October 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

The Golden Dome missile defense initiative is prioritizing defense against “a coercive decapitation or rogue nation attack against the homeland,” the top U.S. Space Force general responsible for the program said Sept. 17.

The announcement by Gen. Michael Guetlein marks the first time a Pentagon official has provided public details on how it plans to realistically implement President Donald Trump’s ambitious January 2025 executive order, which called for a “reference architecture” to defend against all forms of missile attacks “from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.” (See ACT, March 2025.)

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in May 2026 that a comprehensive missile defense system capable of fully implementing the executive order would cost $1.2 trillion over 20 years. In contrast, Guetlein said in March that his program would cost only $185 billion over the next 10 years. He has repeatedly insisted that external independent estimates did not understand the Defense Department’s program architecture, which it has closely guarded until now.

The Pentagon has refused the CBO’s requests for briefings that could inform analysis of the system’s costs, the CBO director for national security analysis, David Mosher, said at an Aug. 19 event at the Brookings Institution.

Guetlein said the Golden Dome would be implemented in two stages, according to his Sept. 17 comments at the Ohio Space Forum, as reported by Aviation Week. The Pentagon would complete the first stage by 2028 and focus on integrating existing capabilities to defend against decapitation—surprise attacks on strategic decision-makers—and rogue state attacks.

The second stage would be complete by 2035 and would rely on “next-generation technologies,” including “directed energy, next-generation communications and sensing, and quantum,” Guetlein said.

One of the most controversial components of a next-generation missile defense system, the Space Force’s space-based interceptor program, cleared its first milestone recently when 12 military contractors passed ground tests to prove system integration capabilities, Guetlein announced Aug. 11 in remarks at an industry conference in Huntsville, Alabama.

The first milestone—four are planned as part of an unusual prize competition—involved moving data from sensors to interceptors and demonstrating spacecraft propulsion systems, Bloomberg reported Aug. 7, citing sources familiar with the program. Not all contractors were tasked with demonstrating the same capabilities, according to the report.

“Gate 1 is to get the design in place and do component-level testing,” Guetlein said at the Aug. 11 conference.

To pass the program’s next milestone, contractors will be asked to flight-test their systems and demonstrate that they can launch interceptors to a designated location in space, according to the Bloomberg report. Flight tests will begin in 2027. (See ACT, November 2025.)

The Space Force will pay $126 million to each team that successfully completes the second milestone. The first firm to complete the test will receive an additional $40 million, Bloomberg reported.

All told, the Space Force anticipates paying out $3.2 billion in prizes to the companies involved in the competition. Larger contracts for production of a full space-based interceptor constellation, if deemed feasible by Guetlein’s directorate, would follow.

Congress appropriated $5.6 billion for the space-based interceptor program in July 2025 through a budget reconciliation act, a small portion of the total $24 billion allocated for missile defense in the same supplemental funding mechanism. The $24 billion is in addition to a $43 billion regular missile defense request in the fiscal year 2026 budget.

For the 2027 fiscal cycle, President Donald Trump has requested that Congress provide an additional $18 billion for Golden Dome projects through a partisan budget reconciliation bill and $68 billion for other missile defense expenses through the regular budget.

That second tranche of Golden Dome funding is now unlikely to materialize, according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who indicated Sept. 15 that the Senate would “probably” not take up another budget reconciliation bill with additional defense appropriations until after the November midterm elections.

The regular defense budget process also remains deadlocked with no agreement between Senate negotiators on top-line categories. “If they don’t figure it out, there’s no Golden Dome because there is no funding,” Guetlein said in his Aug. 11 comments.

The total cost of a space-based interceptor constellation remains contested. The CBO estimated in May that a constellation capable of intercepting a raid of 10 intercontinental ballistic missiles launched nearly simultaneously would cost $743 billion over 20 years to develop, deploy, and operate.

“If things are not affordable and scalable, we are not going to do it,” Lt. Gen. Brian Gibson, Guetlein’s deputy for the Golden Dome initiative, told The Washington Times in August.

The Pentagon conducted a demonstration of a directed-energy system for defeating drones and cruise missiles June 23 at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, advancing a different component of the broader Golden Dome program, according to a social media post by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The test of the directed-energy weapon system, called the Dynamic Defense Autonomous Defeat system, involved autonomous cueing, targeting, and elimination of multiple targets, Hegseth said.

October 2026
By Jocelyn Bridges and Michael T. Klare

For the first time, scientists have used artificial intelligence to design and manufacture viable viruses with DNA sequences, or genomes, not found in nature—demonstrating a technology that they said could be used to devise treatments for harmful, antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

According to the scientists at Stanford University and Arc Institute, who developed the technology and whose findings were published in the Aug. 6 issue of Science, these novel viruses were able to reproduce and infect E. coli bacteria in a laboratory.

“Our results demonstrate that generative models capture evolutionary constraints in DNA sequences with enough fidelity to produce complete bacteriophage genomes divergent from those observed in nature and with prespecified traits,” the article concluded.

“Our approach … lays out a path for generating adaptive and resilient phage therapies against rapidly evolving pathogens,” the article said.

Other scientists, however, have warned of its potential use in developing lethal biological warfare (BW) munitions. Dr. Susan Monarez, a microbiologist and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The New York Times Sept. 10 that AI could “let bad actors hide in plain sight, using seemingly legitimate research to create pathogens we may not see coming and may not be able to stop once released.”

Scientists and arms control advocates have long expressed concern over the exploitation of biosciences for military use and have advocated binding constraints on such activities. These concerns were stoked during the Cold War by reports that the Soviet Union and United States had developed and were stockpiling a variety of BW agents, including anthrax.

In response to widespread international alarm over the potential for a BW-induced global catastrophe, the two superpowers, along with numerous other countries, signed the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1972, effectively prohibiting production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling, and use of BW agents.

In accordance with the BWC, most major powers destroyed their stockpiles of active BW agents and ceased the development of such munitions. However, some analysts worry that certain states—including the United States—have investigated the possible use of bioweapons under the guise of developing “defensive” measures decades after signing the BWC. (See ACT, September 2001 and ACT, October 2001.) Despite these ongoing research efforts, U.S. military officials have concluded that traditional BW agents, such as anthrax, are too cumbersome and dangerous to employ as battlefield munitions.

Recently, however, scientists have warned that AI could be used to develop advanced BW agents without the limitations of traditional bioweapons. Such agents might, for example, be designed to spread among humans at an explosive speed or to target selected populations, according to a May 4, 2026, article in The New York Times. Some analysts view the advent of AI-generated viruses from this perspective.

In the case of the experiments reported in Science, the scientists specifically chose to devise genomes akin to a naturally occurring antibacterial virus, or bacteriophage, called Phi X 174, that poses no health risk to humans.

Similar to how generative-AI models, such as Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, are trained on vast text datasets, these scientists trained the genomic language models Evo 1 and Evo 2 using large genomic sequence datasets incorporating all domains of life: animals, plants, microbes, and bacteria. Once trained, the models were prompted to seek common patterns among the sequences that could be used in devising new genomes.

The researchers then tasked the models with devising genomic sequences that might resemble Phi X 174. From this template, they created thousands of AI-generated genomes, of which 285 were chemically synthesized, eventually yielding 16 viable bacteriophages that propagated and inhibited the growth of the target bacterial strains.

In the study, the scientists reported that the 16 AI-generated bacteriophages exhibited substantial evolutionary capacity relative to known natural phages, suggesting a potential to devise new antibacterial therapies. At the same time, this discovery has raised concerns among biosecurity experts that AI could be used to create deadly pathogens.

Dr. Moritz Hanke, a fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, expressed his concerns to The New York Times in an article published Aug. 6: “You could say, ‘Hey, genomic language model, make me an influenza genome that is modified to be more transmissible or to be more lethal.’”

Concern over the potential use of AI to generate novel BW munitions was further stoked Sept. 10, when Anthropic revealed that its engineers had detected several instances in which unidentified foreign actors used Claude to obtain information useful for BW manufacture.

The New York Times reported one case in which researchers employed Claude to study the spread of bird flu to mammals—research that, conceivably, could be useful in developing vaccines, but could also be used in designing bioweapons. Anthropic said it suspended Claude’s use by these entities when the incidents were discovered, but warned that, without international guardrails, AI could be used by malign actors to fabricate deadly pathogens, the newspaper reported.

“Biological misuse is one of the most serious risks of frontier AI models,” Anthropic noted in its Sept. 10 report on the incidents. “It has long been a concern that AI models might one day reach the level of capability where they can help to make existing pathogens more dangerous—or create entirely new ones. Without the correct safeguards, such capabilities could have catastrophic consequences.”

October 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

North Korea launched a new missile system and commissioned a naval destroyer amid South Korean calls for the United States to offer North Korea sanctions relief if it froze its nuclear weapons development.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed in a Sept. 20 statement that it detected and tracked two separate launches from North Korea’s east coast toward the Sea of Japan earlier that day. The missiles traveled about 280 and 370 miles, respectively.

According to a Sept. 22 report in the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea’s Missile Administration “successfully tested a new-type weapon, which is of great significance in the rapid development of weapon systems.” KCNA noted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test and said the new missile was a “striking demonstration of ultra-modern defense technology and clear progress in the modernization of the armed forces.”

The report did not provide any details on what new capabilities North Korea tested, but Kim said that the “enemy will know better what such progress means without any explanation in the aspect of military technology.” Photos published in state-run media suggest that the missiles launched were short-range systems with hypersonic glide vehicles, dubbed the Hwasong-11E-1.

Before the missile test, Kim commissioned a new naval destroyer at the Wonsan Port Sept. 6. The ship, North Korea’s second Choe Hyon-class destroyer, “will reliably defend the inviolable maritime sovereignty and interests of our state,” KCNA said in a Sept. 7 statement. Kim implied that the destroyer is nuclear-capable. According to KCNA, he said that North Korea should “ensure that the diversified and effective operation of nuclear combat systems is conducted for an actual war through developing our navy into a nuclear-armed force.”

To stop further North Korean nuclear weapons development, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, in a Sept. 18 interview with The New York Times urged the United States to offer to ease sanctions in return for a freeze on North Korea’s program. He said South Korea estimates that North Korea is producing, or capable of producing, 10-20 nuclear weapons per year. He raised concerns that Pyongyang may be willing to sell nuclear warheads once it “has accumulated enough nuclear weapons and missiles to guarantee its survival.”

Lee said there is “significant value in a trade-off between sanctions—which are not particularly effective anyway—and a stop to the development of additional nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile technology.” He also said that pursuing a nuclear weapons freeze would be more effective than pursuing denuclearization, which “guarantees that nothing will be accomplished.” Over time and with reciprocal incentives, he suggested that North Korea may be willing to reduce its nuclear arsenal.

U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed interest in meeting with Kim, but North Korea continues to reiterate that Kim is not in communication with Trump about a summit. (See ACT, September 2026.) North Korea also says that the United States must drop its demand for denuclearization before talks can occur. The Trump administration, however, indicated that it wants to engage North Korea on the basis of the 2018 Singapore summit declaration that Trump and Kim signed, calling for denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

October 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

U.S. President Donald Trump called again for arms control talks between China, Russia, and the United States in a Sept. 24 meeting with his Chinese counterpart, according to a White House readout of the one-day summit.

“The President advocated for trilateral arms control negotiations” among the three countries, the White House statement said. A press release from the Chinese Foreign Ministry summarizing the talks between Trump and President Xi Jinping did not mention arms control at all, however.

After a May bilateral presidential summit in Beijing, Trump also told reporters he had raised arms control negotiations between the possessors’ of the world’s three-largest nuclear arsenals. (See ACT, June 2026.)

Russia and the United States each have more than 5,000 nuclear weapons, whereas China has more than 600. Moscow and Washington each deploys around 1,800 strategic warheads with their delivery systems daily. Although Beijing has historically kept its arsenal under tight central control at a low level of readiness, it is shifting toward deploying more warheads on delivery vehicles as its sea-, land-, and air-based nuclear forces modernize.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Sept. 6 that Russia was tentatively open to a trilateral meeting among the three countries’ leaders on the sidelines of the Nov. 18-19 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting in Shenzhen, China. “The main question boils down to how the substance of the meeting will be formulated, and what we can expect as a result,” Ryabkov said, according to a Reuters report citing the Russian state news agency TASS.

The first Trump administration proposed trilateral nuclear arms control talks as well, as the U.S.-Russia New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was approaching its original expiration date, but the idea was rejected by China. Attempting to apply diplomatic pressure, the U.S. State Department went so far as to set out seats for a Chinese delegation at a June 2020 bilateral meeting with Russia in Vienna. (See ACT, July/August 2020.)

The State Department has also held bilateral meetings with Chinese officials at least three times in 2026, on the margins of the “P5 process” dialogue on nuclear matters—which involves the five nuclear-weapon states recognized under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty—to promote nuclear risk reduction measures, the Wall Street Journal reported Sept. 24.

Led by Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Christopher Yeaw, the U.S. side pressed Chinese diplomats on the U.S. allegation of a Chinese nuclear test in June 2020. (See ACT, March 2026.)

The United States has also asked China to provide more advance notice of ballistic missile tests, the Journal reported. (See ACT, September 2026.)

Following the Sept. 24 summit between Trump and Xi, the two sides announced a bilateral dialogue to “exchange views on risks and benefits” related to artificial intelligence, scheduled for November 2026.

Both countries’ summaries of the summit also affirmed their opposition to Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon and to the imposition, by any country or institution, of tolls on international waterways.

October 2026
By Libby Flatoff

Syria has begun the destruction of its chemical munitions arsenal with the confirmed eradication of 42 aerial bombs, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The OPCW, which is overseeing the operation, reported the development to a UN Security Council meeting Sept. 3. It marked the first destruction of chemical munitions since the former government of President Bashar al-Assad acknowledged it possessed the weapons in 2012.

During the Security Council meeting, UN officials reconfirmed that 19 of the 26 outstanding issues concerning Syria’s initial chemical weapons declaration remain to be resolved. Some of these outstanding issues involve gaining clarity on any undeclared nerve agents and ensuring the integrity of the verification process.

Denmark’s deputy representative to the OPCW, Sandra Jensen Landi, commended Syria’s work on beginning the destruction process, but stressed the need for continued international commitment and support to ensure Syria addresses the 19 unresolved issues.

Syrian Ambassador to the OPCW Mohamad Katoub discussed the destruction progress during an Arms Control Association webinar Sept. 16. “We are now working with the [OPCW] Technical Secretariat and our international partners on next stages, planning for future deployment and appropriate methods for destruction within the capacity in Syria,” he said.

Katoub noted the support and assistance from the Breath of Freedom task force—comprising Canada, France, Germany, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States—which was established in March to assist Syria’s chemical munitions destruction. “I would say we are in good hands with the experts that are supporting us from the Breath of Freedom and members and also from the Technical Secretariat who helped us,” he said.

Katoub said Syria is “starting step by step with mechanical destruction now for items under Category 3, which is basically unfilled munitions, but exploring how we can implement other types of destruction.”

When asked how Syria plans to continue the destruction of its stockpiles and if it has the infrastructure to continue doing that safely, Katoub said: “The plan is to explore every possible destruction method that we can do in Syria. If not, then we might consider destruction in other country using either a third party or with the help of the Breath of Freedom members.”

Although Katoub said that “mechanical destruction … is not complicated,” he acknowledged obstacles to the destruction effort, including “the national capacity, available infrastructure, and also the safety measures that we can apply in Syria for other types of destruction.”

Earlier in 2026, OPCW inspectors uncovered a new cache of undeclared chemical weapons and documentation. (See ACT, July/August 2026.) Katoub said that “the bombs that we located this year in May have some complications that we are exploring how we can do this.”

Syria became a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention and an OPCW member state in 2013. The next conference of CWC states-parties is scheduled for Nov. 23-27.

October 2026
By Shaghayegh Chris Rostampour

The U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise is expanding its engagement with private fusion companies, with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) exploring how such capabilities could complement those of the national laboratories.

The NNSA signed an Aug. 25 memorandum of understanding with Pacific Fusion, a private company that is building a high-yield fusion research facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, backed by $1 billion in private investment.

The agreement establishes a framework for Pacific Fusion and the NNSA to collaborate and “advance shared interests in the development, integration, and demonstration of a high-yield fusion system,” according to the Energy Department’s announcement. It does not, however, commit the NNSA to establish or fund specific projects. Any such arrangements would be decided via separate agreements, the department said.

Although fusion research is also pursued as a potential energy source, the NNSA uses high-yield fusion in experiments that can recreate some of the extreme temperatures, pressures, and radiation conditions associated with nuclear weapons physics in a laboratory.

The experiments are part of the U.S. stockpile stewardship and management program, which seeks to “maintain the safety, security, and reliability of the stockpile” without conducting full-scale nuclear explosive tests, as well as “modernizing the stockpile and our infrastructure simultaneously,” according to the Energy Department.

NNSA Administrator Brandon Williams, who signed the agreement on behalf of the agency, said in the department’s statement that the partnership with Pacific Fusion would “expand capabilities that support the nuclear deterrent.”

Other private fusion companies are also developing relationships with the U.S. nuclear security enterprise. Fuse Energy announced in August a five-year cooperative research and development agreement with the Nevada National Security Sites, adding to its previous collaboration with Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories.

Private-sector involvement in nuclear security builds on decades of fusion research at U.S. national laboratories, including the NNSA’s inertial confinement fusion (ICF) program, which uses lasers or electrical pulses to create extreme conditions that generate data relevant to nuclear weapons research. The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, whose 2022 fusion-ignition breakthrough was described by then-NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby as a “new chapter in NNSA’s stockpile stewardship program,” is one of three major U.S. ICF facilities, alongside the Z pulsed power facility or “Z machine” at Sandia National Laboratories and the Omega Laser Facility at the University of Rochester.

The Pacific Fusion agreement is part of a broader effort to explore private-sector capabilities. At an April 2026 U.S. Senate hearing, NNSA Deputy Administrator David Beck said the agency was working with multiple fusion companies, including on potential upgrades to Sandia National Laboratory’s Z machine.

Meanwhile, the House and Senate fiscal year 2027 defense bills include provisions encouraging the NNSA to work with private companies on nuclear-weapons-related activities for “nuclear deterrence … strategic systems survivability; and … weapons component qualification testing.”

The growing U.S. interest in private fusion research comes amid competition with China. At the April hearing, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said China was “racing ahead” in the field and asked the NNSA how public-private partnerships could accelerate U.S. high-yield fusion capabilities. “The competition with China is crucial to our ability to maintain our deterrent,” Beck replied. Keith LeChien, the cofounder of Pacific Fusion, later referenced arms racing with China in his company’s Aug. 25 announcement of the NNSA agreement, saying that “America can still build the hard things, and build them faster than any other country, including China.”

Meanwhile, the NNSA is expanding and modernizing other elements of the U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise while maintaining the existing stockpile, including through increased funding for nuclear weapons activities and new efforts to accelerate the development of nuclear capabilities. (See ACT, May 2026.) The NNSA is also preparing for challenges associated with aging plutonium pits. (See ACT, September 2026.)

These expansion and modernization efforts come as the Congressional Budget Office estimates that U.S. nuclear forces will cost $946 billion in 2025-2034, with an additional $129 billion in potential costs if programs experience historical rates of growth.

The estimate is based on Defense Department and Energy Department budget plans and does not account for Pacific Fusion’s $1 billion investment or other private sector contracts.

October 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

The International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors voted to close the investigation into Syria’s nuclear program after the agency reported that the new Syrian government provided the necessary cooperation to resolve long-standing questions about the illicit nuclear activities of the deposed Assad regime.

The Sept. 9 resolution, which passed unanimously, welcomed Syria’s cooperation. It noted that Syria has “taken the measures required to remedy the non-compliance found by the Board” in 2011 and closed the investigation.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi hailed Syria’s cooperation with the agency as a “breakthrough” in a Sept. 7 statement to the board. The government’s transparency and cooperation facilitate “resolution of the outstanding safeguards issues related to Syria’s past nuclear activities,” he said.

In a Sept. 14 video statement to the IAEA General Conference, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani expressed gratitude to the IAEA and board for closing the noncompliance case “inherited from the previous regime.” He reaffirmed Syria’s commitment to transparency and IAEA safeguards going forward.

Shibani said that Syria offers a “model” for resolving nonproliferation threats in the region and called on all nuclear facilities “without any exception, to be placed under safeguards.”

The IAEA was able to resolve its concerns about Syria’s past nuclear activities after the new Syrian government negotiated an access agreement with the IAEA July 29. Before that agreement, Syria notified the agency in a July 17 letter about the discovery of a cache of undeclared nuclear materials dating from when President Bashar al-Assad ruled the country. He was ousted in 2024 by opposition forces.

As a result of the information and access provided under the July 29 agreement, the IAEA assessed in a Sept. 1 report that it was able to “establish that the former Syrian authorities had failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities as required” under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards agreement.

The report affirmed previous IAEA assessments, which led the Board of Governors to pass a resolution in 2011 that declared Syria in violation of its NPT-required safeguards agreement for constructing a nuclear reactor at Deir el-Zour without informing the agency. The IAEA requested access to the site after Israel bombed it in 2007, but the Assad regime refused to cooperate with the agency, leading to the board’s decision to declare Syria in noncompliance.

The Sept. 1 report concluded that Syria took “measures to remedy the situation by providing to the Agency the required nuclear material accounting reports and design information for the above-mentioned facilities in accordance with its NPT Safeguards Agreement.”

The IAEA noted 73 tons of natural uranium metal, 55 tons of which are in the form of fuel rods and 18 of which are uranium waste and scrap, when it inspected the newly discovered site.

Syria declared the nuclear material to the agency and provided an accountancy report Aug. 27, according to the IAEA report. That material is now under IAEA safeguards in Syria.

The agency’s excavations at the Deir el-Zour site confirmed previous assessments that Syria was building an undeclared nuclear reactor at the site. According to the report, the IAEA uncovered “cooling infrastructure” that is “consistent with that of a nuclear reactor.”

The Sept. 1 report also noted that agency inspectors visited three locations connected to Deir el-Zour, including a facility intended for fabricating fuel for the reactor. The IAEA visited those sites in 2024 to take environmental samples, which tested positive for uranium.

Despite the closure of the investigation, the Sept. 9 resolution requested that the IAEA director-general provide an update about the agency’s ongoing activities in Syria “upon their completion.”

In a Sept. 10 speech, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Wells Griffith III, called the adoption of the resolution a “historic milestone” but noted that the “work of Syria and the IAEA is not yet complete.” He said that “many questions related to Assad’s program remain unanswered” and requested a “detailed assessment of Syria’s previously undeclared nuclear program” from Grossi.

Griffith called on Syria to sign an additional protocol—giving the IAEA expanded access to sites and more tools to verify that a state’s nuclear program is entirely peaceful—to its safeguards agreement “as early as possible.” Adopting an additional protocol “would be an important demonstration of the Syrian government’s enduring commitment to transparency and to fostering international trust,” he said.—

October 2026
By Shaghayegh Chris Rostampour and Libby Flatoff

The United Nations convened its first international meeting on victim assistance and environmental remediation in September as it began to formally address the real-world consequences of nuclear weapons use and testing.

The Sept. 1 meeting brought together UN member and observer states, as well as affected communities, civil society organizations, scientists, academics, and other experts. It was held pursuant to General Assembly resolutions 79/60 and 80/56 and was co-chaired by Kazakhstan and Kiribati, two countries affected by nuclear testing.

“The consequences of nuclear weapons do not end when an explosion is over,” UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu said in opening the session. She said the meeting’s goal would be “to exchange experiences and views, advance international cooperation, and identify practical ways to support people and communities affected by the use and testing of nuclear weapons.”

In all, representatives of 20 UN member states and the Holy See shared national perspectives and experiences related to the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons use and testing.

Marshall Islands Ambassador to the UN John Silk, whose country experienced 67 U.S. nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958, called for strengthened and targeted assistance from the UN and other international partners in obtaining independent and external assessments of contamination. “Commitments and needs … remain unmet,” by the United States, Silk said. (See ACT, November 2023.)

Japan’s deputy UN ambassador, Shigeru Umetsu, expressed support for the UN Independent Scientific Panel on the Effects of Nuclear War in accurately understanding the physical and societal consequences of nuclear weapons. He highlighted his country’s approximately $7 million donation in grant aid for medical equipment for people affected by nuclear testing in Kazakhstan.

Discussions throughout the meeting addressed the need for greater attention to long-term health monitoring and care, compensation and recognition for affected communities, environmental remediation, and greater access to scientific and historical information.

During one panel, speakers called for greater international cooperation and funding, including the establishment of an international trust fund. Civil society activists welcomed plans for separate discussions within the framework of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) toward establishing such a fund for victims’ assistance. Representatives of communities affected by nuclear weapon development and testing shared their experiences.

The meeting concluded with the co-chairs announcing plans to prepare a summary of recommendations raised during the discussions for submission to the UN Secretariat. Civil society and UN delegates will gather again to address the dangers of nuclear weapons and an international trust fund for victim assistance and environmental remediation at the first TPNW Review Conference in New York Nov. 30-Dec. 4.

The UN meeting occurred during a time of renewed attention toward assistance for communities affected by nuclear weapons testing and development on an international and national level.

On Aug. 17, U.S. Reps. James Moylan (R-Guam) and 10 co-sponsors introduced the bipartisan Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act of 2026, which would extend and expand the 1990 federal program providing compensation to people affected by radiation exposure from U.S. nuclear activities. (See ACT, September 2023.) The bill would extend the program’s application deadline by 15 years and expand its geographic and categorical scope. The program was previously extended through 2028 and expanded following a long-fought congressional debate over the scope of coverage and its costs. (See ACT, July/August 2025.)

In the United Kingdom, former Defense Minister Tobias Ellwood wrote in The Guardian Sept. 2 that nuclear-test veterans had been the victims of what he described as one of Britain’s “greatest scandals.”

Ellwood acknowledged that he had given Parliament incorrect information in 2018 after being told by UK Defense Ministry officials that no records of veterans’ blood samples existed. The records could be relevant to efforts to establish a connection between radiation exposure and veterans’ health problems in supporting claims for compensation. Ellwood also called for compensation for affected veterans.

Although the UN meeting addressed assistance for nuclear weapons use and testing issues, there also have been recent developments in the United States regarding legislation to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, and in the UK regarding claims for compensation for nuclear- test veterans.

October 2026

The Trump administration is moving ahead with a $2.8 billion sale of heavy bombs to Israel despite growing U.S. opposition to Israeli military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

According to reports by the Associated Press and other media outlets Sept. 15, the proposed deal would include 40,000 one-ton bombs—20,000 each of the 2,000-pound Mk84 and BLU-117 bombs—which have generated international outrage because of the massive civilian casualties caused by their wide blast radius.

The New York Times reported Sept. 21 that Israel bought nearly eight times as many one-ton bombs from the United States in 2025 as it did from 2012 to 2015 and termed the pending sale “one of the largest arms agreements ever.” The Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, calculated that since U.S. President Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025, his administration has approved about $20 billion in arms exports to Israel.

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced in a Sept. 16 statement that he opposes the sale: “I remain firmly committed to Israel’s security and its ability to defend itself against serious regional threats. But the Trump administration’s proposed sale of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs, some of the most destructive munitions in our arsenal, raises grave, unresolved concerns about how these munitions could be used in densely populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon.”

Congress technically has the power to block such arms sales if the House and the Senate each pass a resolution of disapproval by a two-thirds vote, a difficult hurdle. The administration can also decide to ignore Congress and do what it wants, a pattern of Trump’s term.—CAROL GIACOMO

October 2026

A dossier leaked by a Middle Eastern intelligence agency to The New York Times provides new evidence that Sudan developed and produced chlorine as a chemical weapon over six months in 2024.

The dossier builds on April 2025 U.S. allegations of Sudanese chemical weapon use in 2024. During the 112th session of the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) July 7-10, the United States doubled down on these accusations and called for independent verification and access. (See ACT, September 2026.) The United States has never publicly provided evidence for its accusations.

According to The New York Times, the new dossier contains photographs, videos, and documents that show a “secretive Sudanese military unit said to have produced chlorine-based munitions for use against the Rapid Support Forces.” The newspaper said it obtained the dossier on the condition that the source not be identified.

The Sudanese Armed Forces has been at war with the opposition Rapid Support Forces since April 2023. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that 33.7 million Sudanese people—more than two-thirds of the population—are in desperate need of life-saving support, as of Aug. 24, 2026.

As a member of the OPCW since May 1999 and a state-party to the Chemical Weapons Convention since June 1999, Sudan is legally prohibited from any chemical weapon use. The Sudanese government continues to reject allegations thereof.—LIBBY FLATOFF