ALBAWABA - Spending on nuclear weapon technology, assets, and development by nuclear nations reached a record high, with $119 billion being spent last year and $471 billion over the past five years, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
The United States, as usual, was the biggest spender with $69.2 billion, a rise of $12.6 billion and more than all the other nuclear countries combined.
China was the second-biggest spender with $13.5 billion, followed by the UK with $12.6 billion, Russia with $9.5 billion, France with $7.7 billion, and India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea spending sums ranging from $656m (Korea) to $2.8bn (India). The world’s nine nuclear-armed countries spent an additional $16.8bn on their arsenals in 2025 compared with the previous year.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (front R) inspecting the newly-inaugurated nuclear materials production factory at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
“This exorbitant spending comes at a time when countries are significantly scaling back their investments in the global commons, whether reneging from climate change adaptation agreements or failing to pay their fair share to prevent the scourge of war through multilateral diplomacy, this overwhelming spending on nuclear weapons shows a willingness to research, develop, finance and build tools to exterminate humanity instead of save it.” ICAN said in a summary accompanying the report.
ICAN’s report comes a day after the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s warning that nuclear countries were backsliding from nuclear disarmament commitments; in 2017 a UN treaty was passed prohibiting nuclear weapons, banning developing, testing, or acquiring weapons of mass destruction. None of the nuclear countries signed it- with all the previous treaties expiring, the last of these, called New START, expiring in February of this year.
