By Hans M. Kristensen
The Swedish International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) today published the 2013 issue of the SIPRI Yearbook. I’m coauthor of the chapter on worldwide nuclear weapons arsenals.
The yearbook is translated into Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian, providing a unique source of nuclear weapons information to regions where such information is either not available or only to English-speaking readers.
In addition to the annual SIPRI Yearbook, bimonthly updates of individual nuclear weapon states are published as Nuclear Notebooks in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Moreover, an online table of world nuclear forces is provided on the FAS web site. The table is updated as new information becomes available.
Finally, occasional issue reports are published on the FAS Strategic Security Blog.
This publication was made possible by grants from the New-Land Foundation and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.
China is NOT a nuclear “peer” of the United States, as some contend.
China’s total number of approximately 600 warheads constitutes only a small portion of the United States’ estimated stockpile of 3,700 warheads.
Dr. Lim will help develop, organize, and implement FAS’s growing contribution in the area of catastrophic risk including on core areas of nuclear weapons, AI and national security, space, and other emerging technologies.
Moreover, the recent decrease in UK government transparency regarding the status of its nuclear arsenal and modernization program reflects a worrisome global trend.
Even without weapons present, the addition of a large nuclear air base in northern Europe is a significant new development that would have been inconceivable just a decade-and-a-half ago.