UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2025 (IPS) - The United Nations, whose primary mandate is to maintain international peace and security, has been one of the longstanding leaders in the global campaign for a world without nuclear weapons.
But the progress has been relatively slow – despite the growing number of anti-nuclear treaties. Perhaps the only consolation is the absence of a nuclear attack or a nuclear war in over 80 years.
And now, the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor, published by Norwegian People’s Aid in cooperation with the Federation of American Scientists, shows the number of nuclear weapons available for use has increased from 9,585 at the beginning of 2024 to 9,604 at the beginning of 2025. This is described as equivalent to just over 146,500 of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima killing 140,000 people in 1945.
And 40 % of these weapons are deployed and ready for immediate use on submarines and land-based missiles, as well as at bomber bases.
The world’s nine countries armed with nuclear weapons are: the US, Russia, France, China, the UK, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea.
The Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor also reports that while the total number of nuclear warheads has slowly decreased since the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted in 2017 because of old warheads being retired, the number available for use has steadily increased–from 9,272 in 2017.
“This upward trajectory is expected to continue as countries modernize and, in some cases, expand their arsenals, unless there is a breakthrough in arms control and disarmament efforts”, said Hans M. Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists and one of the main contributors to the report.
Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, told IPS the expansion of the capacities of the nuclear arsenals of the nine states with the weapons, whether quantitatively or qualitatively, represents the paradox of nuclear deterrence posture.
“The more the weapons are improved in their accuracy and destructive capacity the less security is obtained. Even by reducing the yield in some instances it might make the use more likely and breaking the taboo against use opens a pandora’s box of dangers we might not outlive,” he said.
Whether making the weapons more powerful or less powerful, the entire venture of pursuing global security with these devices represents a risky business of proportions beyond the capacity of the mind to fully grasp.
“Let’s reflect on the core logic of the status quo. Suppose nine nations said, “No nations shall use polio or small-pox or any biological horror as a weapon but nine nations can use or threaten to use the plague as a weapon to advance national and international stability and security.”
Would that make sense? Is that not exactly the situation we are living with by accepting the current predicament? asked Granoff.
Speaking on the International Day for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Awareness on March 5, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said humanity’s future depends on investing in the machinery of peace, and not the machinery of war. Yet, he warned, global tensions are increasing, the nuclear threat is rising, and guardrails are eroding.
Guterres urged world leaders to strengthen the systems and tools that prevent the proliferation, prevent the testing and prevent, of course, the use of deadly weapons and live up to their disarmament obligations.
He also called for a concerted effort in meeting the disarmament commitments contained in the recently adopted Pact for the Future.
Meanwhile, Norwegian People’s Aid, a member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), emphasized that all this is happening against a background of rising geopolitical tensions involving nuclear-armed states with conflicts over Ukraine and in the Middle East, as well as grave tensions on the Korean Peninsula, which is why nuclear experts see the risk nuclear weapons could be used as being as high – if not higher – as during the Cold War.
This is reflected in the Ban Monitor which finds that in contravention to the TPNW, Russia and North Korea both threatened to use nuclear weapons last year. Pyongyang overtly threated to use them against South Korea, while Moscow implicitly threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Dr M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Graduate Program Director, MPPGA at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, told IPS the numbers of nuclear weapons available for use should be viewed in the context of an increased risk of war in general and investments by nuclear weapon states in modernizing their arsenals.
The United States and Russia are replacing just about every nuclear delivery system. In the United States, the overall modernization process is estimated to cost well over a trillion dollars.
China is believed to have the fastest growing arsenal, albeit from a small base in comparison with Russia and the United States. Simultaneously, the danger of military confrontation between nuclear armed powers has been high.
The danger is exacerbated by the development and deployment of new technologies, in particular artificial intelligence and cyberwarfare. Instead of accelerating this rush towards catastrophe, countries should focus on arms control and disarmament, and the abolition of nuclear weapons
The Executive Director of ICAN, Melissa Parke, welcomed the report’s publication: “This latest edition of the Ban Monitor demonstrates both the problem we face – the growing number of nuclear weapons ready to be used – and the solution – the growing international support for the TPNW. It is the only treaty that outlaws nuclear weapons and provides an established pathway to fair and verifiable disarmament.”
She said it is time for the nuclear-armed states and their pro-nuclear allies to drop their opposition to it and join the global majority”.
The report further shows how European countries stand out as a significant impediment to further progress on nuclear disarmament despite all of them being committed to it under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The authors call on the European Union to initiate processes to reflect on and address this. They also point out that in some umbrella states opposed to the TPNW there is an ongoing discussion on the merits of the treaty which suggests a change in policy is possible.
IPS UN Bureau Report
