March 2026 
By Jean du Preez

Many nonproliferation pundits predict that the 2026 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, scheduled for April 27-May 22 in New York, will again fail to reach consensus, following the failures of the last two review cycles. Some say that another failure would render the treaty irrelevant, consigning the centerpiece of the international nonproliferation regime to the ever-increasing list of relics of Cold War agreements.

The divides among delegations on issues central to the NPT since its inception are as wide, if not wider, today than they were in 1995, when solemn promises were made to secure an indefinite extension of the treaty, without which it was argued the treaty would face a rather unstable future. As it turns out, 26 years later, the future of the treaty still looks rather bleak.

The 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference is one of the most significant moments in treaty history, and possibly most controversial. Its outcome was crucial for subsequent review conferences, including the successful meetings in 2000 and 2010. Yet key agreements achieved at these conferences have been long forgotten, if not shredded. Despite major differences among delegations before the 1995 Review and Extension Conference and the failed NPT preparatory committee meeting in 1999, the goals of the 1995 and 2000 conferences were to secure the NPT’s relevance and future. These outcomes were not easily achieved. They required strong commitment from states-parties to seek visionary solutions and creative leadership from key diplomatic participants.

As a South African delegate involved in his country’s preparations for the conferences in 1995 and 2000 and the agreements reached there, I have unique insights into how those events evolved and into the contributions of the late ambassador Peter Goosen, the visionary behind South Africa’s influential role. They could be useful lessons for delegates to this year’s upcoming review conference.

South Africa’s Role

Volumes have been published about South Africa’s role at the 1995 and 2000 review conferences, and the motivations and decision-making behind the outcomes produced there. Very few, if any, of these articles offered insight into the real story from the perspective of a delegation member.

South Africa was widely heralded as one of the saviors of the 1995 NPT Review and Extension conference. The conference president, Jayantha Dhanapala, acknowledged afterward that the second-most important factor leading to the indefinite extension of the NPT (the most important being unanimous resolve among states-parties to extend the treaty in some form) was that “South Africa came up with the very imaginative proposal of having a statement of principles and a strengthening of the review process. This enabled us to have the seed of an idea that led to the other two parallel decisions that were taken together with the indefinite extension.”¹

As South Africa acceded to the NPT in 1991 after dismantling its small nuclear weapons arsenal, the runup to 1995 Review and Extension Conference was the first exposure to NPT diplomacy for South African diplomats. Goosen, the principal foreign ministry official tasked with nuclear matters, participated in all but the first preparatory committee meeting. He was also the first South African to be invited to informal meetings of the former Programme for Promoting Nuclear Non-proliferation. Goosen was in listening mode at these events, in particular to understand the positions of members of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). At the time, there was very little, if any, high-level South African political interest in the NPT review process.

At the time of the third preparatory committee meeting held in September 1994, two alternative proposals emerged from the NAM: a 25-year rollover of the NPT with or without a vote of the states-parties. The meeting chair² tasked South Africa with preparing and submitting to the fourth session a legal analysis of the various extension options.³ Goosen presented the legal opinion at the January 1995 preparatory committee and identified a third, rolling option of successive periods, which would extend the treaty in perpetuity based on a positive vote of the states-parties between each of the succeeding periods.

This third option was quickly, but incorrectly, interpreted as South Africa’s position, which had not yet been considered. Analyses by the Disarmament Times and the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy further fueled this interpretation.⁴ Since this option addressed the core elements of all sides, it began to gain traction among several delegations. By proposing to extend the NPT in perpetuity, it added leverage for those seeking a mechanism to pressure the nuclear-weapon states to fulfill their commitments to disarmament under the treaty’s Article VI.

Early Strategy

A February 1995 memorandum to South African Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo recommended that the government adopt the third option as its formal position at the conference.⁵ It was noted that South Africa joined the NPT to ensure national and regional security, and that not extending the treaty in perpetuity would significantly undermine this objective. To “gain maximum political mileage” from this option, the memo recommended that “care should be taken not to expose South Africa’s tactics and position at too early a stage” because this would undermine opportunities for Pretoria to play the role of mediator between states that favor indefinite extension and the majority that did not.

The memo recommended that the legal opinion be shared with a few states, including members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), African members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Brazil, and Indonesia, as well as Iran, India, and Pakistan, even though the latter two are not NPT parties. The memo proposed a conference strategy that would support extension of the NPT in perpetuity through rolling fixed periods with a positive vote; oppose any extension option less than in perpetuity because it would weaken the treaty; and seek support from delegations that opposed indefinite extension. It is notable that at that time, various states-parties supported periods ranging from a 5-year fixed period to 25-year long rollover periods. The memo suggested that each rollover period would last 15 years.

As is often the case in bureaucracies, especially one in which political leaders were not yet aware of the finer legal and political ramifications of the NPT, the February 27 memorandum was never officially approved by the foreign minister. Yet speculation emerged that South Africa was leaning toward supporting indefinite extension.

One factor contributing to this misconception was the use of the term, “in perpetuity,” which some delegates interpreted as meaning indefinite. As set out in the legal opinion, the third option would extend the treaty in perpetuity, with successive periods requiring a positive vote at each stage. The phrase “in perpetuity” was specifically used to differentiate this option from the flat-out indefinite extension. A second, more concise memorandum was subsequently submitted to the foreign minister to clarify that the prior recommendation did not propose indefinite extension or any of the other proposals floated by the NAM at the time.⁶

The U.S.-South Africa Binational Commission—or the Gore-Mbeki Commission, named after the two vice chairs, U.S. Vice President Al Gore and South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki—was established in 1994 to foster cooperation in areas such as health, education, and economic development. Although arms control and nonproliferation were not key features of the commission, several meetings of a sub-working group on these matters were held to discuss, inter alia, South Africa’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, and other related issues. The NPT extensions were never a focus of these discussions.

In the context of seeking to enhance relations between the two countries, two letters were sent to South African President Nelson Mandela in February 1995, one from the recently retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell, and one from President Bill Clinton, seeking South Africa’s support for an indefinite NPT extension. Apparently, Thomas Graham, a senior State Department official who led the U.S. delegation to the 1995 Review and Extension Conference, suggested that Powell write a letter to Mandela addressing the importance of an indefinite extension of the treaty in the context of U.S.-Russian bilateral arms control. It stated that, “We can improve the NPT, but history will not be kind to us if we fail to make the treaty permanent at the 1995 NPT Conference.”⁷

The letter from Clinton to Mandela on February 13 contextualized U.S. support for an indefinite extension in relation to several South African priorities: completion of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) negotiations, the commencement of negotiations on a treaty banning fissile material for nuclear weapons, and further reductions in Russian and U.S. nuclear stockpiles. Both letters were referred to Mbeki’s office, which, in turn, referred them to the author, who was then the foreign ministry desk officer for the NPT. The letters had no direct influence on South Africa’s eventual position, but they prompted a high-level meeting with the deputy president, the foreign minister, and selected senior foreign ministry officials.

High-Level Briefing

The high-level meeting with Mbeki April 1 and 2, 1995, at the Diplomatic Guest House in Pretoria, was aimed to brief Mbeki on the review and extension conference and to discuss South Africa’s position. In addition to Mbeki and his legal adviser, the meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo and his adviser, Abdul S. Minty. The meeting was chaired by the head of the foreign ministry, Rusty Evans, with several ministry officials, including Goosen and Du Preez, in attendance. Goosen led the briefing and presented a chart outlining five possible options for NPT extension, the likely proponents of each, and the implications for South Africa, other countries, and the future of the treaty. The five possible options were: indefinite; fixed period (treaty will terminate after one single period); fixed periods automatic (fixed period with automatic rollover unless otherwise decided by a review conference); fixed periods with a positive vote of the NPT conference (leading to the next period); and fixed periods conditional (each review conference to set and review specific conditions, e.g., progress toward disarmament. The third option, a variant of fixed periods with a positive vote, was also explained. The chart below is a scan of the original viewgraph Goosen presented at the meeting.⁸

Chart Showing Options, Supporters for Extending NPT

Following a discussion, Mbeki sought input from his colleagues. Nzo preferred a limited extension, a position he advocated during consultations in Cairo at the end of March 1995. Minty, who accompanied Nzo to Cairo, argued for a single, fixed-period extension, believing that South Africa should support the NAM position. To the foreign ministry group’s surprise, Mbeki adamantly maintained that the treaty was too important to be jeopardized by a limited or one-time extension. He emphasized that the right of all people to not be threatened by nuclear annihilation could be equated to a basic human right, and that South Africa would therefore have no choice but to support indefinite extension without conditions. Given this principled position, Mbeki proposed that South Africa’s support for an indefinite extension be grounded in a set of “principles” that would have moral weight and could be regarded as binding without jeopardizing the NPT’s existence.⁹

Goosen and Du Preez were tasked with developing, overnight, a set of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation principles as well as measures to strengthen the NPT review process. After carefully reviewing the treaty and bearing in mind important additional related issues, Goosen prepared a concept paper on “Issues to Be Taken into Account When Considering the Proposal for Principles for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament,” with a framework proposal on how to potentially strengthen the review process, was presented to Mbeki and other high-level officials.

The set of principles was relatively simple and largely embedded in the treaty itself, including commitments to strengthen and adhere to IAEA safeguards agreements; provide access to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes; make progress on a fissile material ban convention, reducing nuclear arsenals and concluding the CTBT. Other commitments covered establishing regional nuclear-weapon-free zones and enforcing negative security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon-states.

The paper also recommended that South Africa propose the establishment of a committee to examine the existing NPT review process and recommend concrete ways to improve and strengthen it. The committee was to report to the third preparatory committee meeting for the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

In addition, the high-level meeting agreed on an implementation strategy that included a letter—from Mbeki to Gore, and drafted by Goosen—in which South Africa’s position was explained. The letter effectively responded to those sent to President Nelson Mandela by U.S. officials in February 1995. In the letter, Mbeki emphasized that “South Africa sees its nonproliferation and arms control policy as being integral to its commitment to democracy, human rights, sustainable development, social justice and environmental protection.”¹⁰ This line drew a linkage between the new democracy’s belief in fundamental human rights and values, with the freedom from nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction integral to individual rights.

The strategy also included regional discussions within SADC, the OAU, and NAM, but South Africa kept its options open and held its position close to its chest. For instance, letters to SADC foreign ministers and outreach to European Union member state ambassadors were only sent on the day the conference began.

Meanwhile, Goosen and Du Preez were dispatched to attend the NAM senior officials meeting in New York just before the start of the 1995 conference to “convince” the NAM of South Africa’s position. The NAM ministerial meeting held months earlier in Bandung, Indonesia, was supposed to adopt a common position in support of a 25-year rollover NPT extension with either a red light (rollover agreed to by majority vote) or green light (automatic rollover unless majority decides to block) approach. Having joined the NAM only in 1994, South Africa did not yet have the political gravitas to influence decisions on important issues such as international security. Despite its best diplomatic efforts to promote South Africa’s newly minted position, the delegation could at best prevent a common NAM position in support of a 25-year rollover.

Hence, there was no common NAM position going into the review and extension conference April 17, 1995. This deep divide between South African and key NAM members did not bode well for building bridges within the context of the NPT review process. In addition, senior leaders at the South Africa’s UN Mission, supported by a key adviser to the foreign minister, put significant pressure on the delegation to change Pretoria’s position and support the emerging consensus within NAM.

Nzo’s Speech and Conference Negotiations

The first draft of Nzo’s general statement to the conference was prepared by Goosen and stayed mostly intact despite efforts by a senior delegation member to change its main thrust: South Africa’s support for indefinite extension of the NPT based on a set of principles for nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. Last-ditch efforts to reach Mbeki in Pretoria, to revise the position before delivery of the statement on the second day of the conference (April 19, 1995), failed.

The statement emphasized that “South Africa took the decision to destroy its nuclear weapons and to join the NPT because it saw its security being guaranteed by its provision.”¹¹ It stressed that the NPT remains the only nuclear disarmament instrument to which all five recognized nuclear-weapon states are bound, and that although criticism of the inequities inherent in the treaty is valid, the “security that the NPT provides” should not be undermined. Then came the announcement that many delegates in the room feared and others welcomed loudly: “South Africa therefore in principle supports the view that the NPT should be extended indefinitely. The termination of the treaty—whether this comes about by placing conditions on its future existence or by extending it only for a fixed period—is not an acceptable option,” Ngo said.

The statement also clearly emphasized South Africa’s opposition to voting since a simple majority would weaken the treaty. Ngo proposed identifying a mechanism to address concerns about treaty implementation, which could be achieved by adopting a set of principles, including those agreed at the Pretoria meeting. He emphasized that these principles would not amend the treaty, but they would rather be a “lodestar which would focus attention on the importance of these goals.” Ngo proposed that these principles be reviewed at every review conference and be used as the “yardstick by which all [states-parties] can measure their nonproliferation and disarmament achievements.” He also announced South Africa’s proposal to strengthen the review process as laid out at the Pretoria meeting a few weeks earlier.

The statement created a visible stir in the UN Assembly Hall, with many delegations expressing support for South Africa’s approach. The delegation was invited to the office of the conference president, where Dhanapala requested that the proposal be used as the basis for his consultations. As he put it, the proposals “offered a new, achievable approach to secure agreement on the existence of the treaty.”¹² Dhanapala tasked the delegation with preparing a first draft of what would later become Decision 2, Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, adopted by the conference. From this point onward, the dynamics within the South African delegation shifted from adversarial among some members to more collaborative. Goosen and Minty were instrumental in advancing achievable common positions that ultimately enabled Dhanapala to secure agreement on the NPT’s indefinite extension.

The purpose of this reflection is not to analyze the conference’s working methods and outcomes. Suffice it to say that the review part of the conference, especially in Main Committee I, failed, with the result being that by the end of the second week, the focus shifted to the parallel negotiations in the presidential group of “friends.” This group of roughly 25 delegations began negotiating based on a draft provided by South Africa, on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament principles and “strengthening the review process of the Treaty.” Main Committee I, as a result, became orphaned because key delegations pulled their most senior diplomats into the president’s consultations.

Negotiating the draft Declaration on Principles for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament went through 11 versions, including the original proposal that the South African delegation drafted for Dhanapala. The original eight principles agreed to in Pretoria and proposed in Nzo’s speech remained intact (with the need for a CTBT, a fissile material cutoff treaty, and bilateral arms control included under “disarmament”), and a new “universality” principle added. The final version was agreed to by the informal group May 3, 1995.¹³ The title was changed to include “objectives” after the declaration was submitted to the conference drafting committee as a whole. Dhanapala was well on his way toward reaching an agreement on indefinite extension.

The process leading to the strengthened review process (Decision I) was more transparent and evolved from the concept originally proposed in the Nzo statement. As Goosen said in a later interview with the Nonproliferation Review, “Originally, we thought that [it] would not be possible to accomplish this at the conference fully. However, we began work in Pretoria on the concept of a mechanism to strengthen the review process. We further refined the concept in New York before presenting the document to more fully incorporate the views of other states. Thus, the ideas in the original South African draft of the review mechanism were not South Africa’s alone, as was the case with the draft on principles. It made good sense for us to work with others in developing the draft on the review process, because, after all, this was South Africa’s first NPT review conference.”¹⁴

Despite widely held views that indefinite extension would have been approved if there had been a vote, this was by no means a given. The Canadian delegation claimed to have secured 103 signatures out of the 175 delegations at the conference on an indefinite-extension sponsorship list. Because the Canadian list was not made public, many of those who signed, especially from NAM states, likely would have voted against indefinite extension in a public vote. Most NAM delegations likely would have voted for either a 25-year extension with rollover options, or the original South African third option. In private discussions, many of these delegations acknowledged that they signed the list but had not received instructions from their capitals about what official position to take.¹⁵

The Campaign for the NPT and the Nuclear Age Foundation, two advocacy groups, surveyed individual statements of all delegations at the conference, as well as statements by the NAM, and their estimates showed that between 63 and 73 delegations were in favor of unconditional, indefinite extension, with about 92 favoring alternative proposals or undecided.¹⁶ The South African delegation did not sign onto the Canadian list despite the urging of Ottawa’s representatives. Although the delegation did not actively lobby against the list, it publicly maintained the position, as expressed in Nzo’s opening statement, that a simple majority vote would weaken the treaty. Observers may have concluded that there was an adversarial relationship between the South African and Canadian delegations, but the cloak-and-dagger diplomacy between Peter Goosen and Sven Jurschewsky from Canada¹⁷ on the margins of conference served to keep both delegations informed of developments in their respective political groups and to coordinate their shared goals for the conference outcome.

It has often been speculated that Mbeki’s decision to move South Africa’s position to support the NPT extension resulted from his meetings with Clinton and Gore in the context of the U.S.-South Africa Binational Commission just a few weeks before the high-level briefing in Pretoria. Discussions at the time (and in subsequent years) with colleagues at the South African foreign ministry, the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C, and the U.S. Department of State show no evidence that Mbeki’s decision was influenced by U.S. pressure. Instead, his belief that the human rights of all people of the world are threatened by nuclear annihilation was the driving factor behind his decision. This linkage was also established in the Mandela government’s 1994 policy on the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.¹⁸

The New Agenda Coalition and the 2000 Review Conference

The success of South Africa’s conference diplomacy brought the country into the spotlight in the international disarmament and nonproliferation arena. As reported by The New York Times, South Africa became the germ of the compromise plan and emerged as a new leader in the developing world.¹⁹ Goosen’s visionary approach enabled South Africa, from this time onward, to play a significant role, punching well above its weight in an arena dominated by big powers and nuclear-weapon states.

Driven by the successes at the 1995 conference and based on close collaborations with a few key individuals from middle-power delegations, including Goosen, the New Agenda Coalition (NAC) was established in 1998 at the foreign-minster level to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world through the pursuit of mutually reinforcing measures at the bilateral and multilateral levels.²⁰ The coalition played a decisive role in the runup to and at the 2000 review conference by securing historic agreements from the nuclear-weapon states on 13 “practical steps” for nuclear disarmament, including an “unequivocal undertaking” by the nuclear-weapon states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. Agreement between the coalition and the nuclear-weapon states on these steps directly contributed to the conference’s successful outcome.

Although the coalition is often lauded for providing the basis for the 2000 conference success, there are four other important factors that are mostly ignored. First was the role of the nuclear-weapon states, specifically the leaders of the U.S. delegation, to actively engage with the NAC states to seek achievable nuclear disarmament related goals. Second was the impact of broad NAM support for the NAC proposals. For instance, the voting results of the UN First Committee resolution sponsored by the NAC in October 1999²¹ showed that other than Ireland, New Zealand, and Sweden, all the positive votes came from NAM members and observers. Third, although Conference President Abdulla Bali had no role in initiating or participating in the negotiations between the NAC and the nuclear-weapon states, he realized that the outcome of this collaboration could provide the basis for a successful outcome. He ensured that these negotiations were held in private. The fourth important factor was the key role of Norwegian moderator Steffen Kongstadt,²² who guided the negotiations with diplomatic tact while also quietly pushing his own delegation’s disarmament agenda.

The 2000 experience showed that cooperation between non-nuclear-weapon states and nuclear-weapon states is possible, and that such cooperation not only solidified the controversial indefinite extension decision, but gave new hope about the future of the treaty and its review process. Unfortunately, that hope no longer exists. Instead of collaboration between key middle-power countries and the nuclear-weapon states, the relationship between these groups has become poisonous. The nuclear-weapon states have long lost their ability to give clear direction to review conferences. Instead, their relationship is at its all-time worst. The NAM is also no longer the strong anti force that it has traditionally been. It lacks leadership, and geopolitical influences, including the impact of the war in Ukraine, and new alliances such as BRICS, have seriously undermined NAM’s strength as a cohesive force in the NPT review process. Although the NAC still represents a credible middle-powers group, the key role it played in past conferences has been diminished. As with the NAM, individual NAC members are influenced by geopolitical relationships, and the group seems to have lost its vision.

Lessons for 2026 and Beyond

Was the decision to indefinitely extend the treaty a mistake? It is true that by adopting the indefinite extension option, the treaty was made permanent, and as such eroded the leverage built into Article X of the NPT. However, if one makes an honest assessment of the lack of commitment to past agreements, coupled with a general apathy toward lasting solutions to serious nuclear threats that undermine basic human rights, one might rightfully conclude that no matter whether extended indefinitely or for specific periods, the treaty’s future relies on the manner in which states remain committed to it.

If South Africa pursued its third option to extend the treaty in perpetuity, linked to succeeding rollover periods, or if the NAM position of a 25-year rollover prevailed, states-parties would have been confronted with the challenge of agreeing to another fixed period at the 10th NPT Review Conference in 2022. The legacy of that conference and the deteriorating international security environment in which it was held suggest that such a rollover decision may have been impossible.

One can only speculate about the consequences of such failure. The reality is that the treaty is permanent, but it is equally important to recall the statement made by 1995 conference president after adopting the indefinite decision that “permanence of the treaty does not represent a permanence of unbalanced obligations, nor does it represent the permanence of nuclear apartheid between nuclear haves and have-nots.”²³

As states-parties and the conference president-designate make final preparations for the 2026 review conference, it is hoped that the legacy of the 1995 and 2000 conferences, the solemn undertakings given at those milestone events, and the memory of the many diplomats who made such agreements possible will guide them in their quest to defy the odds and achieve a successful outcome.

It is understandable that every review conference president is ambitious. However, the bar for the 2026 conference should be set low. What is needed more than new undertakings or ways to further strengthen the review process is a reset by all parties of their obligations under the NPT and the core undertakings given during past conferences, especially in 1995.

Instead of seeking consensus (in what likely will be a highly divisive atmosphere) on how to record implementation of the treaty, the 2026 conference should consolidate around the treaty’s basic principles, while recognizing the threats posed by changes in the geopolitical security environment.

Rather than tinkering with the strengthened review process adopted in 1995 and further enhanced at the 2000 conference, participants should focus on the core challenges facing the treaty. The 1995 review process was never meant to be a focus on how the treaty is implemented or reviewed. It was simply a mechanism to strengthen and advance agreements in 1995 and beyond. The reasons the last two review conferences (2015 and 2022) failed to reach consensus have nothing to do with process but with the lack of commitment among states-parties to seek meaningful outcomes, even modest ones.

Another failed conference may not directly impact the existence of the NPT, but it would most certainly further undermine, if not erode, its efficacy and relevance as the cornerstone of the nonproliferation regime. The cracks in the foundation are more visible than ever. The solemn undertakings given in 1995 and 2000 have been relegated to history books.

Potentially, two wars²⁴ will directly impact many NPT parties. Aggressive nuclear postures backed by a new arms race, no bilateral arms control agreements, and a doctrinal shift in French nuclear posture,²⁵ are of serious concern. And even more threatening is the possibility of resumed nuclear testing by a number of states, potentially including India and Pakistan.

NPT members should be seriously alarmed about the treaty’s future. They need to wake up from apathetic sleepwalking and find ways to deal with these and other threats. If not, the treaty’s relevance for many non-nuclear-weapon states, especially from the global majority, may be lost forever. There may also be a real danger that some states will consider exercising their sovereign rights protected under Article X by withdrawing from a treaty that is no longer in their supreme national interests.

ENDNOTES

1.  Susan B. Welsh, “Delegate Perspectives on the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference,” a series of interviews, Nonproliferation Review, Spring-Summer 1995.

2. Ambassador Isaac Ayewah of Nigeria.

3. In addition to the indefinite extension option outlined in ArtX(2), the Treaty also envisaged one fixed or multiple fixed-period extensions.

4. Disarmament Times, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, February 1995; “Extending the Non-proliferation Treaty: The Endgame,” a report on the fourth preparatory committee meeting of the NPT Review and Extension Conference, New York, January 23-27, 1995, ACRONYM, No. 5, February 1995.

5. Internal memorandum from Jean du Preez to Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo based on consultations with Ambassador Peter Goosen in Geneva, February 27, 1995, from the author’s personal files.

6. Internal memorandum from Jean du Preez to Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo, March 2, 1995, from the author’s personal files.

7. Letter from Gen. Colin Powell dated February 8, 1995, from the author’s personal files.

8. From Peter Goosen’s personal files.

9. From the author’s personal notes.

10. Thabo Mbeki, “Letter to Vice-President Al Gore,” dated April 10, 1995, from the author’s personal files.

11. Statement by H.E. Alfred Nzo, South African Foreign Minister on 19 April 1995.

12. From the author’s personal notes.

13. Peter Goosen, drafts and annotated notes in his personal files.

14. Delegate Perspectives on the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference” a series of interviews by Susan B. Welsh, Nonproliferation Review, Spring-Summer 1995.

15. Personal experience by the author and members of the South African delegation.

16. Since all but 11 of the 175 parties to the treaty were represented at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference, a simple majority would have required 89 votes in support of indefinite extension.

17. Sven Jurschewsky was a central member of the Canadian delegation and the senior advisor for nonproliferation and deputy director for nonproliferation arms control and disarmament in the Canadian foreign ministry.

18. The South African cabinet adopted South Africa’s Policy on the Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction on August 31, 1994, in response to a proposal by Foreign Minister Nzo.

19. The New York Times, May 9, 1995.

20. New Agenda Coalition was established in June 1998 by means of a joint declaration by the foreign ministers of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, Slovenia (withdrew from the group soon after it was established), South Africa, and Sweden (withdrew in 2013).

21. “Towards a nuclear-weapons-free world: the need for a new agenda, U.N. General Assembly resolution 54/54 G of 1 December 1999, adopted by 114 in favor, 13 against, and 39 abstentions

22. Steffen Kongstadt was a key member of the Norwegian delegation and served as minister in the Permanent Mission in Geneva at the time. He has since retired.

23. Statement by Jayantha Dhanapala, president of the 1995 Review and Extension Conference at the conclusion of the conference, May 12, 1995.

24. The ongoing war in Ukraine and the second round of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, including against its leadership and nuclear facilities.

25. Michele Rose, Reuters, “France to boost nuclear arsenal, involve European allies in deterrence,” March 2, 2026.

March 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

The United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and prompting Iranian counterstrikes against Israel, U.S. military bases in the region, and Persian Gulf states. The strikes occurred two days after U.S. and Iranian negotiators met in Geneva for what Omani mediators described as productive negotiations on a nuclear deal.

U.S. President Donald Trump and top administration officials have offered different justifications for why the strikes, which began Feb. 28 as Operation Epic Fury, were necessary. Trump did not obtain an authorization for the use of military force from Congress prior to the strikes.   

In a video on his social media site after the strikes commenced, Trump said that Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon” and suggested its leaders had “attempted to rebuild their nuclear program” and develop long-range ballistic missiles that “could soon reach the American homeland.”

Trump, however, presented no evidence that Iran was engaged in a nuclear weapons development effort or was taking any specific steps to rebuild its program. Recent satellite imagery of key nuclear sites suggests that Iran conducted some cleanup activities at locations struck by the United States and Israel in June and continued activities at facilities that were not attacked, but there was no indication that Iran restarted proliferation sensitive nuclear activities.

In a March 2 press conference, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that “we don’t see a structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons” in Iran. The IAEA said in a March 3 social media post that based on satellite imagery it could confirm some recent damage to entrance buildings of Iran’s underground Natanz fuel enrichment plant.

Grossi noted in a March 2 statement to the agency’s Board of Governors that in addition to Iran’s nuclear reactors, other states in the region have operating nuclear power and research reactors. He urged “utmost restraint in all military operations” to prevent a nuclear accident and called for a return to diplomacy as “quickly as possible.”

Trump suggested in the Feb. 28 video that the U.S. strikes offered an opportunity for regime change in Iran and urged the Iranian people to “seize control of your destiny.” Shortly afterward, reports emerged that Khamenei and key military advisors were killed during a strike, which Iranian media outlets later confirmed.

Trump said March 1 that the new leadership wants to talk and he “agreed to talk” to them. But it is not clear to whom Trump was referring. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a new supreme leader would be chosen in the coming days.

Iranian officials also offered contradictory assessments of their counterstrike objectives. Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Iran would continue to “deliver such devastating blows” that the United States will be “driven to beg” for a ceasefire. Araghchi, however, said he urged Gulf states to press the United States and Iran to end the conflict.

In addition to targeting U.S. military bases in Gulf states, Iran also struck non-military targets, including energy production infrastructure.

Prior to the strikes, the United States and Iran held three rounds of nuclear negotiations mediated by Oman. During that time, Trump sent additional U.S. military assets to the Persian Gulf and suggested that he was considering a limited strike to pressure Tehran to “negotiate a fair deal.”

After the third round of talks on Feb. 26, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi told CBS News that the United States and Iran made “substantial progress” toward a nuclear deal and an agreement is “within our reach.” Araghchi was similarly optimistic, but Trump said Feb. 27 that he was “not happy” with the progress or the “way they’re negotiating.”

Iran did not publicly release its proposal, but an official familiar with the negotiations told Arms Control Today that Iran was offering to pause uranium enrichment and then scale its future enrichment for fueling nuclear reactors. Iran also would agree to monitoring and would not accumulate enriched uranium gas. Uranium stored in gas form poses more of a risk because it can be fed back into centrifuges and enriched to weapons-grade levels.

In a Feb. 28 press call, unnamed U.S. officials said that there was “no seriousness to achieve a real deal.” The officials suggested that Washington offered “free nuclear fuel forever,” but Tehran rejected that offer, saying it needed uranium enrichment. The official said it “makes absolutely no sense” for Iran to enrich uranium. It is not clear if the negotiators discussed the technical and legal complexities of fuel supply, or the assurances the United States would offer Iran that fuel supplies would not be disrupted.

The U.S. official said that Iran refused to talk about its ballistic missile program and that “we cannot continue to live in a world where these people not only possess missiles but the ability to make 100 of them a month.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also pushed for any U.S-Iran deal to include missiles and zero uranium enrichment. In a Feb. 15 address to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, he said he told Trump that any deal must require Iran to dismantle its uranium enrichment program, ship its enriched uranium out of the country, and include “no-lead time inspections.”

Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium, including about 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent uranium-235, just shy of the 90 percent U-235 considered weapons grade, are likely intact but currently inaccessible due to the military strikes in June.

Netanyahu also said a deal must address Iran’s ballistic missiles and suggested that Iran must adhere to a range of 300 kilometers, as set by the Missile Technology Control Regime for defining nuclear-capable systems. A deal also must end Iran’s support for proxy militias in the region, he said.

March 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expired Feb. 5 without a U.S. response to a Russian offer to continue informally abiding by the central limits of the agreement, leaving the two nuclear superpowers with no legally binding curbs on deploying their strategic weapon.

The United States will instead seek a “new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Feb. 5 social media post.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov informed the Russian parliament Feb. 11 that “For now, Russia complies with its moratorium on respecting the central quantitative limitations as per this treaty. We have reasons to believe that the United States is not in a hurry to reject these indicators and will abide by them in the foreseeable future.”

Lavrov stressed, however, that Russia will maintain its moratorium “only as long as the United States does not exceed the above limits.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed Sept. 22 that the two sides continue abiding by the treaty’s central limits informally for one year. Although Trump initially said the proposal was a “good idea,” the Russian foreign ministry confirmed Feb. 4 that the United States had not formally responded to Putin’s initiative.

Representatives of the two sides reportedly discussed a potential six-month informal understanding to abide by the treaty and the resumption of arms control negotiations during talks in Abu Dhabi, Axios reported Feb. 5. The discussions were confirmed by Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, but not by U.S. officials.

“President Trump wants to find a better agreement,” the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Thomas DiNanno, said in a speech to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva Feb. 6.

That same day, the U.S. Department of State briefed officials from the embassies of China, Russia, and certain U.S. allies on the main points of DiNanno’s address, according to diplomatic sources who spoke with Arms Control Today on the condition of anonymity.

In his address, DiNanno described Russia’s numerical superiority in tactical nuclear weapons as an “intolerable disadvantage” to the United States and criticized New START for not including that category of weapons within its scope.

DiNanno emphasized two priorities for U.S. arms control diplomacy in his statement: “taking into account all Russian nuclear weapons, both novel and existing strategic systems, and addressing the breakout growth of Chinese nuclear weapons stockpiles.”

DiNanno also suggested that the United States could, following the expiration of New START, increase the size and diversity of its nuclear arsenal. “The United States also retains non-deployed nuclear capacity that can be used to address the emerging security environment, if directed by the president,” he said.

“China will not take part in nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage,” Shen Jian, China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, said Feb. 6 in response to Di Nanno. He reiterated the long-standing Chinese position that Russia and the United States have “special and primary responsibilities” to make cuts to their arsenals first.

Shen called on the United States to “respond positively” to the Russian freeze proposal, while also labeling Washington the “culprit for the aggravation of [the] arms race.”

A previous attempt by the first Trump administration to include China in nuclear arms control talks foundered in 2020. (See ACT, September 2020.)

In November 2023, senior U.S. and Chinese officials held talks on nuclear weapons matters in Washington but the dialogue was not sustained. (See ACT, December 2023.)

Trump said in a Jan. 7 interview with The New York Times that “I think it would be appropriate for the Chinese [to be part of a new arms control treaty], but I would do a deal with Russia without the Chinese.” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Christopher Yeaw indicated, however, that the administration may be prioritizing a multilateral strategy.

“Following the expiration of [New START] the United States proposed multilateral strategic stability talks as a means to achieving future nuclear arms control,” Yeaw said at a Feb. 17 Hudson Institute event.

Trump spoke with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, by telephone Feb. 4, but neither the U.S. nor Chinese readouts of the conversation mentioned nuclear arms control. Trump and Xi aim to hold a summit in early April.

“[M]any important subjects were discussed, including Trade, Military, [and] the April trip that I will be making to China,” Trump said in a Feb. 4 social media post. Beijing has warned Washington privately that approval of a potential $20 billion arms sale to Taiwan in the coming weeks could derail the trip, the Financial Times reported Feb. 6.

On the eve of New START’s expiry, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Bin met in Beijing Feb. 3 in the latest in a series of bilateral consultations. According to a Chinese statement, the two officials “had an in-depth exchange of views on the current global strategic stability situation and multilateral arms control issues.”

The Pentagon released Jan. 23 a National Defense Strategy that shed little light on U.S. plans for nuclear forces after the expiration of New START.

The document eschews a formal Nuclear Posture Review or equivalent section, opting instead for a brief passage.

“We will modernize and adapt our nuclear forces accordingly with focused attention on deterrence and escalation management amidst the changing global nuclear landscape,” the strategy document says.

The language contains a key departure from an otherwise identical statement on nuclear forces by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Dec. 6 at the Reagan Defense Forum, in which he said that the United States “will develop additional options to support deterrence and escalation management.”

With the expiration of New START, Congress has taken a keener interest in nuclear weapons and arms control in the absence of negotiated limits.

The Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees held expert hearings on the issue Dec. 10 and Feb. 3, respectively.

Speaking before the Armed Services Committee, Rose Gottemoeller, the former lead U.S. negotiator on New START, cautioned that Russia could sprint ahead in a race to upload new warheads on missiles if the United States ignores the Russian proposal to continue to respect the treaty’s central limits and decides instead to begin expanding the number of U.S. deployed strategic nuclear warheads.

Democrats in the House and the Senate have introduced resolutions calling on the president to engage with Russia on a follow-on agreement to New START, to engage with China in nuclear risk reduction talks, and to forgo increasing the size of the deployed U.S. strategic arsenal.

In a Jan. 13 letter to the State Department, House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) and Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), the chair of the Europe subcommittee, wrote that “The Committee stands ready to work with the Trump administration and its efforts to modernize arms-control approaches.”

March 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

A top U.S. State Department official has accused China of conducting a nuclear explosive test June 22, 2020, and says the U.S. government believes Beijing also is preparing for nuclear tests with yields in the range of hundreds of tons.

Thomas DiNanno, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, made the allegation in a speech at a Feb. 6 meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

It is the first direct accusation by the United States of a violation of China’s obligations as a signatory to the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

The United States “is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons,” DiNanno said.

China is widely known to have conducted 45 nuclear-test explosions between 1964 and 1996.

The State Department previously expressed “concerns” in an August 2019 compliance report about Chinese testing-related activities, including at a former test site at Lop Nur. At the time, the United States said China “probably carried out multiple nuclear weapon-related tests or experiments in 2018,” but fell short of concluding that China had violated the CTBT.

In the Feb. 6 speech, DiNanno alleged that China “sought to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions [through decoupling] because it recognized these tests violate test ban commitments.” Decoupling involves conducting a nuclear explosion in a large underground cavity to mask its observable yield.

Although China, like the United States, is a CTBT signatory, it has not ratified the agreement, thus delaying the treaty’s formal entry into force.

The treaty prohibits all nuclear explosions, which the negotiating parties all understand are nuclear explosions that produce a self-sustaining, supercritical chain reaction of any kind whether for weapons or peaceful purposes.

“The U.S. accusation of Chinese nuclear explosive tests is completely groundless,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said Feb. 11 at a regular press briefing. The U.S. statement is a “fabrication of pretexts for its own resumption of nuclear tests,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Oct. 30 that the United States, which has honored a voluntary testing moratorium since 1992, would resume testing of nuclear weapons “on an equal basis” as other countries. (See ACT, November 2025.) DiNanno noted the president’s announcement in his Feb. 6 statement immediately before discussing the alleged Chinese tests.

“China urges the U.S. to renew the commitment of the five nuclear-weapons states to a moratorium on nuclear testing” and “uphold the global consensus on the ban on nuclear testing,” Lin said in his Feb. 11 statement.

The Chinese test occurred at 9:18 Greenwich Mean Time on the specified date and had an approximate magnitude of 2.75, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Yeaw said Feb. 17 in a talk at the Hudson Institute.

The International Monitoring System operated by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization “detected two very small seismic events, twelve seconds apart” on June 22, 2020, said Robert Floyd, head of the organization in a Feb. 17 statement.

In the statement, Floyd said that the monitoring system “is capable of detecting nuclear test explosions with a yield equivalent to or greater than approximately 500 [tons] of TNT. These two events were far below that level. As a result, with this data alone, it is not possible to assess the cause of these events with confidence.”

“Mechanisms which could address smaller explosions are provided by the Treaty but can only be used once the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty enters into force. That is why it is important that the nuclear arms control framework includes the entry into force of the CTBT. The need is more urgent now than ever,” Floyd wrote. “Any nuclear test explosion, by any state, is of deepest concern.”

International and national seismic networks can detect events that produce shockwaves at much lower levels in certain areas of particular concern, such as former nuclear test sites. For example, the existence of seismic templates—comparable data on past seismic events—from known nuclear test sites may “enable the detection of new explosions today by [the monitoring system] down to a few tons of TNT yield or less for an underground explosion,” according to a 2020 report by Anna Péczeli and Bruce Goodwin, two experts with the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

NORSAR, the Norwegian seismology foundation, independently identified a small signal at 9:18 GMT from the region of Lop Nur but cautioned that “the precise epicentral location cannot be tightly constrained,” in a Feb. 19 press release.

NORSAR said the event displayed “strong compressional waves compared to shear waves, a feature that can be consistent with explosive sources.” However, “[n]atural earthquakes can produce similar patterns, particularly when observations are limited to a single high-quality station.”

The foundation “cannot confirm or refute the allegation that a nuclear test took place.”

According to a 2012 National Academies of Sciences (NAS) report on technical issues related to the test ban treaty, the maximum effectiveness of decoupling on record—in a salt dome—was a reduction in the measured yield of a nuclear test by a factor of 70.

This would reduce the observed yield of a test from several hundred tons to a single-digit ton of TNT equivalent.

But the NAS report noted that decoupled underground tests in rock would have a much lower effectiveness than in salt, reducing the observed yield by a factor of 20 to 40. China’s tests at its former Lop Nur test site were conducted in granite or other types of rock.

The 2012 NAS report concluded that “the uncertainty in the actual amount of decoupling would present a difficult technical challenge.”

If China were able to conduct an undetected test, the 2012 NAS report noted that explosions with yields under 100 tons could be useful for safety tests and developing low-yield, unboosted fission devices.

Tests between 100 tons TNT equivalent and 1 kiloton TNT equivalent could be used to “pursue improved implosion weapon designs,” “validate some untested implosion weapon designs,” and proof-test compact weapons.

If the alleged Chinese test was a hydronuclear experiment just above the criticality threshold, however, the usefulness of the test would be limited to safety tests, addressing some design code issues, and “validation of some unboosted fission weapon designs.”

China in recent years has resumed visible, above-ground drilling and infrastructure work at its Lop Nur test site, The New York Times reported in December 2023, citing imagery analysis by analyst Renny Babiarz.

March 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

The United States negotiated a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia that does not require a more intrusive monitoring arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and may allow some type of uranium enrichment, according to a report the Trump administration sent to Congress that was obtained by Arms Control Today.

Saudi Arabia is expanding its civil nuclear program and announced plans to build two power reactors and fabricate nuclear fuel, including uranium enrichment. (See ACT, November 2023.) The United States had been reluctant to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia over the proliferation risks posed by uranium enrichment without additional IAEA monitoring, due in part to Saudi threats to develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. (See ACT, April 2018.)

According to congressional sources, the United States and Saudi Arabia reached a compromise after years of negotiations, but it is unclear if Congress, which can review and block nuclear cooperation agreements, also known as “123 agreements,” will accept the nonproliferation obligations in the accord.

The administration has said little about the terms of the proposed 123 agreement, which must be negotiated before U.S. companies can transfer certain materials and technologies to a foreign country.

During Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Washington in November, the White House announced a U.S.-Saudi framework for nuclear cooperation that “builds the legal foundation for a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar nuclear energy partnership” between the two countries “in a manner consistent with strong nonproliferation standards.” (See ACT, December 2025.)

The existence of the report to Congress on the agreement appears to confirm that the Trump administration relaxed U.S. demands that Saudi Arabia negotiate an additional protocol to its legally required safeguards agreement. The additional protocol would give the IAEA greater access to information about Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program and more tools to provide assurances that the program is peaceful.

According to a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2020, the administration must provide a report to Congress if a state has not negotiated and implemented an additional protocol with the IAEA. The president must submit the report on waiving the additional protocol to Congress 90 days before sending a Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement to Congress. The statement assesses how the nuclear cooperation agreement meets nine nonproliferation criteria set out in the Atomic Energy Act. Under the Atomic Energy Act, Congress has 90 days to review a nuclear cooperation agreement.

Arms Control Today reviewed a copy of the report, which was submitted to Congress around Nov. 24. According to the report, Saudi Arabia and the United States will enter into a “Bilateral Safeguards Agreement,” which will include additional verification measures and asserts that the agreement will give the IAEA the “necessary tools to verify the absence of diversion of nuclear material.”

The report does not specify how the bilateral agreement will compare to the additional protocol, but it does say that the bilateral safeguards will only apply to nuclear facilities where sensitive U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation is taking place. The additional protocol would have applied to the entire nuclear program and sites that support it.

The report does not explicitly state that the proposed agreement will allow a domestic Saudi-run enrichment program, but the text suggests it will. According to the report, the bilateral agreement, “with the involvement” of the IAEA, will employ “additional safeguards and verification measures to the most proliferation sensitive areas of potential nuclear cooperation between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States (enrichment, conversion, fuel fabrication, and reprocessing).”

The report goes on to say that “nuclear material, equipment, or components will not be transferred to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia subject to the 123 agreement until the proposed Bilateral Safeguards Agreement has entered into force.”

The NDAA states that the report must also describe “the manner in which such agreement would advance the national security and defense interests of the United States and not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”

The Trump administration argues that the proposed agreement will benefit U.S. interests, saying in the report that U.S. involvement in the Saudi nuclear program will “prevent strategic competition from seizing an opportunity to undermine United States national security interests for decades to come.” The report also argues that the United States must seize the opportunity to expand nuclear cooperation to “reestablish our leadership in the global civilian nuclear energy market and reap the benefits of expanded influence in foreign countries hosting our reactors.”

The Trump administration may face obstacles in Congress, where there is longstanding bipartisan support for negotiating a so-called gold standard nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. The gold standard refers to a nuclear cooperation agreement similar to the one negotiated between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. Under that deal, the UAE committed to forgo uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing and adopt an additional protocol.

After the White House announced the Saudi framework for nuclear cooperation in November, the chair and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sens. James Risch (R-Idaho) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), respectively, said independently that any nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia must meet the gold standard.

Once the 123 agreement is delivered to Congress, members will have 90 days to review it. Congress can block the deal if both houses pass a resolution of disapproval; otherwise it will enter into force.

March 2026
By Libby Flatoff

In a major shift in policy, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a new nuclear strategy that would allow for temporary deployment of nuclear air forces outside of France and ordered an increase in France’s nuclear arsenal.

“I have ordered an increase in the number of nuclear warheads in our arsenal,” Macron stated March 2. “We will no longer communicate on the figures of our nuclear arsenal, unlike what may have been the case in the past.”

Macron stressed that, “My responsibility is to ensure that our deterrence maintains — and will maintain in the future — its assured destructive power.” He said called the approach “dissuasion avancée,” or advanced deterrence, noting that this new French approach creates opportunities for European allies.

France and Germany also announced Mar. 2 their intention to create “a ‌joint steering group to coordinate strategic doctrine and exercises,” in a move to increase cooperation on nuclear deterrence.

Comments from other European leaders in recent weeks provided hints of greater European defense and nuclear coordination. In a Jan. 29 speech, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said European states were “discussing the development of a joint nuclear umbrella with European allies,” although he insisted “Germany will not possess nuclear weapons.”

The shift in German government thinking is particularly significant. Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of France’s Strategic Research Foundation, noted that, “Germany’s mention of nuclear capabilities would have been unimaginable just five years ago.”

Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Estonian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, suggested that the “most logical, fastest, and most cost-effective option would be to use France’s nuclear capability as the foundation for an independent European nuclear deterrent,” according to Politico Feb. 5.

Meanwhile, in response to a question about hosting nuclear weapons on Swedish soil, Defense Minister Pål Jonsson stated Feb. 27 on Swedish radio SR, “If there were to be war, we would naturally consider any option that could secure Sweden’s survival and Swedish security.”

The shift in French and European policy is a response to growing NATO concerns that they can no longer rely on U.S. defense commitments in the event of an attack by Russia, including the potential employment of U.S. nuclear weapons,  such as the 100 plus forward-deployed U.S. nuclear gravity bombs that are stationed at bases in five countries in Europe.

Last July, France and the United Kingdom, which both possess nuclear weapons, issued a statement called the Northwood Declaration that commits them to coordinate nuclear policy and notes that their “nuclear forces are independent, but can be coordinated.” (See ACT, September 2025.) The declaration also established a nuclear steering group, co-chaired by French and UK officials, which held its first meeting in Paris Dec. 10.

European concerns deepened following U.S. President Donald Trump's statements threatening acquisition of Greenland and the new U.S. National Defense Strategy document, released in January. Despite the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine and its asymmetric intrusions on European infrastructure, the strategy document describes Russia as a “manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members” and calls on Europe to take “primary responsibility for its own defense.”

At the February 2025 NATO defense ministers meeting, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, responding to a reporter’s question, reinforced European concerns. Hegseth said that, “without burden sharing, without creating the right set of incentives for European countries to invest, then [the United States] would be forced to attempt to be everywhere for everybody all the time, which in a world of fiscal restraints is, again ... just not reality.”

At the World Economic Forum, Jan. 21 in Davos, Switzerland, Trump reiterated that he was “not sure [if NATO] would be there for us” if there were an attack against the United States. That has become a frequent Trump complaint despite the fact that NATO invoked Article 5 for the only time in its history after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States in 2001.

France has about 290 nuclear weapons and the UK has 225, according to independent estimates by the Federation of American Scientists. Neither country currently deploys its weapons within the borders of other nations.

March 2026
By Xiaodon Liang and Libby Flatoff

U.S. discretionary spending on national defense, including atomic energy activities, will rise by more than 17 percent in fiscal year 2026 to $1.05 trillion after Congress passed appropriations acts funding most of the government.

That total, reached after a cycle of tumultuous and disorderly budget processes, includes $893 billion approved through normal appropriations, as well as money provided last summer by a budget reconciliation act, which included $152.3 billion for the Pentagon and $3.9 billion for Department of Energy nuclear weapons activities. (See ACT June, July/August 2025.)

In May, the Department of Defense indicated it would spend $119.3 billion of the multiyear reconciliation money in fiscal 2026. But on Feb. 23 the department reversed course and said it would spend all of its multiyear allocation by the end of fiscal 2026, contradicting prior plans.

The Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program—originally set to receive $4.3 billion in research and development and construction funding this year, according to the president’s budget request—now has an increased budget of $5.3 billion. Last fiscal year, the Trump administration reallocated $1.2 billion of the Sentinel’s enacted $3.2 billion budget to other defense programs.

The program continues to undergo a major restructuring following a 2024 review required by the cost control provisions of the Nunn-McCurdy Act. (See ACT, September 2024.) The Air Force announced Feb. 17 that it anticipates completing the restructuring effort and attaining a Milestone B decision by the end of 2026.

The service also said the Sentinel missile would reach initial operational capability in “the early 2030s.”

Although the Air Force now believes it will conduct a first flight test—from a pad, not a silo—of the Sentinel missile in 2027, the Government Accountability Office noted in a brief Feb. 18 report that its analysis of Pentagon information suggests a March 2028 date instead.

The B-21 bomber program will receive $10.1 billion this year, a significant increase from last year’s $5.3 billion enacted budget. Some $4.5 billion of that total will go toward expanding bomber production rates. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink announced Feb. 23 that lead contractor Northrop Grumman and the Pentagon had reached an agreement to increase production capacity by 25 percent.

Although President Donald Trump said Feb. 2 on a podcast that the United States had ordered 25 more bombers, the Air Force has not confirmed an increase in the total B-21 production order despite previous discussion. (See ACT, May 2025.)

The Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program will be funded at $9.6 billion through regular appropriations, with an additional $1.4 billion of reconciliation monies allocated to associated industrial base investments, according to congressional funding tables. The program received $9.8 billion last year.

The Feb. 23 documents provided by the Pentagon describing how it plans to use the full $152.3 billion in reconciliation funds by the end of fiscal 2026 confirm that the Navy will attempt to spend $2 billion in one year on the nuclear-capable, sea-launched cruise missile, a figure drastically increased from $150 million last year.

The breakdown in the justification documents of spending on the new nuclear weapon do not add up to the $2 billion total, and the scope of work described suggests multiple years of effort.

Last fall, the Pentagon forwarded to Congress an initial tranche of planned reconciliation commitments totaling around $90 billion, shy of the $119.3 billion envisioned in the president’s budget request.

In that fall document, the sea-launched cruise missile would have received only $458 million in funding, which matches what the newly released reconciliation spending justification documents describe as funding for transitioning from “early program planning into system architecture maturation, risk reduction, and engineer development.”

The Missile Defense Agency’s hypersonic defense efforts, including development of the Glide Phase Interceptor, were funded by Congress through normal appropriations at $185 million, but reconciliation funds will provide another $2.2 billion in classified spending.

Congress has similarly provided $1.7 billion for the Space Force missile warning and tracking constellation in low-earth orbit, while the reconciliation documents suggest a further $7.2 billion for space-based sensors is “pending approval.”

The constellation received a rebuke from the Government Accountability Office in a Jan. 28 report that criticized the program as having “yet to demonstrate the development of timely, actionable, and accurate two-dimensional tracks on orbit and three-dimensional tracks on the ground needed to counter hypersonic and other evolving threats.”

Appropriators also modestly reduced base funding for several missile defense programs, citing budget execution problems and funding requests that were ahead of actual program need.

The reconciliation documents indicate that details on Pentagon plans for spending $5.6 billion on “space-based and boost phase interceptor capabilities” have been classified.

This year’s appropriations bills also convey congressional concern about several key nuclear policy issues not tackled in the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law in December.

In the act funding the Pentagon, defense appropriators expressed concern that the Defense Department “lacks a clear plan to meet strategic [nuclear command, control, and communications] requirements after the current legacy Space-Based Infrared systems age out,” despite an enacted $1.4 billion budget for the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared satellite program intended for geosynchronous and polar orbits.

In a joint explanatory statement, appropriators noted that although they support efforts to create a proliferated missile warning system in low-earth orbit, this constellation is “not designed to meet the strategic indications and warning requirements.” Energy and water appropriators also called for the prompt release of a pit production study by the JASON advisory group within 60 days of the report’s completion.

March 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

Congress authorized $57 million this year for a prototype of a new nuclear weapon delivery system that the U.S. Air Force is considering acquiring to destroy hard and deeply buried targets, according to budget documents.

This is the second fiscal year in which the service has asked for and received funding for its work on the program after Congress provided an initial $39 million last year. The Biden administration’s last budget request estimated that the Air Force’s portion of the program would cost $353 million over its lifetime.

In parallel, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—the agency responsible for designing and producing U.S. nuclear weapons—is conducting a multi-year Phase 1 concept assessment of options to defeat hard and deeply buried targets. (See ACT, July/August 2025.)

The new weapon, provisionally called the air-delivered nuclear delivery system, would address the requirement for “an enduring capability for improved defeat of [hard and deeply buried] targets” identified in the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, according to Air Force budget justification documents.

The documents note that the program also responds to the findings of a Pentagon study of options for hard and deeply buried targets mandated by the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

In the course of designing the new weapon, the Air Force Research Laboratory is initially planning for integration with F-15E strike aircraft and B-2 bombers.

According to the budget documents, in fiscal year 2026, the Air Force intends to continue modeling and simulation analysis of design options, designing and procuring components for building prototypes, and conducting ground tests of prototypes, among other activities.

When the Biden administration unveiled in October 2023 a higher-yield variant of the B61-12 life-extended gravity bomb, the B61-13, it said that weapon would provide an additional option for “harder and large-area military targets.” This would pave the way for retirement of the older megaton-yield B83-1. (See ACT, December 2023.)

At the same time, the administration did not decide to retire the B61-11, a dedicated earth-penetrating variant of the B61 bomb. Although several older variants of the B61 have been consolidated through a recently completed life-extension program into the B61-12 design, the B61-11 was not.

The budget documents are unlikely to refer to the B61-13. That weapon is already in production and will only be delivered by strategic bombers, not fighter jets such as the F-15E, NNSA said in a May 19 press release.

“The B61-13 represents an intermediate answer” to the problem of destroying hard and deeply buried targets, wrote David Hoagland, the NNSA’s acting deputy administrator for defense programs, May 20 in War on the Rocks.

The George W. Bush administration also pursued a nuclear bunker-buster under the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator program. Congressional opposition led to cancellation of the program by 2005.

Unlike the proposed air-delivered nuclear delivery system, the Bush-era program did not advance as far as prototyping work within the Air Force before it was canceled, even though the NNSA bomb design work had proceeded beyond concept studies to the next stage, known as a Phase 6.2/6.2A feasibility and design, definition, and cost study.

March 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors held an extraordinary meeting in January to discuss nuclear security and safety risks in Ukraine after repeated Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The Netherlands requested the Jan. 30 meeting. In a statement to the IAEA’s 35-member board, Dutch Ambassador Peter Potman expressed “grave concerns” about Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian electrical substations, noting that the strikes bring the “prospect of a nuclear accident to the very precipice of becoming a reality.”

Potman said that attacking Ukraine’s electric grid is a direct violation of IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi’s seven indispensable pillars for ensuring nuclear safety. Grossi announced the seven pillars in 2022, shortly after Russia’s illegal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine and occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Pillar 4 says “there must be a secure off-site power supply from the grid for all nuclear sites.”

The Netherlands, along with 11 other board members, requested that Grossi share a written assessment of the “increased nuclear safety risks in Ukraine” ahead of the board’s quarterly meeting in March. The assessment will help members “assess the extent to which a nuclear accident is imminent,” Potman said.

Grossi told the board Jan. 30 that nuclear power plants cannot operate safely without off-site power and noted a clear deterioration in Ukraine’s energy grid since the agency began monitoring it in 2024. He said IAEA teams will continue to visit substations in Ukraine to assess impacts on nuclear safety and security.

Russia’s ambassador to the IAEA, Mikhail Ulyanov, objected to the extraordinary meeting, saying the topic falls outside of the board’s purview. He accused members of using the meeting to “try to put pressure on Russia.” In a Jan. 30 statement, he said that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure are a direct response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry, in a statement the same day, said that the “deliberate and systemic” Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure create “direct nuclear risks.” Ukraine said it would propose an amendment to the IAEA statute “aimed at limiting the rights of the aggressor state within Agency bodies.”

Howard Solomon, the interim chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Vienna, called for all strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to cease. He said the current situation is “unacceptable and extremely dangerous.”

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure continued after the meeting despite Grossi’s warnings.

In a subsequent Feb. 6 statement, Grossi said attacks on electrical infrastructure caused a reactor unit at an unspecified, operating nuclear power plant in Ukraine to automatically disconnect from the grid and shut down.

He said the “latest grid event is a stark reminder of the ever-present risks to nuclear safety and security arising from deteriorating grid conditions,” and called for restraint from further attacks. Attacks continued despite Grossi’s warnings.

March 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

France took over the presidency of a multilateral initiative combating weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation and plans to increase the visibility of the group’s work in 2026.

The Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction was founded in 2002 by the Group of Eight industrialized countries (now the Group of Seven). Composed of 31 members, the Global Partnership uses a matchmaking process to pair donor expertise and funding with projects aimed at reducing WMD threats and proliferation. The chair of the G-7 serves as president of the Global Partnership and sets priorities for its work agenda.

In a January statement, France highlighted how the “evolving security landscape and the rapid advancement of technologies are reshaping the nature” of proliferation risks and pledged to adapt the initiative’s work to meet these challenges. Specifically, the French presidency will focus on three strategic objectives. First, France will focus on ensuring that the Global Partnership’s “governance and strategies are … robust and effective.” Second, France will look to “actively engage new countries and organizations” and potentially expand the initiative’s membership. Third, France will focus on enhancing communication and awareness, to highlight the initiative’s work and foster “deeper understanding” of WMD threats and solutions.

Canada, the president for 2025, highlighted the Global Partnership’s accomplishments over the past year in an outgoing message. The January statement said that the 31-member body launched a new strategy for addressing WMD-relevant technologies, such as artificial intelligence and gene editing, to identify how the partnership can use these tools for “deterrence, detection, and response.” Canada also noted that partnership members endorsed new biosecurity deliverables and a revised chemical security strategic vision.

Under Canada’s presidency, the Global Partnership implemented 344 projects in 158 countries. Nearly half of the projects focused on enhancing nuclear and radiological security. Ukraine continued to be a priority for nuclear security work, as member states funded projects designed to enhance the protection of nuclear facilities and train law enforcement in counter-nuclear smuggling efforts. Partners also funded new nuclear security projects to identify and address cyber vulnerabilities in emerging technologies, such as small modular reactors, according to the annex.

More than 100 projects sought to mitigate biological threats, including continued efforts to build biosecurity capacity in Africa and Asia. Partner states also supported projects designed to enhance bio-detection capabilities.

Fifty-six projects focused on chemical security, including support for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’s work in identifying undeclared chemical weapons in Syria and mitigating the threats posed by Russia’s use of toxic chemicals against Ukraine.