World nuclear arms spending hit $73bn last year – half of it by US
- Spending by nine nuclear-armed states rose 10%
- Trump boosted nuclear funding but cut pandemic prevention
An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental
ballistic missile is launched during a test on 5 February 2020, at
Vandenberg air force base, California. Photograph: Clayton Wear/US Air Force/AFP via Getty Images
The world’s nuclear-armed nations spent a record $73bn on their weapons
last year, with the US spending almost as much as the eight other states
combined, according to a new report.
The new spending figures, reflecting the highest expenditure on nuclear
arms since the height of the cold war, have been estimated by the
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican), which argues
that the coronavirus pandemic underlines the wastefulness of the nuclear
arms race.
The nine nuclear weapons states spent a total of $72.9bn in 2019, a 10%
increase on the year before. Of that, $35.4bn was spent by the Trump
administration, which accelerated the modernisation of the US arsenal in
its first three years while cutting expenditure on pandemic prevention.
“It’s clear now more than ever that nuclear weapons do not provide
security for the world in the midst of a global pandemic, and not even
for the nine countries that have nuclear weapons, particularly when
there are documented deficits of healthcare supplies and exhausted
medical professionals,” Alicia Sanders-Zakre, the lead author of the
report, said.
The report comes at a time when arms control is at a low ebb, with the
last major treaty limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, New
Start, due to expire in nine months with no agreement so far to extend it.
Russia, which has announced the development of an array of new weapons –
including nuclear-powered, long-distance cruise missiles, underwater
long-distance nuclear torpedoes and a new heavy intercontinental
ballistic missile – spent $8.5bn on its arsenal in 2019, according to
Ican’s estimates. China, which has a much smaller nuclear force than the
US and Russia but is seeking to expand, spent $10.4bn.
Those expenditures were far overshadowed by the US nuclear weapons
budget, which is part of a major upgrade also involving new weapons,
including a low-yield submarine-launched missile, which has already been deployed.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of the US
programme over the coming decade will be $500bn, an increase of nearly
$100bn, about 23%, over projections from the end of the Obama
administration.
Congressional Democrats failed in an attempt to curb the
administration’s nuclear ambitions, but Kingston Reif, the director for
disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association,
said budgetary constraints in a coronavirus-induced recession, could
succeed where political opposition failed.
“There’s going to be significant pressure on federal spending moving
forward, including defense spending,” Reif said. “So, the cost and
opportunity cost of maintaining and modernizing the arsenal, which were
already punishing, will become even more so.”
