Record amounts are being spent on nuclear weapons as deployed warheads increase

The nine countries that currently possess nuclear weapons spent $119 billion on their arsenals last year, a 19 percent increase from 2024, according to ICAN's annual report.

The money goes both to maintenance and to developing new nuclear weapons. The United States spent the most, as it, together with Russia, has about 83 percent of all the world's nuclear weapons.

Overall, the number of nuclear weapons in the world is decreasing, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), among others. However, the number deployed and ready for use is increasing for the first time in several generations.

The countries that, according to ICAN, have nuclear weapons are the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan.