“For 50 years, the Arms Control Association has educated citizens around the world to help create broad support for U.S.-led arms control and nonproliferation achievements.”
Research and Reports
In this analysis we have outlined what we believe to be the five most important sets of nuclear weapons policy
challenges and decisions that the new Biden administration will need to address in its first 100 days and beyond, along
with recommendations for effectively dealing with each of these policy challenges.
This new report is the fourth in a series that assesses the extent to which 11 key states are fulfilling, promoting, or undermining 10 standards identified as critical elements of the nonproliferation and disarmament regime. Collectively, states fared worse on the majority of criteria when compared with the prior edition covering the 2013–2016 period.
The United States currently plans to spend nearly $500 billion to maintain and replace its nuclear arsenal over the next decade. This report describes the ways in which this level of spending is unnecessary, unsustainable, and unsafe. It describes three realistic options to reduce spending on nuclear weapons and recommends steps Congress can take to adjust the programs to deal with the long term budget challenges.
The global nuclear security enterprise is at a critical crossroads. While the worldwide use of nuclear and radioactive materials has grown, the issue of nuclear security has all but faded from the U.S. national conversation.
The 2016 Nuclear Security Summit brought to a close President Obama’s high-level initiative to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism and secure weapons-usable nuclear materials. The commitments that states undertook during the 2010-2016 summits represent significant advances, but effective nuclear security requires continuous improvement to address gaps and new threats.