Voice of America News reports: “The world’s nine nuclear-armed states together spent $91.4 billion last year, or nearly $3,000 per second, as they ‘continue to modernize, and in some cases expand their arsenals,’ according to a report issued Monday by ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

‘This money is effectively being wasted given that the nuclear-armed states agree that a nuclear war can never be won and should never be fought,’ Alicia Sanders-Zakre, co-author of the report, told journalists in Geneva last week in advance of the report’s publication.

For example, she said, $91.4 billion a year ‘could pay for wind power for more than 12 million homes to combat climate change or cover 27 percent of the global funding gap to fight climate change, protect biodiversity and cut pollution.’

The report shows the nuclear-armed states spent $10.7 billion more on nuclear weapons in 2023 compared with 2022, with the United States accounting for 80% of that increase.

ICAN reports the United States spent $51.5 billion, ‘more than all the other nuclear-armed countries put together.’ It says the next biggest spender was China at $11.8 billion with Russia spending the third largest amount at $8.3 billion…”