India, Pakistan increasing nuclear weapons capability, says SIPRI

Both India and Pakistan are believed to have increased their nuclear weapons capability in 2024, SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) said in its latest report released on Monday. SIPRI is a leading independent international institute focusing on research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament.

 

On India and Pakistan, the report said: “India is believed to have once again slightly expanded its nuclear arsenal in 2024 and continued to develop new types of nuclear delivery system.”

 

“Pakistan also continued to develop new delivery systems and accumulate fissile material in 2024, suggesting that its nuclear arsenal might expand over the coming decade.”

 

While India stored its nuclear warheads separately from its deployed launchers during peacetime, recent moves of placing missiles in canisters and conducting sea-based deterrence patrols suggest that India could be shifting in the direction of mating some of its warheads with their launchers in peacetime too.

 

India is believed to have stockpiled about 180 nuclear warheads as opposed to Pakistan’s 170.

 

Meanwhile, China has about 600 nuclear warheads with its arsenal growing much faster than anyone with about 100 new warheads a year since 2023. “China could potentially have at least as many ICBMs as either Russia or the USA by the turn of the decade. Yet even if China reaches the maximum projected number of 1,500 warheads by 2035, that will still amount to only about one-third of each of the current Russian and US nuclear stockpiles.”

ALSO READ: More teeth for Indian Army: Homemade ‘Shatrunash’ and ‘Agniastra’ set to redefine battlefield tactics

The US and Russia are believed to have stockpiled about 3,450 warheads including both deployed and stored against Russia’s 4,309.

 

Significantly, the report says the era of nuclear weapons reductions may have ended.

 

“The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the Cold War, is coming to an end,” said Hans M. Kristensen, Associate Senior Fellow with SIPRI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme. “Instead, we see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements.”

 

Nine countries—the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Israel—are known to possess nuclear weapons.

Defence