Cold War 2: Do not let it spark off a nuclear arms race
The deadly stockpiles of nuclear weapons built by Cold War adversaries Russia and the US gave the ‘MAD’ doctrine of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ a literal ring. With thousands of nukes each, both had enough to destroy the planet many times over. Could today’s geopolitical divide between a China-led bloc and the US-led West imperil the world with another arms race being pushed beyond the limits of reason by its force of rivalry? According to the latest report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a think-tank, all nine nuclear-armed countries—the US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel—modernized their arsenals in 2023, while some deployed new weapon systems.
By SIPRI’s 2024 estimates, of the world’s 12,121 warheads in existence this January, about 9,585 are held in military arsenals, with some 3,904 of these mounted on delivery vehicles. Worryingly, this tally of ‘deployed’ nukes is 60 more than it was last January. Russia is thought to have upped its deployment by 36 to 1,710, just 60 short of the US’s latest figure.
But the year’s expansion story has been China’s. Its count of warheads jumped to 500 from 410 at the start of 2023. Moreover, as many as 24 of its nukes are now thought to be deployed, although no other Asian country has any deployment in SIPRI’s analysis.
Why is China expanding its nuclear arsenal so fast? The size of its stockpile was already more than double that of India’s, its big regional rival. Analysts view Beijing’s moves in the context of its push for long-range hypersonic missiles and the ability to project force across the Western hemisphere as well. Alarm over China’s alliance with Moscow has been rising.
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