Digests and Blog

Iran and the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) met on July 25 in Istanbul, the first nuclear talks since Israel attacked Iran on June 13.In a July 25 post on X, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazam Gharibabadi wrote that both sides brought “specific ideas” to the meeting and that the talks, which included nuclear and sanctions issues, were “serious, frank and detailed.” He said talks would continue, but the E3 and Iran have little time to make progress.Prior to the Istanbul meeting, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that the European powers will move to reimpose UN…

Nuclear Disarmament MonitorJuly 25, 2025“A global security structure forever dependent on fear is ultimately a reckless gamble,” a group of Nobel laureates and nuclear weapons experts wrote July 16 in a new Declaration for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The statement makes clear the need for a return to negotiations on a successor to the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).Just a week before, a parallel civil society call to Halt and Reverse the Arms Race, said the same, urging U.S. leaders to “fulfill their disarmament obligations and engage immediately in good faith…

July/August 2025Eighty years ago on July 16, the first nuclear bomb was detonated in New Mexico. No one knew exactly how big the blast would be but they knew there would be fallout. Still, the U.S. government chose not to evacuate people near the site. In the days that followed, the fallout from the Trinity test fell on unsuspecting communities downwind from the “Trinity” test site and far beyond, many of whom are still suffering from the impacts.Days later, the U.S. government unleashed those bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, creating a hell on earth and killing more than 214,…

Israel's strikes on Iran, beginning on June 13, 2025, include the targeting of nuclear facilities. The United States also targeted three nuclear facilities on June 21. This post lists key nuclear facilities in Iran, the activities conducted at each site, and the status of those facilities. It will be updated as events warrant. Overall Assessment: An early intelligence assessment from the Pentagon assessed that the U.S. and Israeli strikes damaged Iran's nuclear facilities, but "did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program and likely only set it back by months,"…

Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 13 are not a solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis. Prior to Israel’s strike, Iran was on the threshold of nuclear weapons, but the U.S. Intelligence Community consistently assessed that Tehran was not engaged in weaponization. Israel’s strike may have pulled Iran off that technical threshold, but only slightly and likely temporarily. In the long term, Israel’s attack increases the proliferation risk and makes a nuclear armed Iran more likely for several reasons. First, Israeli strikes cannot destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Militarily,…

The Trump administration’s May 20 announcement of a three-year, $175 billion effort to build a constellation of space-based interceptors to attempt to counter any kind of missile from any nation within three years, popularized as the “Golden Dome” missile defense system, has been met with widespread skepticism bordering on incredulity.Indeed, The Guardian reported May 30 that “two people familiar” with the Golden Dome announcement concede that the space-based interceptor program will only be able to conduct a demonstration under ideal conditions by 2028. In this piece, we will examine some of…

In a comprehensive assessment of Iran’s safeguards implementation, the International Atomic Energy Agency presents clear evidence that Iran violated its safeguards obligations but finds no evidence of a current, illicit nuclear program. The IAEA’s findings underscore the urgent need for a nuclear deal that brings Iran back into compliance with its legally binding safeguards obligations and limits its future proliferation risk. The May 31 report, requested by the Agency’s Board of Governors in November 2024, provides greater context and information about the years-long investigation into four…

The third nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee (NPT PrepCom) meeting before the 2026 Review Conference took place April 28 to May 9 in New York.As delegates exchanged statements in the main plenary and tried (unsuccessfully) to reach agreement on options to enhance the review process and actions to advance NPT goals and objectives, over fifty side events were convened by civil society groups, states-parties, and international organizations, covering a wide range of issues. The Arms Control Association’s staff at the PrepCom attended several of these events during the first…

May 23, 2025Talks About Future of New START Still Haven’t StartedIn January, shortly after his second inauguration, U.S. President Donald Trump said: “Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about .... So, we want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible.”The Kremlin replied that it wants to resume the nuclear dialogue “as soon as possible.”Months later, however, Russia and the United States are no closer to addressing the urgent need for a follow-on agreement to the New…

Nuclear and defense strategists have long understood that the development and deployment of strategic missile interceptors is ineffective against determined nuclear-armed adversaries because it could lead them to build more numerous and sophisticated offensive missile systems — at relatively lower cost and more quickly -- to overwhelm and evade missile defenses.Trump’s “Golden Dome” gambit flies in the face of these realities. Beyond the hoopla and hyperbole of “nearly 100 percent protection” within “three years," Trump’s “Golden Dome” strategic missile defense gambit is deeply flawed,…