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"Though we have acheived progress, our work is not over. That is why I support the mission of the Arms Control Association. It is, quite simply, the most effective and important organization working in the field today."

– Larry Weiler

Former U.S.-Russian arms control negotiator

August 7, 2018

Arms Control NOW

U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control Watch, April 24, 2019

Authored by Kingston Reif and Shervin Taheran on April 24, 2019

Update: April 29, 2019: Trump Directs Russia-Chinese Arms Control Effort On April 25, senior administration officials told reporters that President Donald Trump had directed his administration to seek a new arms control agreement with Russia and China. One official told CNN that the agreement should included “all the weapons, all the warheads, and all the missiles.” The officials criticized the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) for only limiting U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear weapons. The goal of a new agreement with Russia is apparently to seek to capture...

U.S. and North Korea Say Changes Must Precede Third Summit | North Korea Denuclearization Digest, April 19, 2019

Authored by Kelsey Davenport and Alicia Sanders-Zakre on April 19, 2019

U.S. and North Korea Say Changes Must Precede Third Summit North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump have both said they are willing to meet for a third summit but are looking for certain conditions to be met ahead of any meeting. Kim said the United States must be more flexible and Trump is looking for North Korea to demonstrate its willingness to give up nuclear weapons. U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton said in an April 17 interview with Bloomberg that Washington is looking for a “real indication from North Korea that they’ve made the strategic decision to...

North Korea Stays in Focus Amid Talk About Next Summits

Authored by Kelsey Davenport, Alicia Sanders-Zakre on April 19, 2019

This Op-ed originally appeared in InDepthNews , April 19, 2019. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump have both said they are willing to meet for a third summit but are looking for certain conditions to be met ahead of any meeting. Kim said the United States must be more flexible and Trump is looking for North Korea to demonstrate its willingness to give up nuclear weapons. U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton said in an April 17 interview with Bloomberg that Washington is looking for a “real indication from North Korea that they’ve made the strategic decision...

U.S.-Russian Experts, Fmr. Officials Urge New START Extension, Renewed U.S.-Russian Strategic Dialogue

Authored by Daryl G. Kimball on April 12, 2019

In the latest in a series of expert conferences and dialogues in Moscow and Washington, a group of distinguished U.S. and Russian experts released a public statement calling on U.S. and Russian officials to get back to the arms control negotiating table, with the first order of business being agreement on a five-year extension of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), as allowed for in Article XIV of the treaty, and talks designed to head-off new arms competition in the wake of the likely termination of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The April 10...

IAEA Reportedly Inspects Iranian Warehouse | P4+1 and Iran Nuclear Deal Alert

Authored by Kelsey Davenport and Alicia Sanders-Zakre on April 5, 2019

IAEA Reportedly Inspects Iranian Warehouse The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently inspected a warehouse that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the agency to visit in September, three diplomats told Reuters in an April 4 piece . Netanyahu called on the IAEA to “immediately” inspect a warehouse in Tehran that he described as “storing massive amounts of equipment and material from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program,” including an unspecified radioactive material, in his September speech to the UN General Assembly. One diplomat told Reuters that inspectors visited...

2020 Trump Budget Aims To Boost US Nuclear Capabilities

Authored by Kingston Reif on April 5, 2019

This op-ed originally appeared in IDN (Indepthnews) , April 5, 2019. Consistent with the recommendations of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) , the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget request would continue plans to expand U.S. nuclear weapon capabilities. The ultimate fate of the request, submitted to Congress March 11, 2019 remains uncertain as Democrats, particularly in the House, have signaled strong opposition to several controversial funding proposals. Their concerns include administration plans to develop two additional low-yield nuclear weapons and two conventionally...

Are We Approaching the End of the Arms Control Era?

Authored by Greg Thielmann on April 1, 2019

Remarks by Greg Thielmann Grinnell College April 1, 2019 I’m glad to be back in Grinnell on the first day of classes after your spring break. I hope the “April Fool’s Day” moniker does not get attached to either the speaker or the audience. I wanted to start with a theme I encountered in a a book, titled The Internationalists , about the Kellogg-Briand “Peace Pact” – the 1928 treaty, signed in Paris, which outlawed war. I had learned long ago that this agreement was naïve and utterly feckless, spectacularly failing to prevent an even more cataclysmic world war than the one which spawned it...

“Proposed Small Arms Transfers: Big Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy”

Authored by Jeff Abramson on March 26, 2019

Testimony by Jeff Abramson, Senior Fellow Arms Control Association The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations “Proposed Small Arms Transfers: Big Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy” March 26, 2019 Good morning, Chair Bera and Ranking Member Zeldin. It is a privilege to testify before this Committee and discuss concerns about how the United States exports some of the weapons most used in violence around the world and proposed changes that I fear could lead to greater human suffering. 1 To sum up my forthcoming remarks in just a few lines: The weapons and...

Making Nuclear Weapons Menacing Again

Authored by Michael Klare on March 21, 2019

This op-ed originally appeared in The Nation , Mar. 21, 2019. “There is no higher priority for national defense,” the Pentagon declared last year, than for the United States to “replace its strategic nuclear triad and sustain the warheads it carries.” In plain English, this means spending an estimated $1.7 trillion to rebuild every component of the US nuclear arsenal: the entire three-legged strategic “ triad ” of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and long-range bombers. Military officials claim the existing force has become obsolete...

U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control Watch, March 20, 2019

Authored by Kingston Reif and Shervin Taheran on March 20, 2019

U.S. Plans Flight Tests of INF-Treaty Range Missiles Defense Department officials told a group of reporters March 13 that the Pentagon is planning to test two types of conventional missiles currently prohibited by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by the end of this year. The announcement comes just over a month after the Trump administration announced Feb. 2 that it would withdraw from the treaty Aug. 2 unless Russia returns to compliance with the agreement. The first missile, a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of roughly 1,000 km (600 miles), will likely be...