In 2023 China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the UK and US spent a combined $91.4 billion on their nuclear arms, which breaks down to $173,884 per minute, or $2,898 a second, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican).
The United States’ share of total spending, $51.5 billion, is more than all the other nuclear-armed countries put together and accounts for 80% of the increase in nuclear weapons spending in 2023.
The next biggest spender was China which expended $11.8 billion with Russia spending the third largest amount at $8.3 billion. The United Kingdom’s spending was up significantly for the second year in a row with a 17% increase to $8.1 billion.
According to Ican, In the last 5 years, $387 billion has been spent on nuclear weapons, with the yearly spending increasing by 34% from $68.2 billion to $91.4 billion per year, as all nine nuclear-armed states continue to modernise, and in some cases expand, their arsenals. Alicia Sanders-Zakre, co-author of the report noted: “The acceleration of spending on these inhumane and destructive weapons over the past five years is not improving global security but posing a global threat.”
According to The Guardian, other data, complied by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), shows that the number of active nuclear warheads is also slightly higher, at 9,585, driven largely by China increasing its arsenal to 500 from 410.