The outlook for nuclear arms control is desolate in all three of its dimensions – risk reduction, non-proliferation and outright elimination. The important agreements of the past are dead or on life support. And the recent behaviour of the actors that matter most – the United States, Russia and China – has fed concerns things can only get worse.
The nine nuclear-armed states possess between them more than 12,200 nuclear warheads, with a combined destructive capacity of more than 145,000 Hiroshima bombs. Some 9,000 of these are militarily active or deployed.
