (17 March) and world military expenditure data (14 April). See the earlier releases. Read this press release in Catalan, Español, Français or svenska (PDF).
Visit SIPRI’s newly updated nuclear forces pages. SIPRI Yearbook 2014 is published by Oxford University Press and will be available later in 2014. Learn more at www.sipriyearbook.org. For information and interview requests contact Stephanie Blenckner (blenckner@sipri.org, +46 8 655 97 47) or Emily Bloom (bloom@sipri.org, +46 8 655 97 97).
