Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: The global market for nuclear missiles and bombs should surpass $126 billion within ten years, up nearly 73% from 2020 levels, according to a report by Allied Market Research on Monday, as Russian aggression in Ukraine spurs military spending.
The value of the market would jump 72.6% from the Portland-based research firm’s estimate of nearly $73 billion in 2020, when Covid-19 delays and reallocation of funds to support the health crisis “severely affected” the defence sector.
An increase in geopolitical conflicts and bigger military budgets would likely push the figure up at an annual compounded rate of 5.4% until 2030, the report said.
US President Joe Biden last week requested a record peacetime national defence budget, which would prioritise modernising its nuclear “triad” of ballistic missile submarines, bombers and land-based missiles.
The report predicted that demand for small nuclear warheads, which can be easily deployed through aircraft and land-based missiles, would fuel faster growth in these segments, although submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) accounted for a quarter of the market in 2020.
While North America dominated more than half the global market in 2020, the report predicted the fastest growth would come from the Asia-Pacific region on initiatives by India, Pakistan and China to bolster their nuclear arsenals.
“However, international treaties and consortiums discourage nuclear testing,” the firm said in a report summary. “This hampers the market growth.”
It predicted that the rising influence of non-nuclear proliferation treaties and national efforts should increase the number of warheads in storage or awaiting dismantlement.
Active weapons, however, accounted for the “lion’s share” – more than two-thirds – of the market in 2020, it said, due to investment in nuclear arsenals and new warhead purchases.
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States at the start of the year issued a joint statement saying there could be no winners in a nuclear war and it must be avoided.
Days earlier, it was reported that, the Pentagon will eliminate the sole nuclear gravity bomb in the U.S. strategic weapons arsenal capable of blasting deeply buried underground structures as part of the Biden administration‘s review of strategic weapons policy, according to U.S. officials.
The retirement of the B83 bomb, a megaton-class weapon delivered by B-2 stealth bombers, was disclosed to Congress last month as part of the Biden administration’s classified nuclear posture review, a major reassessment of strategic forces and their employment. The bomb is “costly to maintain and of increasingly limited value,” a senior defense official told The Washington Times.
