Nuclear weapons are an explosive gadget that gets its damaging power from atomic responses. It is otherwise called the atom or atomic bomb or nuclear warheads. Primarily there are two sorts of nuclear weapons – fission & fusion weapons.
Now recently you may have heard the news that China, Pakistan has more Nuclear Warheads than India. Not only this year most probably if you followed the news then you may have heard the same in the previous years. So why is that?
Nuclear Weapons- The Data of SIPRI
Recently a data published by SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) for the estimated number of nuclear weapons in major countries. SIPRI published the data every year. It was founded in Stockholm Sweden in 1966.
As per the data currently, India has 156 nuclear warheads, where Pak & china has 165 & 350 respectively. China is in huge modernization and extension of atomic weapon stock. Furthermore, India, as well as Pak, gives off an impression of being growing their arms stockpile.
But is it something to be proud of? According to the senior Associate of SIPRI, this is a worrisome sign that the countries are expanding more nuclear weapons.
One more thing you can notice from the data that the U.S. Russia, France & U.K. have altogether 3,825 deployed warheads, which means they are ready for immediate launching. This is even more concerning for humankind & peace to the world.
Nuclear Weapons- The Data of ICAN
Now is the data from SIPRI can give us a clear picture? NO. Let’s look into another data of ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons). ICAN got rewarded with Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.
Globally this organization give pressure on all the countries to decrease their nuclear weapon. They even achieved some, if you see the data of United States & Russia from 1970 to till now they have decreased their warheads, although they still have the highest among all the countries. But suddenly countries are again increasing warheads count. This is happening for the first time since the cold war. Yet this is a matter of concern.
Apart from all this what are the other key factors that we can get from the ICAN data? That is spending, are the Countries increasing their spending? Even how much they are spending?
Let’s look into the data-
The United States has 5,800 nuclear weapons which it can launch from land-based missiles. And they are spending more than $35billion, which is the highest among all the countries. Where China is spending $10.4 billion.
Now, if we compare India & Pakistan, Pak may have more nuclear weapons than India, but in today’s time, India is spending two times more money than Pak.
Are countries increasing their spending if, then how much?
The total increase is 7.1 billion US dollars. In 2019 India has increased their spending where Pak has decreased.
Although India has to increase their spending a little more. Which undoubtedly the country is doing, for submarine recently India has announced a rupees 43,000 crores mega Project 75i, followed by project 75. India’s upcoming project 75 alpha will be the biggest project ever with an estimated investment of 120,000 crores.
For missile till AGNI-IV (4000km) is ready. Soon AGNI-V will join the list with 5000 km range.
Similarly, the new Rafale jets have boosted the existing air vector for the delivery of nuclear gravity bombs.