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.
Nuclear weapons budgeting is like agreeing to buying a house without knowing the sales price, the mortgage rate, or the monthly payment.
The United States Air Force has forward deployed about one-third of its B-2 stealth bombers to Diego Garcia, or about half the B-2s considered fully operational at any given time.
Over the past year, the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons has experienced numerous wins that were celebrated at the Meeting of State Parties.
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.