India has fewer nukes than China, Pak: Report
June 15, 2020 14:58
India enriched its nuclear arsenal by adding 10 more weapons to the stockpile over the last year, but the country possesses a fewer number of warheads than China and Pakistan, according to a report released by a leading Swedish think-tank on Monday. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) states in its report that both India and China increased their nuclear arsenals in 2019.
While China has a total of 320 warheads in its arsenal, Pakistan and India are estimated to have 160 and 150 weapons, respectively. "China is in the middle of a significant modernisation of its nuclear arsenal. It is developing a so-called nuclear triad for the first time, made up of new land- and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft," the report warned.
"India and Pakistan are slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces, while North Korea continues to prioritise its military nuclear programme as a central element of its national security strategy," it said.
In its 2019 report, SIPRI had said that China's nuclear arsenal contained 290 warheads while India's had 130-140. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was calculated at 150-160, a number which remains the same in this year's assessment. According to the report, the US tops the table with 5,800 warheads, followed by Russia with 6,375 and the UK with 215 warheads. The figures have been updated till January 2020.
"The nine nuclear-armed states -- the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea together possessed an estimated 13,400 nuclear weapons at the start of 2020. This marked a decrease from the 13,865 nuclear weapons that SIPRI estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2019," the report said.
"The decrease in the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world in 2019 was largely due to the dismantlement of retired nuclear weapons by Russia and the USA -- which together still possess over 90 per cent of global nuclear weapons," it said.
The SIPRI Yearbook, which assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security, said that despite an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads, nuclear powers continue to modernise their arsenals, warning that tensions were rising and the outlook for arms control was "bleak". -- PTI
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