Ammon News - The United States alone spent $ 44.2 billion on its arsenal modernization program last year.

The expenses of the forces at their disposal nuclear arsenals to maintain and modernize them increased by 9% in 2021reaching $ 82.4 billion, according to a report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

Only the US spent 44.2 billion as part of their arsenal modernization program last year, up 12.7% from a year earlier, while China spent $ 11.7 billion (+ 10.4%) on the same goal. , according to the report, which is published today.

The budgets provided for in Russia (8.6 billion)France (5.9 billion) and Britain (6.8 billion) for nuclear weapons were slightly higher, says ICAN, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 because it worked tirelessly to draft the convention on the ban nuclear weapons, which has so far been ratified by 59 states – but none of them is a nuclear power.

Pakistan spent $ 1.1 billion on its nuclear arsenal, up from $ 1 billion last year, while India reduced its spending to $ 2.3 billion (up from $ 2.5 billion in 2020), according to the report.

Israel – the only country in the closed nuclear power club that has never officially acknowledged that it has nuclear weapons – spent $ 1.2 billion, the same as last year, according to ICAN. She estimates that North Korea’s spending on its armaments program in 2021 will reach $ 642 million, up from $ 700 million in 2020.

The taxpayers’ money allowed new contracts to be entered into with private companies (totaling 30.2 billion) to modernize the nuclear arsenals of the great powers, and these private companies in turn purchased the services of study centers and pressure groups for to defend the usefulness of nuclear weapons, according to the NGO, which denounces this vicious circle.

THE exhibition “It simply shows that nuclear weapons are of no use,” said Alicia Saunders-Zakre, ICAN’s research coordinator. “Nuclear weapons countries spent an additional $ 6.5 billion in 2021 and could not prevent a nuclear power from launching a war in Europe,” Ms. Saunders-Zakre said, referring to Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine. February.

“That’s why we need multilateral nuclear disarmament more than ever,” she added.