🕊️ SIPRI 2025: Shadows of Arms and the Future of Peace

NATIONAL & GLOBAL DEFENCE
Post Date: June 18, 2025
Thematic Focus: SIPRI Annual Report · Nuclear Arsenal Trends · India’s Defence Posture
Intro Whisper:
Even as the world speaks of peace, the arsenals of silence are growing louder. In the cold vaults of deterrence, the weight of war still hangs heavy.

🔍 Key Highlights

• Total global nuclear warheads: 12,241 (as of January 2025); 9,614 of these are part of military stockpiles.
• Top nuclear powers:
  • USA: 5,177 warheads (3,700 in stockpile)
  • Russia: 5,459 warheads (4,309 in stockpile)
  • China: 600 (rapid expansion)
• India:
  • Possesses 180 stored nuclear warheads
  • Developing new delivery systems
  • Slight expansion observed in 2024
• Pakistan:
  • Has 170 stored warheads
  • Active in expanding fissile material stock
• China:
  • Adding ~100 warheads annually
  • Modernizing rapidly
• High-alert nuclear warheads: Around 2,100 globally, largely with USA and Russia
• Global military expenditure: $2.7 trillion in 2024
  • USA: $997 billion
  • China: $314 billion
• Top arms importers: Ukraine, India, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
• Top arms exporters: USA (43%), France (9.6%), Russia (7.8%)

🧭 Concept Explainer: The SIPRI Report

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), founded in 1966, serves as a beacon of global peace research. It monitors disarmament, nuclear developments, and military expenditures globally. SIPRI’s Annual Report 2025 reflects intensifying arms races, fading commitments to disarmament, and emergence of new nuclear debates in East Asia and the Middle East.

Key concepts:

• New START Treaty: Set to expire in 2026, risking unchecked US-Russia stockpile expansion.
• MIRVs: Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles — part of modernisation efforts.
• Canisterisation & AI command: Technological upgrades enabling rapid launch capability and tighter control.
• India’s nuclear posture: Credible minimum deterrence with no first-use doctrine, but now entering a phase of modernisation.

🗺️ GS Paper Mapping

GS Paper 3
• Security and Disaster Management
• Science & Tech — Nuclear Technology
• Defence Preparedness
• International Agreements (New START, CSC)
• India’s Strategic Interests

GS Paper 2
• International Relations — Arms Control
• Global Institutions — SIPRI
• Multilateralism in Disarmament

🌱 A Thought Spark — by IAS Monk

“To measure strength in megatons is to weigh peace in paradox. As nations arm their futures, who will disarm our fears?”

High Quality Mains Essay For Practice :

Word Limit 1000-1200

SIPRI 2025: The Rising Shadow of Arms Amid a Fading Promise of Peace

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has long served as a lighthouse in the fog of global armament, disarmament, and security dilemmas. Its Annual Report for 2025, released this June, paints a sobering portrait of a world not only bristling with weaponry but moving further away from the shared aspirations of peace, disarmament, and strategic stability. Far from the hopeful de-escalation rhetoric of yesteryears, the latest data underscores a grim truth: the world is arming faster, modernizing ruthlessly, and stepping into an age where the lines between deterrence and domination are increasingly blurred.

A Planet of Warheads: The Nuclear Landscape

As of January 2025, the total global inventory of nuclear warheads stands at 12,241, with 9,614 of these forming part of active military stockpiles. Of particular concern is the fact that 3,912 warheads are deployed, with around 2,100 kept on high operational alert, primarily by the United States and Russia. These numbers represent not just military capability but the persistent threat of catastrophic escalation in a world rife with geopolitical tensions.

Among the nine nuclear-armed states—USA, Russia, China, France, UK, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea—all are undergoing nuclear modernization programs. The United States, with 5,177 total warheads, and Russia, with 5,459, account for nearly 90% of the global arsenal. Yet the most striking trend is not from these cold warriors of the past, but from a rising dragon: China.

China’s nuclear arsenal has surged to 600 warheads, a staggering leap from its modest stockpile just a few years ago. Not only is it expanding its numerical strength—adding nearly 100 warheads annually—but also investing in Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), canisterized launchers, and potentially even Artificial Intelligence-driven command and control systems. Such rapid militarisation disrupts existing strategic equations and raises questions about long-term arms control.

India’s Nuclear Doctrine and Modernisation

India, with an estimated 180 stored warheads, continues to adhere to a ‘Credible Minimum Deterrence’ and ‘No First Use’ policy. Yet SIPRI 2025 notes a visible expansion in India’s nuclear posture—particularly in the development of new and more sophisticated delivery systems. These include submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), canisterised Agni-V missiles, and ongoing investments in mobile-launch platforms.

While this growth is measured compared to China and Pakistan, it nonetheless reflects India’s intent to keep pace with regional security dynamics. India’s defence establishment remains keenly aware of the twin challenges: Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons and China’s aggressive modernisation. Balancing between minimum deterrence and maximum preparedness is the fine line India must walk.

The rise in India’s arsenal and delivery systems is also symbolic—it signifies a broader strategic recalibration in a region increasingly defined by multipolar competition and deterrence asymmetries.

Pakistan’s Arsenal: Tactical Focus and Fissile Growth

Pakistan, SIPRI reports, maintains a stockpile of approximately 170 warheads, slightly behind India in numbers but more forward-leaning in posture. The country’s growing stockpile of short-range tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) and increased fissile material production suggests an intent not merely to deter but to dominate in a limited-theatre nuclear engagement scenario.

While Pakistan’s declaratory posture continues to emphasize deterrence, its emphasis on battlefield-ready weapons and launch-ready platforms complicates South Asia’s nuclear stability. Add to this its strategic alliance with China, and one witnesses the makings of a triangular arms race in the region.

Disarmament in Retreat: A Lost Global Cause?

The SIPRI 2025 report notes that no major nuclear power is currently pursuing disarmament in good faith. The era of bilateral arms reduction treaties—symbolised by START, INF, and New START—is drawing to a close. With New START set to expire in February 2026, and no clear path to renewal or replacement, the last vestiges of Cold War-era disarmament regimes are evaporating.

Worse still, revitalised debates in countries like Japan, South Korea, Germany, and Saudi Arabia reflect growing appetite for nuclear deterrents amidst weakening international security guarantees. The nuclear taboo that held since Hiroshima and Nagasaki is being tested—not by action yet, but dangerously in spirit.

The Economic Engine of Arms: A Global Market

Beyond warheads, the SIPRI 2025 report draws attention to the spiraling global military expenditure, which reached an unprecedented $2.7 trillion in 2024—a 9.4% increase from the previous year. The top spenders were the United States ($997 billion) and China ($314 billion), together accounting for nearly half of global defence outlay.

India retains its place among the top five importers of major arms, alongside Ukraine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. This reflects India’s urgent push to fill capability gaps while balancing indigenisation under the Atmanirbhar Bharat defence strategy.

Simultaneously, the United States continues its dominance as the world’s largest arms exporter with a 43% global share, followed by France (9.6%) and Russia (7.8%). This imbalance has created a new arms dependency, wherein countries of the Global South are investing more in deterrence than development, often at the cost of social spending.

What Lies Ahead: A Forked Path

The trends emerging from the SIPRI 2025 report present both a warning and a challenge. The world today stands at a technological precipice—advanced missile systems, cyber-warfare platforms, hypersonic weapons, and AI-assisted battlefield autonomy are becoming reality. The nuclear threshold is no longer guarded just by treaties and taboos, but by algorithms, doctrines, and postures that may not always align with human judgment.

India, as a responsible nuclear power, must therefore navigate this new world order with strategic clarity. It must engage in robust diplomacy to revive disarmament efforts, strengthen deterrence against potential threats, and avoid entanglement in arms races that divert focus from critical social and developmental goals.

A Moral Reckoning: Peace in the Time of Megatons

There is also a deeper, philosophical question buried beneath these statistics: What does deterrence deter in a world where conflict takes hybrid, non-nuclear forms? Can security be ensured through instruments designed to annihilate? SIPRI’s data, while cold and clinical, demands a warm and human reflection.

To invest in bombs while ignoring hunger, to fund warheads while schools crumble, is not a failure of economics—it is a failure of imagination.

As we confront climate change, inequality, and pandemics, the time has come to ask whether the true defence of humanity lies not in steel and uranium, but in cooperation, empathy, and sustainable peace.

Conclusion

SIPRI’s Annual Report for 2025 is not just a record of numbers—it is a mirror held to the face of a world increasingly disfigured by militarism. It challenges global powers, including India, to reconsider the logic of deterrence, the economics of security, and the ethics of preparedness. The future of peace may yet be written—not in treaties alone, but in the choices we make about how we see one another: as rivals to outgun or as partners to outgrow our fears.

Target IAS-26: Daily MCQs :

📌 Prelims Practice MCQs

Topic: SIPRI 2025 Peace Report