Status of World Nuclear Forces (2025)

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), who signed the MOU with Hiroshima Prefecture, launches the SIPRI YEARBOOK 2025 and announces the latest status of nuclear forces.

As of January 2025, the total number of nuclear stockpile is 12,241. It decreases 164, compared with the number for January 2024, 12.405. The USA and Russian nuclear stockpiles together continue to constitute around 90 percent of the total.

The SIPRI Yearbook analyzes that "Since the end of the cold war, the gradual dismantlement of retired warheads by Russia and the USA has normally outstripped the deployment of new warheads, resulting in an overall year-on-year decrease in the global inventory of nuclear weapons. This trend is likely to be reversed in the coming years, as the pace of dismantlement is slowing, while the deployment of new nuclear weapons is accelerating.

The number of deployed warheads has remained the same for the USA but has increased for Russia. China "now has at least 600 nuclear warheads. China's nuclear arsenal is growing faster than any other country's, by about 100 new warheads a year since 2023" and "could potentially have at least as many ICBMs as either Russia or the USA by the turn of the decade".

India is "believed to have once again slightly expanded its nuclear arsenal in 2024". North Korea is estimated that it "has now assembled around 50 warheads, possesses enough fissile material to produce up to 40 more warheads and is accelerating the production of further fissile material".

.. means not applicable or not available; - means nil or a negligible value.