Volume 17, Issue 2

March 25, 2025

In his second week in office, President Trump signed an executive order on the creation of a new approach to U.S. homeland missile defense that breaks with longstanding U.S. missile defense policy. The plan, initially titled the “Iron Dome for America” but later rebranded by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) as the “Golden Dome,” outlines a new policy that U.S. missile defenses should be designed to defend or deter “any foreign aerial attack on the Homeland” and “progressively defend against a countervalue attack by nuclear adversaries.” When plainly read, that includes nuclear-armed, strategic missiles from adversaries such as Russia and China.

This monumental ambition is a misguided and dangerous approach to securing the American homeland that will create enormous opportunity costs at a time of strained defense resources. The fundamental problem with any plan for a national missile defense system against strategic nuclear attack is that cost-exchange ratios favor the offense and U.S. adversaries can always choose to build up or diversify their strategic forces to overwhelm a potential shield. The fantasy of a missile shield runs against a core rule of strategic competition: the enemy always gets a vote.

In 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union acknowledged this reality when they agreed to limit their strategic missile defense systems through the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The agreement sought to prevent open-ended competition to build more or new offensive weapons to overcome defenses that the other might deploy to try to stop incoming missiles in the event of a nuclear war. It helped pave the way for bilateral treaties limiting Soviet and U.S. strategic offensive forces in the 1970s and deep reductions in offensive nuclear forces beginning in the late-1980s.

The Golden Mirage

But in December 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the ABM Treaty, arguing that Washington and Moscow no longer needed to base their relationship on their ability to destroy each other. Bush claimed, erroneously, that withdrawal was the only path toward permitting U.S. development of defenses against possible terrorist or “rogue-state” ballistic missile attacks.

After withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, the United States accelerated research and development and testing of missile defense systems, including on a limited defense against strategic ballistic missiles, to guard against potential threats from states such as North Korea. Since then, this limited approach has been continued by subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations.

The debate about the viability and advisability of missile defenses has, nevertheless, continued. Proponents have sought to expand funding for and the scope of U.S. theater and homeland missile defense systems, while skeptics have pointed out that many of these programs are cost-prohibitive, ineffective under real world conditions, or—in the case of systems with the capability to stop long-range (i.e. strategic) nuclear-armed missiles—destabilizing.

In contrast to the new executive order, the first Trump administration’s missile defense review, issued in 2019, sought to maintain the earlier U.S. missile defense doctrine while still pushing for research, development, and testing of ever more advanced and ambitious missile defense programs, stating that:

“While the United States relies on deterrence to protect against large and technically sophisticated Russian and Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile threats to the U.S. homeland, U.S. active missile defense can and must outpace existing and potential rogue state offensive missile capabilities. To do so, the United States will pursue advanced missile defense concepts and technologies for homeland defense.”

The earlier Trump missile defense approach generally tracked with the policy adopted after the United States withdrew from the ABM Treaty. That policy was designed to satisfy two goals: provide a limited defense against a simple North Korean nuclear-capable, ballistic missile threat while reassuring Russia and China that the United States was not seeking strategic defenses that would provide an impenetrable “shield” from behind which it could coerce other nuclear powers. Even a country with a medium-sized nuclear arsenal, such as China, might not be able to ensure the ability to retaliate against the United States if an effective strategic defense could “mop-up” the surviving nuclear warheads after a U.S. first strike.

The new executive order directs the Secretary of Defense to produce a “reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan” for the new Golden Dome program in 60 days.  This rapid timeline is intended to ensure that the results can be included in the next presidential budget request, which is expected to arrive at Congress’ doorstep in May. The order itself provides hints at programs that are likely to be resurrected from the graveyard of ideas discarded by the MDA at the end of the last Trump administration. 

Accelerating the Arms Race

But beyond specific programs, the new executive order also heralds a stark shift in the underlying U.S. approach to missile defense, legitimizing an ambitious new vision of America’s strategic posture that has not gone unnoticed in Moscow and Beijing. While proponents of missile defense argue that costs and technologies are both trending in favor of the development and deployment of defense systems once thought fanciful by technical experts, the strategic challenges associated with missile defense have not gone away.

Proponents of a more ambitious missile defense effort do not have easy answers to the question of how strategic stability will be managed if the United States actually pursues the missile defense plan ordered by Trump’s Golden Dome executive order. For example, a recent op-ed by two supporters of a space-based approach to missile defense notes traditional concerns about “destabilizing and undermin[ing] nuclear deterrence,” but provides no discussion of the problem.

There are already signs that the first Trump administration’s incremental missile defense investments, such as ordering a 2020 flight test of the Aegis sea-based missile defense system against an ICBM-range target, have affected other nations’ thinking on the stability of the nuclear order. According to one analysis, Chinese experts’ “long-standing concerns about [missile defense] systems intensified in the years before Beijing began building the new silo fields.” While the ongoing Chinese nuclear build-up is probably also influenced by broader political considerations, it is evident that the small size of the arsenal posed survivability concerns.

The development by both Russia and China of hypersonic glide vehicles for potential delivery of nuclear warheads, as well as Russia’s exotic strategic weapons concepts, are likely also attempts to hedge against unforeseen breakthroughs in U.S. ballistic missile defense capabilities.

The Red Herring of a Homeland Cruise Missile Threat

A particularly unfortunate aspect of the missile defense discourse in recent years has been the bundling of cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missile threats into calls for comprehensive homeland defense. Creeping improvements to U.S. ballistic missile defenses pose the greatest threat to strategic stability and present the greatest costs and technological challenges. In contrast, there is a debatable case for homeland cruise and hypersonic missile defense, which is technologically feasible, potentially still quite costly, but also less likely to pose risks to strategic stability.

An example of this unfortunate tendency to conflate ballistic and cruise missile threats is presented not only in the “Golden Dome” executive order, but also in the aforementioned Atlantic Council report, which argues for an expanded and layered homeland missile defense system to protect civilian and military targets from limited long-range strikes by Russia or China. These adversaries might, in the case of an all-out war with the United States, seek either to use long-range strikes to send coercive signals as part of a graduated escalation strategy, or conduct a broader campaign of strikes to disrupt the United States’ ability to wage war effectively.

There are several problems with the report’s arguments.

First, there is no particularly new or urgent threat posed by limited use of nuclear weapons against the homeland. For either country to launch a limited nuclear strike against the United States would be extremely risky and relatively high on the escalation ladder. The United States has proportionate responses to such an attack in part because it has had to think about this particular rung of the ladder for decades.

The strategic logic behind such a strike would also be faulty. A limited use of nuclear weapons to shock and fracture the NATO alliance would not be helpful to Russia if targeted at U.S. home-soil. The horror would likely commit the United States irrevocably to the conflict, rather than split it from its allies, binding them tighter in shared suffering and determination. Instead, the more important concern is a Russian limited strike against a NATO ally that would aim to heighten the fear of potential costs in the United States.

With regard to China, both the Department of Defense, in its annual reports on China’s military power, and the Strategic Posture Commission speculate that the country is most likely to violate its own no-first-use doctrine to prevent conventional defeat during an attempted invasion of Taiwan. A limited nuclear strike against the U.S. homeland would expand the conflict while inviting proportionate retaliation that would make a Chinese conventional victory even less likely.

Second, when it comes to conventional attacks on U.S. homeland targets, the vast majority of both potential adversary arsenals is composed of cruise missiles, not ballistic missiles. Land-attack cruise missiles comprise the “backbone” of Russia’s conventional long-range strike capabilities. The only potentially relevant exceptions include the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles, with a reported range of up to 2,000 kilometers after launch from a bomber or fighter-jet, and the newly unveiled Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile. U.S. officials have confirmed that Ukraine has shot down at least one Kinzhal using the Patriot air defense system. Similarly, the few Chinese missiles that could hypothetically target the U.S. homeland would be ship-launched land-attack cruise missiles, brought toward the U.S. coast by surface vessels or submarines. Thus, any argument making an urgent case for homeland missile defense is strongest when it addresses the cruise missile threat and weakest when it is used to justify ballistic missile defense.

Third, the focus on a new cruise missile threat makes questionable sense given potential enemy capabilities and strategic logic. Both Russia and China would find themselves with many closer-range targets for their considerable long-range strike capabilities in the territories of U.S. allies.

While Russian doctrine does outline a role for the use of conventional long-range strike to destroy critical assets in enemy rear areas, the specific threat to the United States—as opposed to NATO targets in Europe—is unclear. A 2023 assessment by RAND estimated that acquiring a stockpile of conventional long-range missiles that could satisfactorily ensure the destruction of NATO air fields in Europe alone would take Russian industry a decade of production, assuming both increased financing and improved industrial performance.

The authors of the Atlantic Council report note statements by the head of U.S. Northern Command that China seeks to “disrupt, delay, and degrade force flow” as well as “erode support for a conflict.” Nonetheless, they concede that “absent from [the Chinese literature’s] discussion of precision strikes is the explicit reference to targets in the opponent’s homeland or rear area” and that there is “some danger in overinterpreting the intent of China’s leadership from [People's Liberation Army] military capabilities.”

More fundamentally, it is not in the interests of either China or Russia to launch kinetic strikes to damage the U.S. homeland early in a crisis as this would likely draw the United States deeper into a conflict. The theory of a potential coercive strike that deters the United States from involvement seems constructed on a highly speculative model of the psychology of U.S. decision-makers.

Fourth, homeland cruise missile defense would still be costly. Estimates differ depending on which targets are to be defended, the types of sensors integrated into the system, and the choice of interceptors. A Congressional Budget Office report from 2021 presented four options ranging in price from $77 billion to $179 billion over a 20-year period. A 2022 system proposed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies came to a lower cost figure—only $32 billion over 20 years—by designating fewer targets for defense, relying on the integration of existing sensors, and preferring surface-to-air missiles for interception over fighter jets.

Given the executive order’s emphasis on protecting the entirety of the United States, and particularly its focus on defeating a “countervalue” attack, costs for a cruise missile defense system that corresponds with the president’s goals would likely be on the higher side of estimates.

Arguments for homeland cruise missile defense neglect other possible options for managing the purported threat. These might include hardening of vulnerable military bases, redundancy of key military infrastructure, deceptive practices to prevent effective strikes, and investment in rapid reconstitution of critical capabilities. Given the expense of homeland missile defense, the taxpayer deserves persuasive cost-benefit analyses and discussion of these—and other—options. 

Conclusion

Over the past decades, the roughly $250 billion spent on the MDA and its predecessor organizations have bought a U.S. missile defense capability still too fragile to provide confidence in Washington, but threatening enough to drive worst-case thinking in Beijing and Moscow.

The latest edition of the annual report of the Department of Defense’s Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, concludes that the GMD system is capable only of defending the homeland from a small number of ballistic missiles with a range over 3,000 kilometers, and only when those missiles employ simple countermeasures alone. Likewise, the theater missile defense systems, represented by Aegis, THAAD, and Patriot, can defend against only a small number of medium- and intermediate-range missiles at a time.

Despite the incremental improvements in U.S. missile defense technology, the basic value proposition of these capabilities has remained the same. Investments in ambitious strategic homeland missile defense have failed to deliver, while the rhetoric backing these investments has accelerated and inflamed the nuclear arms race.

In contrast, theater missile defense has fared comparatively better, delivering notable successes such as the recent shoot-down by Aegis-equipped ships of Iranian missiles targeting Israel. But the relative success of theater missile defense is due in large part to the lower bar of the technical challenge: shorter-range missiles are typically slower and easier to intercept.

If the second Trump administration wants to pursue a maximalist vision of a “Golden Dome” to offer a mirage of strategic defense for the homeland, the president’s stated goal of engaging Russia and China in talks on “denuclearization” will become significantly more difficult to achieve. Russia has made clear in previous rounds of nuclear arms control talks that it considers strategic missile defense to be highly destabilizing to the U.S.-Russian nuclear balance of terror.

Instead of a maximalist approach that deceives America into a false sense of invincibility, the United States should adopt a “talk small, invest smart” approach to missile defense. That would mean assessing not only the technical feasibility and simple costs and benefits of missile defense proposals, but also the long-term opportunity costs and the appropriateness of alternatives such as negotiated reductions in strategic arsenals. —XIAODON LIANG, senior policy analyst

Volume 17, Issue 1

March 19, 2025

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. The lack of clarity around U.S. objectives for an agreement, combined with threats to use military force against Iran over both regional and nuclear issues, could stymie diplomatic efforts before talks begin and strengthen factions in Tehran that oppose negotiating with the United States.

Although recent comments from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cast doubt on Tehran’s willingness to negotiate, comments from other officials suggest there is still space to test diplomacy. It is imperative that the Trump administration moves swiftly to demonstrate it is serious about reaching a mutually beneficial diplomatic deal that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran. To do this, Trump needs to clearly articulate realistic U.S. objectives for a nuclear deal, distance himself from calls for the complete dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program, and articulate how Tehran will benefit from an agreement. Furthermore, Trump and his senior officials should refrain from making counterproductive threats of the use of military force against Iranian nuclear sites, and press for immediate, direct talks. 

Failure to take advantage of the limited window for diplomacy risks escalating an already precarious situation. Absent concrete progress toward an effective deal by mid-2025, it is highly likely that the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) move to restore UN Security Council sanctions on Iran that were lifted by the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran’s threat to retaliate by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) will only further escalate the crisis and increase the risk of military strikes against the country’s nuclear infrastructure, a situation that could drive Iran to formally decide to develop nuclear weapons. 

The best option to prevent this crisis from escalating is to reach an effective, verifiable nuclear agreement. The complexity of Iran’s nuclear advances and the short time frame will require the Trump administration to focus on quickly implementable measures that maximize transparency and roll back Iran’s most proliferation-sensitive activities, in exchange for tangible benefits to Iran. But to get to that point, Trump must first signal to Iran that he is serious about a mutually beneficial deal and distance himself from the unrealistic demands that members of his administration continue to articulate.

Abandoning Unrealistic Nuclear Objectives

Trump has repeatedly expressed his preference for reaching a diplomatic understanding with Iran over its nuclear program but has not yet articulated the broad goals for such an agreement. Officials in his administration, however, have suggested that the only acceptable deal with Iran must include complete dismantlement of the country's nuclear program, a demand Tehran views as a non-starter for negotiations.

National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told Fox News in a Feb. 16 interview that the United States will talk to Iran only if they “give up their entire [nuclear] program.” Waltz reiterated on March 16 that Iran will need to “hand over and give up” its nuclear program, including enrichment, as part of a deal or “face a whole series of other consequences.”

From a nonproliferation standpoint, the complete dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program is ideal, particularly given Iran’s illicit attempt to develop nuclear weapons in the past, but it is not realistic. As a member of the NPT, Iran is legally obligated not to acquire nuclear weapons, but it is allowed to develop nuclear technology for energy and other civil purposes under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Iran, like some other states, interprets that to include the right to enrich uranium. Negotiations on the 2015 nuclear deal, for example, only progressed after the United States acknowledged that Iran could retain a uranium enrichment capacity.

Continuing to demand zero enrichment and complete dismantlement as a starting point for talks sends a message to Tehran that the United States is not serious about diplomacy. Iran is highly unlikely to forgo its NPT rights. Furthermore, Tehran is unlikely to dismantle its entire nuclear program, particularly its uranium enrichment capability, amid legitimate concerns about U.S. commitment to a deal and in a security environment where Tehran is attempting to use its nuclear threshold status as a deterrent. Iran will want to retain a guarantee that it can quickly restore leverage if the United States fails to follow through on its commitments under a deal, just as Washington can quickly move to restore pressure if Iran violates its nuclear obligations. 

Waltz’s formula demanding a commitment to dismantlement is also reminiscent of the so-called “Libya model,” which refers to Muammar Gaddafi’s 2003 agreement to give up the country’s illicit nuclear weapons program for sanctions relief, only to be overthrown later by Western-backed forces. Allusions to implementing the “Libya model” for Iran risks sending a message to Tehran that the regime will be more vulnerable if it gives up its nuclear program. Given that Tehran is already attempting to use its nuclear weapons-threshold status to deter future attacks, the government will likely view references to the Libya model, or a similar approach, as a threat to its security.

Furthermore, zero enrichment and a dismantlement of the nuclear program up front is not necessary for a nonproliferation agreement that effectively prevents Iran from acquiring the bomb. Despite Iran’s nuclear advances, a combination of limits and monitoring can adequately reduce proliferation risks.

If Trump wants to demonstrate to Iran that he is serious about talks, it will behoove him to make clear that Washington is not demanding zero enrichment or complete dismantlement and acknowledge that Iran can operate a limited, highly monitored nuclear program under a negotiated deal. Failure to do so risks Iran rejecting a negotiating process.           

Evaluating a New Deal

In addition to communicating to Iran the broad objectives for a deal, the Trump administration should be developing a draft framework for an effective nuclear agreement that can be used to jumpstart the negotiating process when the talks begin. From a political and technical standpoint, the 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump unilaterally withdrew from in 2018, is no longer a viable framework. Since that time, Iran has acquired more knowledge from investing in enrichment to near weapons-grade levels, operating and producing advanced centrifuges, and experimenting with centrifuge cascade designs. These activities have permanently altered proliferation risk. Even if Iran significantly rolls back its most proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities, the knowledge it has gained would allow Tehran to reconstitute its nuclear program far more quickly if a decision were made to develop nuclear weapons or move to back to threshold capacity.

Despite these irreversible gains, it is still possible to negotiate an effective nonproliferation agreement. If properly focused, a deal can still put time back on the "breakout" clock, or the time to produce enough weapons-grade material for a bomb, and provide greater assurance that any move toward nuclear weapons or deviation from declared nuclear activities will be quickly detected. Although the specific technical parameters will need to be negotiated, any agreement should significantly increase monitoring, reduce the immediacy of the proliferation risk by limiting uranium enrichment activities, and prohibit weaponization-relevant activities. In combination, the restrictions and increased monitoring should provide greater assurance that Iran is not engaged in covert nuclear activities and that diversions will be detected swiftly enough that the international community will have to respond before Iran breaks out.

Increased Monitoring

The United States should aim to maximize monitoring and transparency in a new nuclear agreement with Iran. Ideally, an agreement will give inspectors access to all facilities in Iran that are part of or support the country’s nuclear program and allow the IAEA to use additional tools to ensure rapid detection of any attempts to divert materials for a covert program or deviate from declared activities.

The monitoring and verification provisions could include a range of options, but re-implementation, and ideally permanent ratification, of the additional protocol to Iran’s nuclear agreement should be a key priority. The additional protocol provides the IAEA with access to facilities that support Iran’s nuclear program, such as centrifuge manufacturing workshops, and additional tools and information to verify that Iran’s nuclear declaration is complete and correct. The additional protocol includes short-notice inspections at declared nuclear facilities. Furthermore, although the additional protocol is not legally required, it is widely acknowledged as a best practice for safeguards. By ratifying an additional protocol, Iran would be joining more than 140 states that have adopted this more effective safeguards arrangement.

Beyond the additional protocol, a new nuclear agreement should also incorporate tools that provide the agency with additional verification and monitoring mechanisms. This could include online enrichment monitoring, which would provide assurance that any increase in enrichment level would be rapidly detected, and continuous surveillance at key facilities. 

Additionally, the agreement should include a plan for Iran to work with the IAEA to close gaps in the agency’s knowledge about the country’s nuclear history that arose from Tehran’s decision to suspend the additional protocol and JCPOA-specific measures. An agreed-upon plan with specified time frames for Iran to provide information to the agency will help the IAEA reconstruct a history of Iran's activities and provide greater assurance that key materials, such as centrifuges, are fully accounted for and documented.

Restrictions on Enrichment

Iran’s irreversible nuclear advance prevents the reconstitution of a breakout timeline similar to the 12 months achieved by the JCPOA. But an effective agreement does not have to roll the clock back to 12 months. It does, however, need to increase the current, near-zero breakout to a half-dozen bombs’ worth of weapons-grade uranium. Multiple factors contribute to breakout calculations; key amongst them are enrichment levels, the amount in the stockpile (and what form it is in), and the centrifuge capacity. 

Currently, Iran is enriching uranium up to 60 percent (weapons-grade is 90 percent) and expanding its uranium enrichment capacity. As of a February 2025 IAEA report, its combined stockpile of 60 and 20 percent enriched uranium in gas form is nearly 900 kilograms, and it has installed about 118 cascades of centrifuges, of which 76 are more advanced efficient machines that Iran was prohibited from using under the JCPOA. 

An effective deal could increase breakout by combining restrictions and limitations in these three areas. Iran is unlikely to accept draconian cuts in all three activities. After seeing how quickly the United States can restore sanctions in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, Iran will likely seek to retain a guaranteed route to a more rapid escalation of its own, such as retaining more of its uranium enrichment capacity or stockpile in country. 

One option for an agreement could be to focus on limiting enrichment levels and stocks, while allowing Iran to retain some of its advanced centrifuges. Eliminating the stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium and limiting enrichment to reactor-grade, or less than five percent, would reduce the immediacy of proliferation risk while allowing Iran to retain some of its enrichment infrastructure as a guarantee. If subject to intrusive monitoring, the international community would have time to respond if the IAEA detected that Iran engaged in undeclared nuclear activities. 

Furthermore, Iran has no practical need for 60 percent enriched uranium. Allowing Iran to retain a stockpile that it will not use poses more of a proliferation risk, particularly in the near term when the IAEA cannot necessarily account for all of Iran’s centrifuges. The stockpile could be quickly enriched to weapons-grade levels using a fraction of Iran’s centrifuges or diverted to a covert facility. Given these factors, allowing Iran to keep a larger uranium enrichment capacity under strict monitoring would pose less of a risk.

Weaponization Prohibitions

In a March tweet, Iran’s mission to UN suggested Tehran is open to talks if a deal is focused on preventing weaponization, not the dismantlement of the country’s nuclear program. The focus on preventing weaponization suggests that Tehran would be open to restrictions on certain activities relevant to developing the explosive package and fabricating weapons-grade uranium into the metal components necessary for the core of a bomb. This list could include a ban on uranium metal production and the weaponization-relevant activities prohibited under Section T of the JCPOA. 

Verifying the absence of weaponization-related activities is challenging. The short-time frame likely precludes negotiating verification mechanisms to ensure the absence of these activities. Regardless, there is still value in prohibiting them in a deal: Iran will have to explain any evidence of violations. To prevent any stalling, the agreement could require Iran to respond to any evidence of violations within a certain time period. 

Maximizing the Chance for an Effective Deal

Different permutations of these factors—weaponization restrictions, monitoring provisions, and enrichment limits—can produce an effective, verifiable nuclear deal. But there is a risk that Trump’s interest in a breakthrough diplomatic deal results in an accord that fails to include adequate guardrails to Iranian weapons development. This risk is compounded by the limited time period for reaching a deal and key vacancies within the Trump administration.

To help deliver a strong agreement in the short time frame available for diplomacy, the Trump administration should consult with the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) about the technical parameters of an effective deal. The E3’s current engagement with Iran on both nuclear and sanctions-lifting issues will provide valuable insights and technical expertise regarding the scope and objectives of a deal.

The Trump administration should also prioritize retaining U.S. nonproliferation expertise within the government to provide technical assessments of any proposals under negotiation and building a dedicated team to lead U.S. efforts to engage Iran. Furthermore, the complexity and urgency of the risk necessitate designating a senior point person within the administration to coordinate U.S. efforts, preferably one who is not simultaneously trying to tackle other complex diplomatic challenges. Picking someone to lead U.S. efforts will also make clear to Iran who they can communicate with regarding nuclear talks.

Situating a Nuclear Deal Within A Regional Strategy

Iran’s attempts to use its threshold status to deter further attacks on its territory solidified the linkage between nuclear and regional security concerns. In dialogue with the E3, Iran has suggested it does not want to address regional security within the framework of a new nuclear deal. The U.S. position is not yet clear. Trump’s threats to strike Iran if the Houthis, an Iranian-backed group fighting for control of Yemen, continue attacks against U.S. interests and partners in the region, however, suggest that the regional environment could be a spoiler for nuclear negotiations. 

Furthermore, reducing regional security tensions will remove a driver of Iran’s threat to weaponize, which could increase the sustainability of an agreement. Including regional issues within a deal, however, would complicate negotiations at a time when the window for reaching a deal is short. The United States and Iran also cannot resolve key sources of tension between states in the region. But both sides could commit to exploring a broader set of security issues in parallel, but not directly connected to, nuclear negotiations. This could include U.S. support for regional security discussions between Iran and GCC states. 

The region could also play a role in reducing nuclear tensions. In addition to supporting U.S-Iran nuclear negotiations and providing economic incentives to Iran as part of a nuclear deal, the region can support additional nuclear transparency and the redirection of proliferation-sensitive activities toward programs that provide civil benefits and pose less risk. 

Cooperative regional nuclear activities could have the added benefit of providing assurance that other states in the region will seek to match Iran’s nuclear weapons capability.  Although no other country in the region poses an immediate proliferation risk, states are considering developing nuclear programs for energy and research applications. Saudi Arabia, which is looking to develop a domestic uranium enrichment program, also threatened to develop nuclear weapons if Iran does so.

To build transparency and confidence in the peaceful nature of Iranian and Gulf nuclear programs, regional states and Iran could consider a range of cooperative nuclear activities. This could include commitments to jointly develop and test best practices for regional nuclear security, coordinate training for personnel operating nuclear power facilities, or share investment in cooperative research activities that provide regional benefits. This latter basket could include nuclear applications for agriculture and medicine, areas that multiple states in the region, including Iran, have identified as beneficial. 

Cooperative regional nuclear activities cannot replace an effective nuclear deal, but building ties between expert communities and investing in shared resources provides insight into the trajectories of nuclear programs, enhances transparency, and creates channels for de-confliction if proliferation concerns emerge.

The Time Factor

Negotiating an effective, verifiable nuclear agreement that addresses the new proliferation risks posed by Iran’s advancing nuclear program while providing Tehran with tangible benefits will not be easy. These challenges are amplified by the short frame for diplomacy. If the United States and Iran do not make significant strides toward an effective agreement by mid-2025, E3 will likely move to restore UN Security Council sanctions and restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program using a veto-proof mechanism, known as snapback. Snapback expires in October 2025 as part of Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal. The United States, having withdrawn from the JCPOA, cannot trigger it, but Trump included instructions for the U.S. mission to the UN to work with the Europeans on snapback as part of his Feb. 4 national security memorandum on restoring maximum pressure. 

If snapback is triggered, it will reimpose mandatory Security Council sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program and an arms embargo. Snapback will also restore Security Council prohibitions on uranium enrichment, further reactor development, and ballistic missile activities. Even though the sanctions will have minimal practical effect, given the breadth of U.S. and EU measures already back in place, Iran will reject the notion that its nuclear program constitutes a threat to peace and security. It is highly likely that Tehran will follow through on its threat to withdraw from the NPT in response. 

Withdrawal from the NPT would not be immediate. Once Tehran notifies the Security Council of the “extraordinary events” that have “jeopardized the supreme interests of its country” as required by Article X of the treaty, there is a three-month period before withdrawal from the NPT is finalized. That three-month window could inject the necessary momentum into diplomatic efforts, but only if snapback is pursued as part of strategy. That strategy should include having a proposal ready to jump-start talks and steps to mitigate the risk of military action during and immediately after the three-month period ends. 

When the three-month withdrawal period is over, it is not clear if Iran will retain IAEA safeguards. In this scenario, Tehran will no longer be obligated under the NPT to implement a safeguards agreement. However, Iran’s nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia may obligate the country to retain some IAEA presence. 

According to the 1992 nuclear cooperation agreement between Moscow and Tehran, “nuclear material, equipment, special non-nuclear-material, and related technology” as well as nuclear materials produced by the result of transferred technology “shall be under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards” during their “entire period” of stay in Iran. The agreement further stipulates that these materials “shall be used only for declared purposes that are not connected with activities of manufacturing nuclear explosive devices” and “shall not be used to carry out activities in the field of nuclear fuel cycle” that are not under IAEA safeguards. 

This agreement suggests that Iran will have an incentive to retain an IAEA presence even if it withdraws from the NPT and that Russia may have an economic interest in encouraging Iran to do so. Regardless, part of the snapback strategy should include efforts to encourage Iran to retain an IAEA presence to provide some assurance that the country's nuclear program remains peaceful and to reduce the threat of military action against its nuclear infrastructure.

However, even if Iran does implement safeguards after NPT withdrawal, the risk of military strikes targeting the nuclear program will increase. To date, Trump has rightly refrained from committing the United States to supporting an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program, but he has reiterated the long-held U.S. policy that all options are on the table, including military action, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.  

The United States could certainly set back Iran’s nuclear program by directly striking its facilities, likely for longer than the estimated weeks to several months if Israel strikes alone. But any rollback will still be temporary, increasing the the risk that Iran will rebuild its program and weaponize to deter future attacks. For example, Iran has taken steps to harden and disperse its nuclear facilities, making any military effort to destroy its existing facilities more difficult. Iran could also rebuild much more quickly now as compared to 2013, before the JCPOA was negotiated, due to its uranium enrichment advances and the gaps in IAEA monitoring. Tehran may have already diverted certain materials, such as advanced centrifuges, to covert sites. The IAEA has not been allowed to access certain facilities, including centrifuge workshops, since 2021. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has even acknowledged that the IAEA cannot provide assurance that Iran’s centrifuges are accounted for. If Tehran can preserve even a small number of advanced centrifuges in the event of an attack on its nuclear infrastructure, it will be better positioned to quickly build back its program following a military strike.

Furthermore, if Iran withdraws from the NPT after an attack, particularly if there is no evidence of weaponization, it may garner more sympathy from partner states and make it more difficult to isolate or pressure Iran in the future. 

Moving Forward

Trump’s instinct to reject military strikes and focus on diplomacy is the right one. But expressions of support for an accord is insufficient to convey to Tehran that Washington is serious about negotiating a mutually beneficial deal. Trump needs to focus on articulating realistic objectives for an accord and developing a framework for an effective deal that can be quickly and verifiably implemented--and soon. Time is short, but these steps are possible if the Trump administration acts swiftly to engage Iran and abandons inflammatory rhetoric. Failure to do so risks an escalating crisis that could end in an Iranian nuclear program no longer constrained by the NPT, or a broader conflict to prevent it.—KELSEY DAVENPORT, director for nonproliferation policy 

Lipi Shetty is a Spring 2025 Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow, focusing on nuclear disarmament and arms control through a lens prioritizing nuclear justice. She is a former participant of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation's Young Women in Nonproliferation Initiative, where she studied under her mentor Counselor Maria Antonieta Jáquez Huacuja, Coordinator for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation at the Mexican Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She recently participated in the 2023 Hiroshima ICAN Academy on "Nuclear Weapons and Global Risk", learning from global hibakusha, government officials, academic experts, and grassroots nonprofits.

Statement by Kelsey Davenport, Nonproliferation Policy Director

For Immediate Release: March 7, 2025

The Arms Control Association welcomes President Trump's direct outreach to Iran expressing his interest in a negotiated solution to concerns about Iran’s sensitive nuclear activities.

In an interview aired today, President Donald Trump said he had sent a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, that he is seeking to negotiate a deal to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. In recent weeks, Iranian officials have expressed their interest in such a dialogue, but to date, talks have not yet begun.

“There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo in an interview aired Friday on Fox Business. “I would prefer to make a deal, because I’m not looking to hurt Iran. They’re great people.”

Trump’s letter is an important step toward demonstrating that the U.S. is serious about a diplomatic resolution to concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, but the content and the context of the message matter.

Now is the time for the United States to lay out the objectives of an agreement and refrain from bellicose threats of possible military action. The window of opportunity for talks will not remain open for long. Iran’s advancing nuclear program poses an urgent proliferation risk.

Iran already has the knowledge necessary to build a nuclear explosive device—that knowledge cannot be bombed away. Any setback in Iran’s nuclear capabilities would be temporary and would likely lead Iran to rebuild its program and further harden its facilities against future attacks. Iran has also threatened that it would withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the U.S. or other states reimpose international sanctions against their country, which could precipitate a crisis by the end of this year.

To avert such a crisis, Trump must maximize this opportunity to reach an effective, balanced nuclear nonproliferation deal with Iran that reduces its stockpiles of enriched uranium and its uranium enrichment operations, which can be used to produce weapons-grade nuclear material, and provides the information and access that the International Atomic Energy Agency deems is necessary to ensure that Iran’s nuclear activities are not being used for military purposes.

We also encourage the White House to identify who will serve as the president's envoy in these talks and to direct that person to promptly engage with Iranian counterparts, and to consult with European and Russian and Chinese partners, on practical diplomatic options.

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The Arms Control Association is an independent, membership-based organization dedicated to providing authoritative information and practical policy solutions to address the threats posed by the world's most dangerous weapons.