The first warning
Nuclear weapons
Humanity has created a security system in which civilisation's survival partly depends upon deterrence.
The world entered 2026 with approximately 12,187 nuclear warheads, including around 9,745 in military stockpiles, according to SIPRI. SIPRI has also warned that a new nuclear arms race is emerging as nuclear-armed states modernise their arsenals and the international arms-control architecture weakens.
- 9,745 in military stockpiles
- 2,442 not in military stockpiles
The problem is deeper than the number of weapons. Nuclear deterrence requires the continuing reliability of:
- Information
- Command systems
- Communication
- Human judgment
- Political decision-making
- Cybersecurity
- Early-warning systems
- Crisis management
It also assumes that these systems will remain reliable indefinitely. They will increasingly interact with artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, autonomous weapons, hypersonic systems and increasingly compressed decision-making timelines.
A civilisation cannot indefinitely rely upon the threat of mutual destruction as its permanent security architecture.
The long-term objective must be to remove the structural necessity for nations to threaten one another with mass destruction.