Spending by nuclear powers to modernize their atomic arsenals rose nearly 9% in 2021 to $82.4 billion, according to a report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
The United States in pole position
The United States alone spent $44.2 billion on its nuclear program last year, 12.7% more than the previous year, and China spent $11.7 billion (+10 .4%), according to this report published on Tuesday.
The budgets devoted by Russia (8.6 billion), France (5.9 billion) and the United Kingdom (6.8 billion) to nuclear weapons have increased slightly, adds the ICAN, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for his tireless work on the treaty banning nuclear weapons, which was ratified by 59 countries but none of the nuclear powers.
Pakistan and Israel not left out
Pakistan spent 1.1 billion dollars on its nuclear armament, against 1 billion the previous year, while India reduced its expenditure in this sector to 2.3 billion (against 2.5 in 2020), according to The report.
Israel, which has never officially acknowledged having the nuclear bomb, has allocated 1.2 billion to it, as the previous year, according to the ICAN which estimates the budget that North Korea has allocated in 2021 at 642 million dollars. to its nuclear program compared to 700 million in 2020.
An arsenal not very dissuasive
Taxpayer money allowed new contracts to be awarded to private companies (30.2 billion in total) to modernize the nuclear arsenals of the great powers, and these private companies in turn bought the services of think tanks and pressure groups to defend the usefulness of nuclear weapons, adds the NGO, which denounces a vicious pro-nuclear circle.
“This report shows that nuclear weapons are useless,” commented Alicia Sanders-Zakre, research coordinator at ICAN. “Nuclear-armed countries spent $6.5 billion more in 2021 and they weren’t able to stop a nuclear power from starting a war in Europe,” she said. reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.