By MASATO TAINAKA/ Staff Writer
June 24, 2022 at 07:00 JST
NAGASAKI—The world’s nine nuclear powers owned an estimated 12,720 warheads as of June 1, slightly down from a year earlier, but researchers here said the weapons have become more sophisticated and the risk of nuclear warfare is rising.
Nagasaki University’s Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (RECNA) produced an at-a-glance poster showing how many warheads each country possessed based on government documents and other sources.
Russia and the United States together accounted for 90 percent of the 12,720 nuclear warheads around the world, which was down 410 from the previous year.
According to the latest figures, Russia topped the list with 5,975 warheads, a decrease of 2,539 from 2013.
Of the 2,539 warheads, only 39 were in military stockpiles for potential use, either deployed with operational forces or held in reserve. The others had been retired and scheduled to be dismantled.
The United States owned 5,425 warheads, a decrease of 2,225 from 2013.
Like Russia, most of the reduced warheads had been retired and scheduled to be dismantled. Only 942 warheads in military stockpiles were slashed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
While the United States has plans to upgrade its missiles and other warhead delivery systems through 2080, Moscow is ahead of Washington in hypersonic arms development.
Akira Tomizuka, an associate professor of environmental physics at Nagasaki University, who was involved in analyzing the warhead data, said the United States and Russia are clearly failing to fulfill their disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
“While the two countries have reduced the number (of warheads), they have no intention of giving up their arsenals and have upgraded the quality of their weapons,” he said.
Among other nuclear powers, China is building a silo believed to be for launching intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), according to intelligence reports.
North Korea, which has resumed test-launching ballistic missiles, has expressed its willingness to use nuclear weapons for pre-emptive strikes, saying the role of such weapons is “not limited to deterrence to war.”
There are signs the reclusive state is gearing up to conduct a seventh nuclear test.
The RECNA has annually updated its poster since 2013. It has been distributed to libraries and other facilities nationwide.
The poster, available in Japanese, English and Korean, can be downloaded at (https://www.recna.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/recna/en-topics/40908).
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A poster shows 12,720, the estimated number of nuclear warheads the world’s nuclear powers owned as of June 1. (Provided by Nagasaki University’s Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition)
