May 23, 2025
Talks About Future of New START Still Haven’t Started
In January, shortly after his second inauguration, U.S. President Donald Trump said: “Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about .... So, we want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible.”
The Kremlin replied that it wants to resume the nuclear dialogue “as soon as possible.”
Months later, however, Russia and the United States are no closer to addressing the urgent need for a follow-on agreement to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), despite signs that both countries are open to discussing what comes next after the treaty expires on Feb. 5, 2026.
Speaking to TASS May 7, a foreign policy aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yuri Ushakov, said:
“This topic [of extending the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] was discussed. Specific agreements to conduct negotiations specifically on this topic have not yet been reached.”
Other Russian officials have provided conflicting assessments in recent weeks of whether the prospects of a follow-on agreement are promising or not, but it is clear Moscow is prepared to negotiate. Shortly after Trump announced plans for a new $175 billion missile defense program on May 20, Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “the very course of events requires the resumption of contacts on issues of strategic stability.”
Predicting a return to talks on reductions in the coming years, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance reiterated May 7 that, “the president would be very open to sitting down with the Russians and the Chinese and saying, ‘Look, let's get this thing in a much better place. Let’s reduce the number of nuclear weapons that are in the world writ large.’”
In New York at the final preparatory committee meeting ahead of the 2026 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, dozens of states noted the looming expiration of New START and called for renewed talks on nuclear arms control and disarmament.
A joint statement issued May 9 by 24 non-nuclear weapons states, led by Austria, called for the: “urgent commencement of [bilateral] negotiations for a successor agreement and … a return to full and mutual compliance with the limits set by the Treaty until such time as a successor pact is concluded.” They argued that this approach remains the best option for the two countries as time grows short for a deal to replace New START before it expires.
In Washington, however, there are few if any tangible signs that the national security bureaucracy is doing much to support Trump’s call for “denuclearization.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks directly with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on negotiations over a potential end to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the former senator and one-time Russia critic does not yet have key staff in place to handle the nuclear arms control portfolio.
The administration’s nominee for undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Thomas DiNanno, remains in confirmation limbo after approval by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 30, while the Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability and International Security and Nonproliferation bureaus prepare to undergo a significant reorganization.
The National Security Council, which Rubio also leads in an acting role, does not have a senior director responsible for weapons of mass destruction issues. At the same time, officials at the Defense Department are busily forging ahead with a new National Defense Strategy document, with a sprint toward an August 31 deadline.
In an official U.S. statement to a May 1 meeting of the preparatory committee meeting, a State Department official said, “President Trump has made clear his readiness to engage China and Russia to reduce the risks of nuclear conflict.”
How and whether he has a workable plan or the right personnel in place to do so is not clear.--XIAODON LIANG, SHIZUKA KURAMITSU, LIBBY FLATOFF, and LIPI SHETTY
Divisions Among Nuclear-Armed States Confound NPT Preparatory Meeting
The third and final preparatory committee meeting ahead of the 2026 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended on May 9, with little room for optimism for an agreement on a consensus outcome document next year.
Although the vast majority of states did seek to find common ground, differences among the NPT’s nuclear-armed states continued to dog discussions and stymie progress. According to diplomatic sources, the two-week-long preparatory meeting came close to consensus on a draft package of proposals for strengthening the review process, but disputes among some NPT nuclear-armed states, including China, emerged on the final day. The impasse over strengthening the review process scuttled any further efforts to reach an agreement on a separate draft package of substantive recommendations for the Review Conference, which the president of the meeting, Harold Agyeman of Ghana, circulated for consideration.
During the two week preparatory committee meeting, states-parties voiced concerns about existing and emerging threats to the treaty, including the impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, China’s nuclear weapons build-up, the forward deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, threats to the global nuclear test moratorium, and the failure of the five NPT nuclear-armed states to engage in negotiations on disarmament, which is a central obligation under Article VI of the treaty.
The 2026 NPT Review Conference is set for April 27 to May 22 in New York and will be chaired by Vietnam. The last time an NPT review conference adopted a substantive outcome by consensus was in 2010.
Macron Offers Nuclear Basing Agreements with Europe
French President Emanuel Macron is preparing to discuss the basing of his country’s nuclear weapons outside of France as part of a broader effort to reassure European allies of the NATO alliance’s nuclear guarantees.
In a May 13 interview with French broadcaster TF1, he said, “the Americans have the bombs on planes in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Turkey…We are ready to open this discussion.” German Chancellor Friederich Merz, in a joint press conference with Macron in Paris, stated that this would be “expressly not a substitute for the nuclear guarantee currently being given to Europe by the United States of America.”
In March 2020, Macron offered to discuss with allies how France could extend its nuclear umbrella across Europe, stressing at the time that the country’s nuclear force, “ensures our independence, our freedom to assess, make decisions, and take action. It prevents adversaries from betting on escalation, intimidation, and blackmailing to achieve their ends.”
Macron’s offer comes after Merz said earlier this year, “We need to have discussions with both the British and the French — the two European nuclear powers — about whether nuclear sharing, or at least nuclear security from the U.K. and France, could also apply to us.” Nuclear sharing, European deterrence, and U.S. credibility could be on the agenda of the NATO summit scheduled to take place on June 24 and 25 this year.
Kyrgyzstan to Join Nuclear Ban Treaty
Kyrgyzstan announced April 30 its decision to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) at the third preparatory committee meeting ahead of the 2026 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.
“Kyrgyzstan firmly supports the efforts of the international community to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons,” the delegation’s statement said. “We are committed to ensuring future generations live without the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.”
Kyrgyzstan ratified the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone treaty in 2007, joining Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as states-parties.
While Kyrgyzstan did not vote on the TPNW’s adoption in 2017 and has refrained from voting on UN General Assembly resolutions relating to the treaty, it has made several recent moves in support of nuclear disarmament. On September 26, 2024, International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Kyrgyzstan proposed March 5 as International Day for Disarmament and Nonproliferation Awareness at a high-level United Nation plenary meeting and emphasized nuclear disarmament as an international priority. In October 2024, Kyrgyzstan continued to voice support for the elimination of nuclear weapons in the First Committee of the United Nations General assembly.
Kyrgyzstan would be the second state from the Collective Security Treaty Alliance (CSTO) to join the TPNW, following Kazakhstan in 2019. The CSTO is an intergovernmental military alliance between Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, and Russia.
Marshall Islands Signs Regional Nuclear Free Zone Treaty
The Marshall Islands became the 14th state to sign the South Pacific nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty, known as the Treaty of Rarotonga, on March 3. President Hilda Heine said, “We recognise that the Marshall Islands has yet to sign on to several key nuclear-related treaties, including the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), largely due to our unique historical and geopolitical circumstances.”
The United States assumed control of the Marshall Islands from Japan in 1944. In 1983, the Marshall Islands signed a Compact of Free Association with the United States and gained independence, effective in 1986. The Marshall Islands is free to conduct its own foreign relations but is still under the security and defense umbrella of the United States and “is obligated to refrain from taking actions that would be incompatible with these security and defense responsibilities.”
Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, Divavesi Waqa, underscored the significance of the signature, which came on Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day: “This step demonstrates the nation’s unwavering commitment to nuclear disarmament. The Republic of the Marshall Islands continues to bear the brunt of nuclear testing, and this signing is a testament to Forum nations' ongoing advocacy for a safe, secure, and nuclear-weapon-free region.”
The current member states of the Rarotonga treaty are Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
International Group of Eminent Persons Submit Recommendations for the 2026 NPT
On March 31, the International Group of Eminent Persons for a World Without Nuclear Weapons (IGEP) produced its consensus recommendations for the 2026 NPT Review Conference, fulfilling its mandate to identify a path towards a world without nuclear weapons in six rounds of meetings since 2022.
At a side event on the first day of the NPT third preparatory committee meeting on April 28, IGEP members George Perkovich, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Nobumasa Akiyama, Hitotsubashi University, presented the recommendations and facilitated open discussions with civil society and diplomats, including ambassadors from Costa Rica, France, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
Speaking at the side event, Takeshi Iwaya, foreign minister of Japan, emphasized that the outcome recommendations will serve as a guide to advance disarmament goals. Noting a worsening environment for advancing nuclear disarmament, the IGEP members “have set principles to be respected by each country and call for urgent actions under the three pillars: Prevent nuclear war, Stop the nuclear arms race and reduce proliferation risks, and Work towards a constructive 2026 NPT Review Conference,” said Iwaya.
Launched in 2022 at Japan’s initiative, the IGEP was composed of 15 experts from diverse nationalities and backgrounds including nuclear-weapons states and non-nuclear-weapon states.
NNSA to Prepare Pit Production Environment Impact Study
On May 9, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) issued a formal Notice of Intent to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) on its plan to expand production of plutonium pits. The plan would expand production to 30 pits per year at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and 50 pits at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The PEIS is a result of a U.S. district judge’s ruling in September 2024 that the NNSA violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to properly consider environmental impacts and analyze alternatives to its plutonium pit production plan. The plaintiffs in the case issued a press release on May 9, urging the public to engage in the now open commenting process.
Comments on the scope of the PEIS will be accepted until July 14, 2025. There will also be two virtual public meetings to gather feedback, scheduled for May 27 and May 28.
Disarmament Calendar:
- May 31: 29th Anniversary of Ukraine becoming a nuclear weapons-free state
- 23 June- 4 July: Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, 68th session
- June 24-25: NATO summit, The Hague
- June 12-13: Cross-Disciplinary Conference: Paths to Disarmament in Times of Nuclear Threat, in Uppsala University, Sweden
- June 12: Anniversary of 1982 NYC “Nuclear Freeze” Rally for Jobs, Peace, and Justice
- June 15-17: G7 Summit: Kananaskis, Alberta
- July 16: 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test
- Aug. 6 and 9: 80th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Aug. 29: International Day Against Nuclear Tests
In Case You Missed It:
“Doubling Down on a Strategic Blunder: Trump's Strategic Missile Defense Deception,” Daryl Kimball, Arms Control Now, May 20, 2025.
“Scientists Explain Why Trump's $175 Billion Golden Dome Is a Fantasy,” Matthew Gault, 404 Media, May 20, 2025.
“Nuclear weapons woes: Understaffed nuke agency hit by DOGE and safety worries,” Davis Winkie and Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY, May 18, 2025.
“Nuclear War Avoided Again. But What About Next Time?” The New York Times Editors, May 15, 2025.
“India-Pakistan Cease-Fire Cements a Dangerous Baseline,” by Sushant Singh, Foreign Policy, May 15, 2025.
“‘No More Hiroshimas,’ The Elders call for urgent nuclear dialogue as conflict risks rise,” May 14, 2025.
“Russian nuclear weapons, 2025,” by Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns and Mackenzie Knight, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 13, 2025.
“US loosens some rules for offensive counterspace ops, wargaming,” Theresa Hitchens, Breaking Defense, May 12, 2025.
“Joint Statement by the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation on Global Strategic Stability,” May 8, 2025.
“India and Pakistan: The nuclear standoff that we really should all be worried about,” by Ashis Ray, The Independent, May 7, 2025
“Sentinel ICBM program needs brand-new silos, Air Force says,” Audrey Decker, Defense One, May 5, 2025.
“Civil society presentations at the third preparatory meeting for the 2026 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference,” Reaching Critical Will, April 30, 2025.
“US nuclear force costs projected to soar to $946 billion through 2034, CBO says.” Reuters, April 30, 2025.
“Arms Control Is Not Dead Yet. America Should Pursue Parallel Nuclear Negotiations With China and Russia” by Rose Gottemoeller, Foreign Affairs, April 15, 2025.
“Trump signals interest in restarting talks with NK, calling it ‘big nuclear nation,’” by Kwak Yeon-soo, The Korea Times, April 1, 2025.