Issue Briefs

President Donald Trump's missile defense executive order calls for a new architecture for homeland ballistic and cruise missile defense and outlines a policy shift toward defending or deterring “any foreign aerial attack on the Homeland.” 

The long-running Iranian nuclear crisis is reaching a tipping point. Since his re-election in November, U.S. President Donald Trump has consistently expressed support for reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran, but his administration’s rhetoric toward Tehran sends mixed signals about U.S. diplomatic intentions. 

Tehran’s recent acceleration of proliferation-sensitive activities increases the risk that the United States or Israel perceive its actions as a step toward weaponization, which could trigger military action or prompt Washington to ratchet up economic and political pressure on Iran even further.

The widespread deployment of autonomous weapons systems and the integration of artificial intelligence into nuclear command, control, and communications systems pose novel threats to strategic stability that are not addressed by existing U.S. and multilateral initiatives to mitigate the dangers of artificial intelligence.

U.S. presidential leadership may be the most important factor in whether the risk of nuclear arms racing, proliferation, and war will rise or fall in the years ahead. 

The CANWFZ is designed to reinforce the global nuclear nonproliferation system and safeguard the security of five key central Asian states that were once part of the Soviet Union and that now lie in the shadows of nuclear-armed Russia and China.

It has been just five years since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was concluded in 2017, but the agreement is already helping to bolster the international nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament architecture.

The nuclear dimensions of the war on Ukraine underscore the fact that outdated nuclear deterrence policies create unacceptable risks. To eliminate the danger, we must actively reinforce the legal prohibitions and norms against nuclear weapons use and press for effective disarmament diplomacy.

The United States and the international community can ill afford to see Iran, emboldened by its nuclear weapons capability, become more aggressive in the region and even more repressive domestically.

Even while rallying the world in support of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion and ongoing attacks, Washington must pursue the negotiation of a new arms control arrangement to supersede New START sooner rather than later.