Fewer Nuclear Weapons, but Closer to Abolition?: SIPRI Yearbook 2012

The SIPRI Yearbook 2012, released on June 4, shows that at the beginning of 2012, the total number of deployed nuclear weapons possessed by eight states (US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel) is nearly 4,400. If all nuclear warheads are included, these states together possess a total of nearly 19,000 nuclear weapons, as compared with 20,530 at the start of 2011 (see table).¹

The decrease, according to SIPRI, mainly results from the US and Russia reducing their inventories of strategic nuclear weapons under the terms of the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) as well as retiring ageing and obsolescent weapons.¹

Despite decreasing the number of total warheads, the nuclear-weapon states have not yet showed their willingness to give up nuclear weapons. Rather, they are trying to develop their capacity of nuclear weapons or “modernize” nuclear weapons.

SIPRI reports that the five nuclear weapon states recognized under the Non-Proliferation Treaty—the US, Russia, UK, France and China—have expressed their plans to deploy new nuclear weapon delivery systems; at the same time, India and Pakistan continue to improve their systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons as well as facilities to produce fissile material for military use.¹

“The long-term modernization programs under way in these states suggest that nuclear weapons are still a currency of international status and power,” says SIPRI Senior Researcher Shannon Kile.¹

As long as the notion of nuclear weapons as “a currency of international status and power” remains, the world will never achieve peace without nuclear weapons in spite of a decrease in the number of weapons. The only way to abolish nuclear weapons is to change people’s thinking by highlighting the irretrievable catastrophe that would result from actually using nuclear weapons.  

World nuclear forces, 2012

Country	Deployed warheads*	Other warheads	Total 2012	Total 2011
USA	2150	5850	8000	8500
Russia	1800	8200	10000	11000
UK	160	65	225	225
France	290	10	300	300
China		200	240	240
India		80-100	80-100	80-100
Pakistan		90-110	90-110	90-110
Israel		80	80	80
Total	4400	14600	19000	20530

Source: SIPRI Yearbook 2012 * “Deployed” means warheads placed on missiles or located on bases with operational forces   

¹ SIPRI Yearbook 2012, “World nuclear forces—‘fewer but newer’ nuclear weapons” 4 June 2012.  http://www.sipri.org/media/pressreleases/YB2012_pressrelease