NEW YORK, October 3. /TASS/. Robert Peters, a strategic deterrence expert at the Heritage Foundation's Allison Center for National Security, warned that the US nuclear arsenal is outdated and insufficient to counter Russia and China.

Fox News quoted Peters' report, which stated that the US arsenal of approximately 1,750 deployed nuclear warheads leaves the country vulnerable at a time when Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang are reportedly expanding their arsenals at a rapid pace.

"The newest warhead that we have was built in 1989," Peters told Fox News. "The force size that we have now… That was a force design that came up when President [Barack] Obama was in office in 2010, and the assumptions were in 2010 that there would be no more real competition between the United States and Russia, and China was not even a real player on the nuclear field," the expert pointed out.

The report said that Washington triple its forces to approximately 4,625 operationally deployed nuclear warheads by 2050. This includes 3,500 strategic warheads deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, ballistic missile submarines, and bombers, as well as 1,125 non-strategic warheads.

In August, experts at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) predicted that nearly all nuclear powers would continue to modernize their arsenals in 2024 by adding more advanced systems. According to SIPRI data, as of January 2025, there were 12,241 warheads worldwide, 9,614 of which were stored for potential use. Of those, a total of 3,912 were installed on missiles and aircraft, and 2,100 were kept on high alert.

According to the international institute's report, Russia and the US together possess approximately 90% of all nuclear weapons (the US has 5,177 warheads, and Russia has 5,459). SIPRI estimates that China currently has at least 600 nuclear warheads. Since 2023, Beijing has been expanding its nuclear arsenal faster than any other country, by approximately 100 warheads per year.