Digests and Blog

Senior U.S. government officials have been touring different states to deliver addresses explaining the national security benefits of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty since October, with Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller and Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation Ambassador Adam Scheinman taking the lead. Scheinman’s keynote address at the "Deterrence & Assurance Academic Conference and Workshop” at the University of Nebraska-Omaha on March 4 was covered in the Omaha World-Herald. As part of her…

Jack Wood is a senior from Carbondale Community High School in Carbondale, Illinois. He spent the week of March 14 interning at the Arms Control Association as part of his AP Government class. Over the week that I worked here, I have learned vast amounts of what the Arms Control Association does and about nuclear issues in general. This kind of knowledge is not easy for a young adult or millennial to obtain, as the opportunities are just not that abundant. Because of this, we do not really think about arms control and nuclear security. Sometimes those issues do present themselves in our lives…

The eleventh U.S.-Russian biannual data exchange under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) shows a mixed measure of progress toward keeping under the treaty’s February 2018 ceilings.  Five of the six numbers are below or trending toward those ceilings. But Russia moved upward above the ceiling in operationally deployed warheads for the second consecutive time as the U.S. warhead count continued to fall. While disappointing in the signals it sends, the bump-up in Russia’s current warhead aggregate is neither militarily significant, nor necessarily indicative of an intent to…

Recap: The Summit Process and Beyond The Nuclear Security Summit process has forged cooperation and catalyzed action to prevent the common threat of nuclear and radiological terrorism. It has facilitated cooperative efforts between dozens of states to eliminate, consolidate, and secure stocks weapons-usable nuclear material. The process has also accelerated the adoption of tougher standards for the physical protection of nuclear materials where they remain, as manifested today by the news that enough states have ratified the 2005 amendment to the Conventional on the Physical Protection of…

Russia’s decision to boycott the fourth and final nuclear security summit in Washington this week is concerning, but it should not distract from the important work of the summit process. Even with Russia absent from the table, progress can—and must—be made on enhancing nuclear security worldwide and preventing nuclear terrorism.  While Moscow has not been an innovator for enhancing global nuclear security, as the largest possessor of weapons-usable materials its participation in the 2010, 2012, and 2014 summits was important. And as part of the process Russia has taken steps to enhance…

Jack Wood is a senior from Carbondale Community High School in Carbondale, Illinois. He spent the week of March 14 interning at the Arms Control Association as part of his AP Government class. The following blog is his reaction to a March 15 event put on by the International Panel of Fissile Materials. Last Tuesday, the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) held their biannual meeting at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). IPFM is a Princeton-based organization with nonproliferation experts from multiple countries, both nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-…

As part of its response to tough new sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council following its fourth nuclear test explosion on Jan. 6, the Pyongyang regime has threatened a new round of nuclear tests and claims to have developed a warhead design small enough to load on a ballistic missile. Many analysts doubt Pyongyang has fully developed such a capability and they underscore the importance of restarting negotiations to try to halt further nuclear and ballistic missile tests, particularly of the KN-08 missile, that could allow it to perfect such a capability. For further analysis, see…

Iran’s binge of short- and medium-range ballistic missile launches on March 8 and 9 garnered considerable attention in the press and in American political circles. These provocative launches, which coincided with a visit to Israel by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, were roundly condemned by U.S. politicians in both parties. It may be more revealing, however, to focus on two Iranian missile types that were not launched last week—launches that have been expected for years. These systems, the Simorgh space rocket and the Sejjil-2 medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), represent aspects of…

North Korea has no intention of abandoning its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, said a panel of experts mandated by the UN Security Council in a report dated Feb. 24. The panel, part of one subsidiary committee of the Security Council, oversees council sanctions on North Korea. But in the report, the panel highlighted that “there are serious questions about the efficacy of the current United Nations sanctions regime.” Given North Korea’s intentions to expand its nuclear and missile programs, enforcing sanctions designed to prevent Pyongyang from obtaining the materials and…

Today, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a fifth resolution to address North Korea’s destabilizing nuclear and missile programs. UN Security Council Resolution 2270 was adopted in response to North Korea’s dangerous nuclear provocations of early 2016, namely a fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a second launch of a satellite on Feb. 7, which has implications for its long-range ballistic missile development efforts. The new resolution imposes the most comprehensive sanctions to date. UNSCR 2270 seeks to: curb Pyongyang’s access to materials with military applications,…