Weapons

Nuclear Powers Cut Weapons Numbers But Increase Modernization: Study

The number of nuclear weapons in the world is continuing to decline, but nations possessing such arsenals are modernizing their stockpile and are not likely to give them up for the foreseeable future, a new study says.

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on July 3 said nine countries possessed about 4,150 operationally deployed nuclear weapons.

If all nuclear weapons are counted, the figure comes to 14,935, down from 15,395 a year earlier, it said.

It listed the countries with nuclear weapons as the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.