The risk of nuclear weapons being used is at its highest since World War II, a senior U.N. security expert said on Tuesday, calling it an "urgent" issue that the world should take more seriously.
Renata Dwan, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), said all states with nuclear weapons have nuclear modernization programs underway and the arms control landscape is changing, partly due to strategic competition between China and the United States.
Traditional arms control arrangements are also being eroded by the emergence of new types of war, with increasing prevalence of armed groups and private-sector forces and new technologies that blurred the line between offense and defense, she told reporters in Geneva.