WASHINGTON, June 10 -- In the same year that the last treaty restraining the world's two largest nuclear arsenals quietly expired, the countries that own the bomb spent more building and modernising it than in any year on record. The two facts are not a coincidence. They are the same story told from opposite ends.

The nine nuclear-armed states poured 119 billion dollars into their arsenals in 2025, according to a report released Tuesday by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a 19 percent jump over the year before and the highest total since the group began counting. Over five years the same states have spent 471 billion dollars. The figures are ICAN's, drawn from public budgets and contractor disclosures, and the group...