{"id":59988,"date":"2026-06-10T11:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/59988\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T11:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:03:13","slug":"britain-overtakes-russia-to-become-third-largest-nuclear-weapons-spender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/59988\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain overtakes Russia to become third largest nuclear weapons spender"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global spending on nuclear weapons reaches record $119 billion in 2025
\nBritain spent $12.6 billion, 17% on 2024 \u2013 overtaking Russia as third biggest spender
\nCND calls on government to cut wasted billions on nukes ahead of Defence Investment Plan announcement<\/p>\n

CND is calling on the government to stop wasting public money on its nuclear black hole, after the latest nuclear weapons spending report<\/a> from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) reveals that Britain is now spending more on its nuclear weapons than Russia.<\/p>\n

Collectively, the nine nuclear weapons states spent a record $119 billion in 2025 on maintaining, modernisation, and expanding their nuclear arsenals, an increase of 19% ($16.8 billion) on their 2024 bill.<\/p>\n

Britain overtook Russia as the world\u2019s third biggest spender, spending $12.6 billion (\u00a39.6 billion), an increase of 17%.<\/p>\n

This spending includes:<\/p>\n

operating costs of Britain\u2019s current four Vanguard nuclear-armed submarines
\nbuilding the replacement to Vanguard \u2013 the Dreadnought submarine
\nmaintenance of Britain\u2019s nuclear weapons stockpile
\ndevelopment of a new nuclear warhead, Project Astraea<\/p>\n

It does not include the costs of the 12 F-35A nuclear-capable fighter jets that the government announced it was purchasing in June 2025. This shocking surge in nuclear spending comes as the government\u2019s own Public Accounts Committee<\/a>\u00a0criticised the MoD for a lack of transparency over its \u2018ever-increasing nuclear expenditure\u2019, which is expected to rise to 20% of the total MoD budget for 2025\u201326, and again increase further to up to 25% in coming years.<\/p>\n

According to ICAN, the top nuclear spender globally was again the US who spent $69.2 billion, an increase of 22% from 2024, outspending all other nuclear weapons states combined. China was second, spending $13.5 billion, an increase of 7%. Behind Britain, was Russia with an increase by 6% to $9.5 billion. Of the others, France spent $7.7 billion, India spent $2.8 billion, Pakistan spent $1.5 billion, Israel spent \u00a31.2 billion, and North Korea spent $656 million.<\/p>\n

The report also found that arms companies involved in the manufacture of Britain\u2019s weapons had sought to influence government policy. According to Open Access data cited in the report, senior government figures met with representatives of the following arms companies: Airbus, Amentum, Babcock International, BAE Systems, Bechtel, Boeing, General Dynamics, Honeywell International, Leidos, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Peraton, Rolls Royce, RTX (Raytheon), Safran and Thales. The report noted that Airbus and BAE Systems, who had 44 and 35 meetings respectively, also included meetings with the Prime Minister\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a timely report that comes when the British government is planning to make savage cuts to public spending in order to fund more hikes to military spending. Britain\u2019s nuclear weapons\u00a0are a black hole, swallowing up even greater proportions of the Ministry of Defence\u2019s already ballooning budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is Britain\u2019s replacement of its nuclear weapons system which is driving these huge nuclear weapons spending increases. This is contributing to a much more dangerous world where the threat of these world-ending weapons being used in war is the highest it has been since the Cold War.<\/p>\n

\u201cFar from keeping us safe, Britain\u2019s nuclear-armed submarines are totally dependent on the US administration, which ties us even more closely to Trump\u2019s reckless leadership that is dragging the world into more and more reckless wars that could go nuclear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the government\u2019s upcoming Defence Investment Plan expected to give at least \u00a315 billion more to the military, it\u2019s time to end the wasteful spending on war and nuclear weapons and redirect it into tackling the real security issues we face \u2013 from climate breakdown and the looming cost of living crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global spending on nuclear weapons reaches record $119 billion in 2025 Britain spent $12.6 billion, 17% on 2024…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[29140,13,29141,6669],"class_list":["post-59988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","tag-2025-global-nuclear-weapons-spending","tag-britain","tag-ican","tag-nuclear-weapons"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116725481779762503","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}