New Report Cites Surge In Global Nuclear Weapons Spending

BusinessAerospace & DefenseNew Report Cites Surge In Global Nuclear Weapons SpendingByWilliam Hartung,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I am a defense analyst, and cover the economics of Pentagon spending.Follow AuthorJun 15, 2026, 06:14am EDTA streak of light trails off into the night sky as the US military test fires an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, some 130 miles (209 kms) northwest of Los Angeles, California early on May 3, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / RINGO CHIU (Photo credit should read RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty ImagesAs global arms control agreements are terminated or called into question by the politics of arms racing, building and developing nuclear weapons is a big business, and growing larger.A new report by the Nobel Prize winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) documents $119 billion in expenditures on nuclear weapons in 2025, over 19% more than the prior year. More than half of that amount – $69 billion – was spent by the United States. The figures in the new study are no doubt conservative, as governments – including the United States along with closed societies like Russia and China – are not fully transparent about their nuclear weapons spending. The United States has classified nuclear weapons research of an unknown value.In addition, the potentially enormously expensive Golden Dome missile defense program could ratchet up global nuclear expenditures further if adversaries assess that the combination of offensive U.S. forces that could attack their nuclear sites with a defensive system that could intercept what’s left after a first strike, would leave them vulnerable to attack. So, in a sense, Golden Dome is a defensive system that could be used for an offensive purpose – the shield of defensive systems that allows the United States to use the sword of offensive nuclear arms with impunity. Even if this is a low p...