The nuclear age

By The Data Team

IN JANUARY 2007 Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn—four American political heavyweights—called for a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons. The ultimate goal, they said, should be to remove the threat such weapons pose completely. In 2008 a pressure group, Global Zero, was set up to campaign for complete nuclear disarmament and was eagerly endorsed by scores of world leaders. A year later Barack Obama promised to put weapons reduction back on the table and, by dealing peacefully but firmly with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, to give new momentum to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In 2010 Mr Obama signed an arms agreement with Russia, New START, which capped the number of deployed strategic warheads allowed to each side at 1,550. After the NPT conference a month later there were hopes that, when the parties to the NPT met again in May 2015, there would be substantial progress to report. The Doomsday Clock, developed by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to monitor the threat of global catastrophe from man-made technologies such as nuclear weapons, was moved back by a minute to reflect a slightly safer world.

But since then, relations between America and Russia have grown chillier, particularly over Ukraine. Mr Obama may get an agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear programme, perhaps even before the NPT conference in May—but it will hardly be one that energises the cause of a nuclear-free world. Indeed, although the number of operational nuclear warheads has been reduced from 64,500 at its peak in 1986 to around 10,000 today, the possibility of some of them being used is higher and growing. Then, there were seven nuclear powers, including South Africa, which built up its arsenal entirely in secret, announcing its existence two years after its dismantlement in 1991, the year when it signed up to the NPT.

Now there are nine powers, and the kind of protocols that the cold-war era America and Soviet Union set up to reassure each other are much less in evidence today. China is cagey about the size, status and capabilities of its nuclear forces and opaque about the doctrinal approach that might govern their use. India and Pakistan have a hotline and inform each other about tests, but do not discuss any other measures to improve nuclear security, for example by moving weapons farther from their border. Israel does not even admit that its nuclear arsenal of around 80 weapons (but could be as many as 200) exists. North Korea has around ten and can add one a year and regularly threatens to use them. The agreements that used to govern the nuclear relationship between America and Russia are also visibly fraying; co-operation on nuclear-materials safety ended in December 2014. America is expected to spend $350 billion on modernising its nuclear arsenal over the next decade and Russia is dedicating a third of its fast-growing defence budget to upgrading its nuclear forces. In January this year the Doomsday Clock was moved to three minutes to midnight, a position it was last at in 1987.

Read the full briefing here.