SWEDEN - Nuclear Powers Increase Reliance on Nukes
The world’s nine nuclear-armed states continue to modernize their nuclear weapons as the countries deepened their reliance on such deterrence in 2023, a Swedish think tank said.
“We have not seen nuclear weapons playing such a prominent role in international relations since the Cold War,” said Wilfred Wan, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s weapons of mass destruction program.
In a separate report, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, said the nine nuclear-armed states spent a combined total of $91.4 billion on their arsenals in 2023—equivalent to $2,898 per second. The Geneva-based coalition of disarmament activists won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.
“There has been a notable upward trend in the amount of money devoted to developing these most inhumane and destructive of weapons over the past five years,” said Alicia Sanders-Zakre, Policy and Research Coordinator with ICAN.
The next biggest spender was China at $11.8 billion, she said, with Russia spending the third largest amount at $8.3 billion.
“All this money is not improving global security, in fact it's threatening people wherever they live,” Sanders-Zakre said.
-www.npr.org, 17 June 2024
Arno's Commentary
The threat of nuclear war cannot be categorized as impossible. Wars usually spring up unexpectedly. The world has not experienced nuclear war, except for the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Wikipedia reports that about 1,680,000 were killed—mostly civilians. That, incidentally, is virtually always the case in war; the ones who pay the price are the old, the women, and the children.
Yet there is worse to come, according to Bible prophecy. “By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths” (Revelation 9:18). The cause of this horrible, global judgment is acknowledged by humanity, for we read: “And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great” (Revelation 16:21).
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
