New Delhi: India’s nuclear stockpile is slightly above Pakistan with two more warheads and there are indications that it is “mating” some of its warheads with launchers in peacetime, according to a report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
According to SIPRI Yearbook 2024, India has a nuclear inventory of 172, while Pakistan’s tally stood at 170 as of January 2024. China, however, is far ahead with an inventory of 500 nuclear warheads.
While Pakistan’s inventory remained static, India’s numbers have gone up from last year’s stockpile of 164 nuclear warheads. “Both India and Pakistan continued to develop new types of nuclear delivery systems in 2023,” the yearbook says.
It further states that even as Pakistan remains the main focus of India’s nuclear deterrent, New Delhi appears to be placing greater importance in longer-range weapons, which include those that are capable of reaching targets throughout China.
Elaborating further, a section of the report said, India’s nuclear weapons were assigned to a “maturing nuclear triad of aircraft, land-based missiles and nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs).”
It was long assumed that India stores its nuclear warheads separately from its deployed launchers during peacetime, the report says. “However, the country’s recent moves towards placing missiles in canisters and conducting sea-based deterrence patrols suggest that India could be shifting in the direction of mating some of its warheads with their launchers in peacetime.”
The estimate is based on calculations of India’s inventory of weapon-grade plutonium, the estimated number of operational nuclear-capable delivery systems, nuclear doctrine, publicly available information on the Indian nuclear arsenal, and private conversations with defence officials, according to SIPRI.
At the start of 2024, the 9 nuclear-armed states possessed an estimated 12 121 nuclear weapons. New numbers out now ➡️ https://t.co/hwXGg3URBP
USA🇺🇸 5 044
Russia🇷🇺 5 580
UK🇬🇧 225
France🇫🇷 290
China🇨🇳 500
India🇮🇳 172
Pakistan🇵🇰 170
North Korea🇰🇵50
Israel🇮🇱 90#SIPRIYearbook pic.twitter.com/GEKbCl8vEd— SIPRI (@SIPRIorg) June 16, 2024
The three Asian countries along with the US, Russia, the UK, France, North Korea and Israel together held approximately 12,121 nuclear weapons, according to SIPRI estimates. Of these, it stated, 9,585 were considered to be potentially operationally available. The US and Russia together possess almost 90 percent of all nuclear weapons.
As for China, SIPRI mentions its nuclear arsenal increased from 410 warheads to 500 in a year. The nuclear stockpile is expected to keep growing, it adds.
On Beijing strengthening its nuclear arsenal, SIPRI research says that China is on its way for “significant modernisation and expansion of its nuclear arsenal”.
The research goes on to say that Beijing can, in fact, potentially deploy at least as many intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as either Russia or the US in the coming decade. “Even so, China’s overall nuclear warhead stockpile is expected to remain smaller than that of either of those states,” it states.
Like India, China was for long assumed that it stores nuclear warheads separately from its deployed launchers during peacetime.
“However, the country’s recent moves towards placing solid-fuelled missiles in silos, conducting sea-based deterrence patrols and, potentially, developing a launch-on-warning (LOW) capability suggest that China might have started mating a small number of its warheads (possibly around 24, corresponding to one missile brigade and one fully loaded ballistic missile submarine) with their launchers,” the think tank suggests.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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