The global security thinktank estimates in its latest report released on Monday that the nine states with nuclear arsenals — the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — possessed a collective 13,865 nuclear weapons at the beginning of 2019, down from 14,465 a year before.

"There is a new type of arms race, not about the quantity of warheads but about technologies," Hans M. Kristensen, an associate senior fellow with the SIPRI Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation programme, told Euronews.

The global security thinktank estimates in its latest report released on Monday that the nine states with nuclear arsenals — the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — possessed a collective 13,865 nuclear weapons at the beginning of 2019, down from 14,465 a year before.

"We are no longer in the classic strategy of deterrence by the accumulation of nuclear warheads," said Kristensen.

"Now they have embarked on a tactical war", he added, whereby the different states "set out new scenarios" to develop technologies and weapons.

For instance, Russia is developing weapons capable of circumventing the US anti-missile shield, while the United States is working on developing new short-range tactical nuclear weapons to respond to Russian challenges.

"It's a whole new dynamic. We have seen these "tactical threats" before, during the Cold War," Kristensen explained, highlighting however that "it's not as bad as during the Cold War yet".

The US withdrawal from the Middle East Non-Proliferation Treaty and the new plans for the renewal of the nuclear arsenal that President Donald Trump has brought to Congress, as well as the conflict between Washington and Iran, are mentioned as other elements of instability in the global balance, prompting Kristensen to believe that the risk of a potential nuclear conflict has increased.