Global spending on nuclear weapons increased by $500 million last year as growing tensions between the world's leading military blocs caused nuclear powers to update and enlarge their arsenals.
According to a report published on Monday by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a Nobel Peace Prize-winning non-profit organisation, the world's nine nuclear-armed states spent a combined total of $82.9 billion on nuclear weapons in 2022, or $157,664 per minute.
The United States accounted for more than half of total global expenditure ($43.7 billion). China, the second-highest spender, invested $11.7 billion (a quarter that of the US); Russia spent the third-greatest amount ($9.6 billion). France, the only nuclear-armed EU Member State, spent $5.6 billion.
India recorded the greatest proportional expenditure increase (21.8%), while neighbour Pakistan – a country which has gone to war with India several times in recent decades – also significantly ramped up its nuclear expenditure (by $94 million).
"It's appalling that these nine countries spent $82.9 billion on 12,500 nuclear weapons," said ICAN's Programme Coordinator and report co-author Susi Snyder. "These billions could have been spent rebuilding from the devastating Covid-19 pandemic and combating climate change and biodiversity loss."
'Making the situation worse'
In addition to denouncing governments' colossal expenditure, ICAN condemned the lobbying activities of nuclear arms manufacturers, which it estimated amounted to $113 million in the US and France alone last year.
Similarly, the report criticised the nefarious network of think tanks which continues to accept millions of dollars in funding from nuclear arms companies whilst at the same time spreading the "mythical" notion of nuclear deterrence. The report said that such an idea "puts us all at constant risk of annihilation".
The report rebuked the companies and individuals that profit from nuclear weapons. It took aim at "those who defend the right of these countries to indiscriminately murder civilians with weapons of mass destruction through falsehoods of deterrence."
In no uncertain terms, the authors challenged the credibility of think tanks that campaign for nuclear arms, questioning how they can be presented as independent and objective institutions "when they accept funding from companies and countries with vested interests in maintaining and building more weapons of mass destruction."
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ICAN Policy and Research Coordinator Alicia Sanders-Zakre contested the claims of arms manufacturers and lobbyists who argue that bolstering nuclear arsenals improves global security. She countered that "the $82.9 billion that [nuclear-armed states] wasted in 2022 did nothing to improve global security, rather, they are making the situation worse."
To honestly move towards a safer planet, Sanders-Zakre stressed that the world's nuclear-armed countries should sign up to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: a 2021 UN agreement which bans signatories from developing, possessing, or threatening to use nuclear weapons.
She emphasises that only adhering to the treaty will bring "real security" and pointed out that almost half of UN member states "already reject these tools of terror and intimidation and are working together to end the nuclear weapons era."
