Pakistan and India have steadily increased their nuclear arsenal from 60-80 and 70-90 warheads in 2010, to 110-120 and 90-110 respectively by 2014, a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on Monday.
According to the report, both Pakistan and India have not only been developing new systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons but also expanding their capacities to produce fissile material for military purposes.
The data compiled by the SIPRI shows that at the start of 2014, the nine nuclear armed states, namely United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea together possessed approximately 16 300, nuclear warheads, while the number of active/deployed nuclear weapons was around 4000.
Russia, US still lead world nuclear arsenals
While acknowledging the reduction in the number of nuclear weapons in last five years, from 22,600 in 2010 to 16,300 in 2014, the report says that the decrease is mainly due to Russia and US, who have been reducing their arsenal under the terms of the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START).
The report further states that despite the reduction in the number of nuclear weapons the nuclear armed states are apparently not willing to completely dismantle their nuclear arsenals, instead have been modernising their delivery systems.
It further claims that all five legally recognised nuclear weapon states—China, France, Russia, UK and USA—are either deploying new nuclear weapon delivery systems or have announced programmes to do so.
“Once again this year, the nuclear weapon-possessing states took little action to indicate a genuine willingness to work toward complete dismantlement of their nuclear arsenals. The long term modernisation programmes under way in these states suggest their views that nuclear weapons will remain deeply embedded elements of their strategic calculus,” said SIPRI Researchers Shannon Kile and Phillip Patton Schell.
The report further claims that 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.
