ISLAMABAD – Pakistan continues to be ahead of India when it comes topossessing nuclear warheads, with China having double the quantity,according to a report by a leading Swedish think-tank.
Pakistan is believed to have 140-150 nuclear warheads this year, 10 morethan last year. In contrast, India is said to have 130-140 nuclearwarheads, according to the annual nuclear forces data by StockholmInternational Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
“India and Pakistan are both expanding their nuclear weapon stockpiles aswell as developing new land, sea and air-based missile delivery systems,”it said.
“China continues to modernise its nuclear weapon delivery systems and isslowly increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal,” SIPRI said.
Russia and the United States hold over 92 per cent of the total warheads,it said.
SIPRI said nine countries — the US, Russia, Britain, France, China, India,Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — had 14,465 nuclear warheads at thebeginning of 2018, of which 3,750 were actually deployed.
At the start of 2017, the total number of nuclear warheads was 14,935, itsaid.
Countries possessing nuclear warheads as in 2018
USA: 6450Russia: 6850UK: 215France: 300China: 280India: 130-140Pakistan: 140-150Israel: 80North Korea: 10-20Total: 14465
The reduction is largely due to the arms control commitments by the US andRussia in the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction andLimitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, the Stockholm-based organisationsaid.
It said that France with 300 warheads, China 280, Britain 215, Pakistan140-150, India 130-140, Israel 80 and North Korea 10-20, were all eitherdeploying or planning to deploy new nuclear weapons system.
Despite making limited reductions to their nuclear forces, both Russia andthe USA have long-term programmes underway to replace and modernise theirnuclear warheads, missile and aircraft delivery systems, and nuclear weaponproduction facilities, it said.
SIPRI warned that modernisation of nuclear weapons continues despite adecline in the total number of nuclear warheads.
“… the modernisation programmes underway in the nuclear weapon-possessingstates indicate that genuine progress towards nuclear disarmament willremain a distant goal,” says Shannon Kile, Senior Researcher with the SIPRIDisarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programme.