Inside the Arms Control Association
October 2025
At this pivotal and difficult juncture in the history of the nuclear age, ACA has been focused on preventing the guardrails against nuclear catastrophe from breaking down, and preparing to seize the breakthrough moment when we can advance again in the direction of a world free of nuclear weapons.
One key guardrail that is going away is the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which will expire in some 100 days. In 2021 ACA successfully lobbied the Biden administration to extend New START for five years. The treaty cannot be formally extended again.
What if anything replaces New START is not clear.
What is clear: Without new constraints of some kind we are poised to see the first increase of the United States’ deployed nuclear arsenal in more than 35 years.
Recently we have seen some room for optimism, but we cannot rest easy.
On Sept. 22, Putin said, “Russia is ready to continue to adhere to the central quantitative restrictions under the New START Treaty for one year after February 5, 2026” if the United States does as well.
When asked by a reporter on Oct. 5 about the proposal, Trump said that “sounds like a good idea.”
It is a modest, commonsense concept ACA has been promoting for many months that could help reduce tensions, forestall a costly arms race that no one can win, create diplomatic leverage to curb the buildup of China’s arsenal, and buy time for talks on a broader, more durable, treaty.
Now, we need to make sure the two presidents follow through by formalizing the “freeze” and by directing their teams to restart negotiations on a follow-on agreement or agreements to further reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear systems. Even if they do, there will be strong pushback from the well-financed nuclear weapons lobby.
We’ve been preparing for this situation for quite some time.
For months, ACA has been in the forefront to develop a more focused, coordinated, joint civil society campaign to head-off a new nuclear buildup and get disarmament diplomacy back on track.
In July, we co-launched a multi-organizational call to action to “Halt and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race.” See: ReverseTheArmsRace.org for the text of the call and a growing list of endorsements to date. These efforts include a “week of action” from October 24 to October 31 to build demand and more visible political support for nuclear restraint. (See the action alert below.)
We’ve also been reaching out to audiences near and far to put the issue on the map.
Last month, ACA Board Chair Tom Countryman spoke at the Seattle World AffairsCouncil on Sept. 16 on “Navigating Global Nuclear Threats.”
Then on Sept. 25, we devoted a major segment of the Sept. 25 ACA Annual Meeting to the subject of “Off-Ramps from a Three-Way Nuclear Arms Race.”
Caption: Former Asst. Sec. of State, Mallory Stewart, Professor Steve Fetter, fmr. Deputy Assist. Sec. of Defense, Kingston Reif, and ACA Board Chair Tom Countryman on Sept. 25.
Our keynote speaker, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), urged president Trump to agree to Russia’s proposal to “adhere to the New START Treaty for one year beginning at its expiration date,” and pursue bilateral talks with Russia and separately with China on risk reduction and arms control.
We’ve also been briefing and mobilizing other states to publicly urge the United States and Russia to exercise nuclear restraint and all nuclear-armed states to do their part to halt a new nuclear arms race.
ACA and the U.S.-German-Russian Deep Cuts Commission project worked with the Austrian Mission in New York to convene a well-attended, side event Oct. 9 at the sidelines of the UN First Committee on Peace and Security.