Digests and Blog

Authored by Daryl Kimball, Kathy Crandall Robinson, and Tony Fleming

Dear Arms Control Association Members and Friends: We hope that you and your families are taking care and staying safe during this unprecedented worldwide struggle against the novel coronavirus crisis. Whether it is managing the impacts of a global disease pandemic, addressing the ongoing global climate emergency, or preventing the outbreak of nuclear war, we are all in this together. The coronavirus crisis underscores how effective global governance and smart, coordinated actions at the international, national, and community level can make a difference. Our staff and Board of Directors…

Authored by Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson

IAEA Raises Safeguards Questions International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi raised concerns in March about Tehran’s failure to cooperate with an agency investigation into possible storage and use of undeclared nuclear materials at three locations in Iran. In a March 3 report to the agency’s Board of Governors, Grossi outlined the agency’s efforts since January 2019 to request information from Iran about activities at the sites and documented Tehran’s refusal to cooperate with the agency’s investigation. Iran also refused the IAEA’s request in January 2020 to…

Authored by Julia Masterson and Kelsey Davenport

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) distributed two reports on Iran’s nuclear program March 3 that raise new questions about the country’s nuclear activities and its international legal obligations. The IAEA’s most recent regular quarterly report on Iran’s implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal (issued March 3 and made public March 11) notes a concerning increase in Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium and its number of operating centrifuge machines. However, Tehran’s continued compliance with the monitoring measures put in place by the agreement, known as the Joint…

Trump Officials Remain Bullish on Trilateral Arms Control and Bearish on New START President Donald Trump said recently that he is open to meeting with the other heads of state of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to discuss arms control and will soon put forward a trilateral arms control proposal with Russia and China. But China continues to express its opposition to trilateral talks and has yet to respond to U.S. overtures to begin a bilateral strategic security dialogue. At the same time, the U.S. administration continues to deflect questions about its stance on the…

Authored by Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson

IAEA Head Notes No New Breaches by Iran Iran has not taken any further steps to breach the 2015 nuclear deal after announcing its fifth violation in early January, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, told reporters in Washington Feb. 5. Experts have taken this to mean that Iran has not installed additional centrifuges nor further increased its enrichment level after announcing Jan. 5 that it would no longer be bound by any operational limits of the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Grossi stressed…

Authored by Daryl Kimball, Kathy Crandall Robinson, and Tony Fleming

In less than a year—on February 5, 2021—the last remaining treaty limiting the world’s two nuclear arsenals is due to expire unless the U.S. president decides to take up Russia’s offer to extend it for another five years. To date, however, the Trump administration has yet to officially decide on the future of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Instead, Trump is talking about a new and more ambitious treaty involving all types of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons as well as those of China. These are worthy goals, but a new treaty cannot be concluded before 2021. Extending New START is…

Authored by Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson

North Korea Reiterates End to Test MoratoriumNorth Korea will no longer observe its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile testing, a counselor to Pyongyang’s mission at the United Nations in Geneva said Jan. 21. The April 2018 moratorium was designed to “build confidence with the United States,” but given that Washington “remains unchanged in its ambition to block the development” of North Korea, Pyongyang has “no reason to be unilaterally bound” by its past commitment, Ju Yong Chol said.The statement did not indicate if or when North Korea would resume nuclear or long-…

Authored by Shannon Bugos

Until last week, the hands of the famed Doomsday Clock remained steady since 2018: two minutes to midnight Now, however, the clock reads just 100 seconds from global catastrophe — a determination made by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board, with the help of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which features 13 Nobel Laureates. The Bulletin, which first created the clock in 1947, made the change this year after taking into consideration the threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, as well as cyber warfare. Although no longer the sole determining factor of the…

Russia Warns Time Running Out for New START Russian officials repeated in late December and early January President Vladimir Putin’s call for extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) as soon as possible, though Washington continues to remain silent on the future of the accord, which is scheduled to expire in just over 12 months. Acting Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov commented in a Dec. 26 interview that “we might end up under intense time pressure” if the Trump administration maintains its silence on the future of the treaty. “We would not like to be forced to…

Authored by Owen LeGrone

The last decade has been a trying period, by any stretch of the imagination, for multilateralism and international peace. Recent years have seen some agreements rejected by signatories and others lapse, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty being only the latest example. However, as the United Nations system staggers under increasing levels of debt, a small group of other multilateral treaties, many of which focus on disarmament topics, are threatened for another reason: lack of money. As these treaties find their meetings cut or canceled, and their organizations face losing…