Global spending on nuclear weapons increased by 3% in 2022

Global spending on nuclear weapons rose 3% last year to $82.9 billion, more than half of which went to the United States, according to the latest annual report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

In the year the war in Ukraine began, the nine countries with confirmed nuclear weapons (US, China, Russia, Great Britain, France, India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea) invested an average of $157,664 every minute in this type of weaponry.

In total, there are currently 12,500 nuclear weapons around the world, of which 5,244 are in the hands of the United States.

By country, the US was the country that spent the most money on nuclear arsenals ($43.7 billion), far ahead of China, second in the ranking with $11.7 billion spent, although with a much smaller arsenal (410 nuclear weapons). . ).

Despite the large absolute numbers in terms of investment, ICAN estimates that neither the US nor China have devoted more than 5% of their military budget to nuclear weapons, while other nuclear powers like Russia exceeded 10%.

Russia was also the third country that spent the most money on nuclear weapons last year, with 9.6 billion dollars.

The country presided over by Vladimir Putin was in 2022 the main focus of the international community’s concern regarding nuclear panic, due to repeated threats to use these weapons.

ICAN, based in Geneva, works to promote adherence by all countries of the world to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, promoted by the United Nations.

Currently, more than 680 civil society organizations from 107 countries are members.

The campaign has released its annual report on global nuclear power spending for the past four years, and in 2022 the figure increased for the third year in a row.

According to the authors of the report, 82.9 billion dollars were spent last year on the development of i maintaining nuclear weapons could have ensured vaccination against covid-19 for at least 2000 million people.

“It’s appalling that these nine countries spent $82.9 billion. The arms industry takes about 35% of that money while telling its shareholders that pressure against nuclear disarmament is good for business,” lamented ICAN’s program coordinator, Susi Snyder.