Spending on Nuclear Weapons

$157,664 per minute on nuclear weapons, that’s what the nine-nuclear armed states spent in 2022.  In total, the nuclear armed states spent $82.9 billion on nuclear weapons in a year when the general public was confronted with a very real threat of nuclear war. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and threats to use nuclear weapons laid bare the inherent risks and dangers of nuclear deterrence theory in preserving international peace and security. Yet, politicians, CEOs, and experts continued to tout the value of nuclear deterrence, and argued for an increased reliance on nuclear weapons. ICAN’s new report: “Wasted: 2022 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending” exposes those complicit actors.Why? Because behind the scenes, throughout 2022, nuclear-armed countries poured their resources into expanding and maintaining nuclear weapons, while nuclear weapon producing companies and countries in nuclear alliances did their best to sell deterrence by funding think tanks and lobbyists. Board members at nuclear weapons producing companies played an integral role in keeping the money flowing to weapons of mass destruction — sitting on boards of banks that lend to them and major think tanks researching and writing about nuclear weapons.