More than eight decades later, nuclear weapons remain a serious threat to global security.
In a message marking the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that in a single instant, Hiroshima was engulfed in flames. Tens of thousands of lives were lost. The city was reduced to rubble. And humanity crossed an irreversible threshold.”
The horrific memories of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have left an enduring legacy of pain, but they have also strengthened humanity's determination to realise the vision of a world free from the threat of nuclear catastrophe and to build peace for all.
Following the end of the Cold War, the world made significant progress in curbing nuclear proliferation. In 1968, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was signed, marking a major milestone in global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, advance disarmament and promote the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. A series of bilateral agreements also emerged, playing a pivotal role in the global control of weapons of mass destruction.
In recent years, however, this positive trend has shown signs of reversal. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), while the number of deployed nuclear weapons has fallen significantly compared with the Cold War era, the world still possesses more than 12,000 nuclear warheads, of which more than 9,700 are maintained in a state of readiness for deployment.
Even more concerning, global spending on weapons of mass destruction far exceeds funding allocated to sustainable development and peacebuilding. According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), global expenditure on nuclear weapons reached a record 119 billion USD in 2025.
An increasingly unstable global security environment, rising geopolitical tensions and intensifying strategic competition among major powers have become formidable obstacles to nuclear disarmament efforts. Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has warned that the world is at risk of entering a new nuclear arms race.
Successive conflicts erupting across multiple global hotspots have seriously undermined confidence in international security commitments, prompting some countries to reassess their security strategies. The US and Russia, the world's two largest nuclear powers, together possess around 83% of the global nuclear arsenal. However, experts warn that this balance could shift if more countries join the dangerous race.
Meanwhile, international arms control and disarmament mechanisms are widely regarded as being in an extremely fragile state. Following the US' withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) became the last remaining bilateral nuclear arms control agreement between the two nuclear powers.
However, New START expired in February this year, bringing an end to the last remaining safeguard limiting the development of strategic weapons by Washington and Moscow. Although US President Donald Trump has expressed his willingness to work with Russia on a successor agreement, negotiating a new arms control treaty under current circumstances is clearly no easy task.
More than 80 years on, the names Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain a constant reminder of the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons. To ensure the continuation of peace-building efforts, the United Nations calls upon the international community to steadfastly support the goals of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation, while upholding the right of all nations to develop and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
