Breakdown of Spending on Nuclear Weapons by Each Country in 2021

The nine nuclear-armed countries spent a whopping $82.4 billion on their nuclear weapons programs, an annual report by the Switzerland-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has revealed.

Titled “Squandered: 2021 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending,” the third such annual report by ICAN states that this spending—after taking inflation into consideration— is $6.5 billion more than in 2020.

Out of the total $82.4 billion, private defense contractors got $30.2 billion to build nuclear weapons. The defense contractors then spent $117 million on lobbyists and $10 million on think tanks to argue that nuclear weapons are necessary.

The advocacy for nuclear weapons by lobbyists and think tanks encouraged countries to allocate and spend more money on nuclear weapons.

The US spent $44.2 billion on nuclear weapons in 2021. China and Russia followed the US and spent $11.7 billion and $8.6 billion on nuclear arms last year respectively.

The UK spent $6.8 billion on nuclear weapons in 2021, France $5.9 billion, and India $2.3 billion. Israel spent $1.2 billion on nuclear arms last year, Pakistan $1.2 billion, and North Korea $642 million.

Collectively, the nine nuclear-armed countries spent $156,841 every minute in 2021 for developing weapons of mass destruction.

On the other hand, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Airbus, BAE Systems, Bechtel, and Boeing emerged as the top defense contractors profiting from agreements with nuclear-armed states.

Meanwhile, the Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Center for New American Security, and Center for Strategic and International Studies emerged as the top think tanks benefitting from the nuclear defense contractors.



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