Despite lofty hopes, global spending on nukes continues to surge

Despite lofty hopes for a “nuke-free world,” global spending on nuclear weapons continued to surge in 2022, with the world’s nine nuclear states continuing to modernize and expand their arsenals.

The alarming development — the third year in a row that spending has risen — not only highlights a worsening global security environment, but also deals a serious blow to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

The nuclear-armed countries — the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — spent almost $83 billion on the weapons and related systems last year, of which the private sector earned at least $29 billion, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said in a report released Monday.

Despite not increasing its arsenal, the U.S. alone spent more than all of the other nuclear armed states combined — $43.7 billion — while Russia, which has a comparable stockpile, spent 22% of what the U.S. did, at $9.6 billion, according to ICAN. China spent just over a quarter of the U.S. total, at $11.7 billion.

“Each of these countries is modernizing its weapons and the systems needed to deliver them,” such as missiles, aircraft and submarines, Susi Snyder, ICAN's program coordinator and co-author of the report, told The Japan Times.

The spending includes investments in research and development, testing, manufacturing and the various components required, all of which come with differing price tags, she added.

Indeed, unless more infrastructure is developed for nuclear fuel production, the main factor behind nuclear weapons spending is delivery systems, which are “much more expensive than warheads and require huge investments in personnel,” said Alex Wellerstein, an expert on the history of nuclear weapons and assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

For the U.S., the latter means development and construction of a new nuclear-armed submarine class, a replacement for its B-1 and B-2 bombers, more accurate detonation systems and a huge overhaul of command, control and communications infrastructure.

It also means working on more reliable and more accurate nuclear missiles, with Washington deciding to contract two companies for two different intercontinental ballistic missile systems systems.

Northrop Grumman has been contracted to build a totally new ICBM system called Sentinel, while BAE Systems secured a multibillion dollar contract to keep the Minuteman III system around for about two more decades.

And while the U.S. might not be expanding the number of nuclear weapons in its arsenal, it is investing in “a massive infrastructure renewal that could rapidly increase nuclear weapons production to levels not seen in decades,” Snyder said.

The U.S. recently entered a new cycle of upgrades, as its existing nuclear-triad delivery systems have been in service for decades and are near the end of their service lives.

“The effort to replace old systems with new ones accounts for a major part of the significant U.S. spending on nuclear weapons,” said Tong Zhao, a nuclear weapons policy expert and senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But the spending spree is not just for delivery systems.

The newest nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal were produced in the early 1990s, so Washington is also investing in capacities to manufacture new plutonium pits, Zhao said, noting concerns about degradation and the reliability of warheads’ nuclear components.

In Russia, the increased spending has meant work on new systems such as the Sarmat ICBM, the Poseidon drone submarine and the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile.

Moscow, which has repeatedly threatened to deploy nuclear weapons against Ukraine, is also preparing to field new nuclear-capable heavy bombers, said William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

In China, which doesn’t release details about its arsenal, the increased spending has apparently resulted in more ICBMs and hypersonic delivery vehicles.

Countries with smaller arsenals such as India have also been spending more, with New Delhi beginning sea testing of a new nuclear-armed submarine and developing a new nuclear missile called Agni-Prime.

As for France, Paris continued its programs to develop a new nuclear-armed submarine and a new air-launched cruise missile, as well as to refurbish and upgrade existing systems.

However, new delivery systems have not been the only drivers of spending growth.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in a report, also released Monday, that of the total global inventory of an estimated 12,512 nuclear warheads in January 2023, about 9,576 were in military stockpiles for potential use — 86 more than in January 2022, with much of the growth attributed to China.

SIPRI said it estimates Beijing’s arsenal increased from 350 to 410 warheads during this time period, adding that China could potentially have at least as many ICBMs as either the U.S. or Russia by the turn of the decade.

“My suspicion is that there are probably a few different things driving Beijing’s choices, ranging from fears of ballistic-missile defense systems and U.S. targeting abilities, as well as a desire to put China on ‘equal footing’ with Russia and the U.S.,” Wellerstein said.

Among the other countries said to have increased their stockpiles last year are India, with an estimated 164 (an additional four warheads), Pakistan (170, plus five) and North Korea (30, plus five), according to SIPRI.

Although Britain is not thought to have increased its arsenal in 2022, SIPRI said it expects the stockpile to grow, given London’s 2021 announcement that it was raising its limit from 225 to 260 warheads.

There are also issues of transparency.

While most nuclear-armed states provide essentially no information about the sizes of their stockpiles, the degree of secrecy has varied considerably from country to country, with Western states often being far more open.

That said, amid the worsening global security situation, both Washington and London declined to make public information about their nuclear forces in 2022, something they had done in previous years. This means that in many cases the reports’ assessments are based on informed estimates rather than actual data.

The lack of sufficient domestic self-restraint and international arms control agreements, along with an intensifying “great power competition,” is “having a spillover effect, exacerbating the problem of excessive nuclear spending,” Zhao said.

The SIPRI and ICAN reports come as nuclear disarmament efforts suffered major setbacks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Washington suspending its strategic stability dialogue with Russia, and Moscow suspending in February its participation in the 2010 New START treaty — the last remaining nuclear arms control pact limiting Russian and U.S. strategic forces.

So, what does this mean for last month’s Group of Seven pledge in Hiroshima that the countries would seek to spur momentum for a nuke-free world?

According to Wellerstein, the message the latest reports provide is that while the U.S., France, and Britain may pay lip service to the idea of disarmament, “they do not really take it seriously as something that will be happening anytime soon.”

In fact, Wellerstein said that the growing security tensions — from Ukraine to Sino-U.S. rivalry — just add more to the “nuclear spending engine,” which is already well in motion.

“In my opinion it is truly tragic that so many resources are being spent in this way because the ultimate goal will be to create weapon systems that will never be used and will not in any real way increase U.S.or Russian security beyond what it currently is at.”