(ZENIT News / Rome, 08/10/2025).- While the world witnesses increasingly serious humanitarian crises, a shocking fact emerges from the latest report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). A single year’s spending on atomic arsenals would be enough to feed, for almost two years, the 345 million people currently suffering from the most extreme levels of hunger.
The total figure –, more than $100 million in 2024 –, is not only a disturbing record on the path to nuclear rearmament, it is also a mirror reflecting an international order where the capacity to destroy seems to outweigh the will to save. The 11% increase, compared to the previous year, means that every second, somewhere on the planet, US$3,169 are spent on weapons whose sole purpose would be to wipe out entire cities.
Nine countries account for this spending: from historic powers like the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom, to others that do not hide their nuclear ambitions, such as India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
The US heads the list with US$56.8 billion — more than all other countries combined –, followed by China with US$12,500 billion and the United Kingdom with US$10.10 billion. The magnitude is such that, combined, this military investment is equivalent to 28 times the budget of the UN, an organization currently suffering cuts for peacekeeping missions and basic assistance programs.
For ICAN, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its work against these weapons, the message is clear: this money is being wasted. Not only because the States that spend it signed in 2022 that «a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,» but because every dollar invested in these warheads is a dollar that is not being used for urgent human needs. «There are multiple alternatives that could give us real long-term security, something that nuclear weapons will never offer,» say the authors of the report, Susi Snyder and Alicia Sanders-Zakre.
The Catholic Church has spoken out against this arms race for decades. Pope Francis summed it up with a phrase that has become part of his teaching: «War is always a defeat for humanity.» This year, in Hiroshima, Pope Leo XIV echoed these words in commemorating the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan, at a Mass for peace presided over on his behalf by the Apostolic Nuncio Francisco Escalante Molina. The message, delivered in the same place where humanity first learned the devastating extent of these bombings, leaves no room for doubt: the security bought with fear is a mirage that dissipates in the face of the suffering of the innocent.
And yet, the powerful continue to fuel their arsenals, as if the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hadn’t been a warning enough. The paradox is cruel: in a world where there is plenty of money to maintain the capacity to destroy everything, there continues to be a lack of will to protect the lives of those who barely have a plate of food a day.
