Inside ACA
December 2025
There is no doubt that 2025 has been a brutally difficult year for international peace and security.
Nuclear dangers are on the rise. Nuclear weapons spending is way up. Key nuclear norms, and agreements designed to reduce nuclear dangers are in jeopardy. Leading states have failed to engage in commonsense arms control diplomacy. For the sake of future generations (and ours) we cannot allow the situation to deteriorate further in 2026.
You can count on ACA to continue to be on the front lines on some of the most important decisions and debates in 2026 – decisions that may alter the course of nuclear history for years to come. Among these are the following:
- In just 50 days, the last remaining bilateral U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty will expire. As of today, the White House has failed to respond to a Russian proposal to respect current treaty limits to create time to try to negotiate follow-on agreements. Without new commonsense limits, we can expect that nuclear weapons enthusiasts in the administration and Congress will seek to build up U.S. nuclear forces for the first time in 35 years. More nuclear weapons will not make any of us safer. ACA will be working to organize civil society pressure to halt and reverse a new nuclear arms race.
- President Trump has threatened to resume nuclear explosive testing “on an equal basis.” If he is allowed to follow through, this would set off a chain reaction of testing by other countries and blow apart the global nonproliferation system. ACA is at the forefront of the campaign to defend the global nuclear test moratorium and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
- Despite U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran still possesses the capability to produce bomb-grade nuclear material, and following the strikes, IAEA inspectors no longer have access to the most sensitive sites. Our team, led by nonproliferation policy director Kelsey Davenport, is working behind the scenes to develop and advance proposals to stabilize the situation and renew diplomacy to verifiably reduce Iran’s nuclear potential and head off further conflict in the region.
Over the course of the nuclear age, informed and persistent diplomacy and citizen pressure have successfully spurred action to slow and reverse the nuclear arms race, end nuclear testing, and prevent proliferation.
History never repeats itself, but sometimes it rhymes.
With your help, we can jumpstart disarmament diplomacy, convert public concern about nuclear threats into action, and provide the intellectual foundation for renewed progress toward the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.
But we need to scale-up our efforts if we are to prevent further damage and build for progress in 2026.
Since Nov. 1, many of you have responded to our call for additional support and we thank you. We are approaching our end-of-year goal, but we need everyone to pitch in to help meet the moment.
Please Make a Special Gift, Now
From our ACA family to yours, we wish you good health and happiness and a more peaceful world for all.
Onward,
Daryl G. Kimball
TAKE ACTION: 50 Days Until New START Expiration
December 17 marks 50 days until the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). It is the last major remaining bilateral, U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control agreement.
Unless Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin reach an interim deal to maintain existing limits, Russia and the United States could quickly increase the size of their deployed nuclear arsenals for the first time in more than 35 years by uploading additional warheads on existing long-range missiles.
We ask you to call your representatives and urge them to support a U.S.-Russian deal to continue to respect current New START limits after the treaty expires and use the time to negotiate a new framework deal to slash the massive Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals.
Cast Your Ballot for the 2025 “Arms Control Person(s) of the Year”
The 2025 election season is not quite over! Vote online by Jan. 12, 2026 for one of the outstanding nominees for “Arms Control Person of the Year.”
Since 2007, ACA has highlighted individuals and institutions that have, in tangible ways over the previous 12 months, advanced effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament solutions and/or raised awareness of the threats and the human impacts posed by mass casualty weapons.
Learn more about this year's nominees and vote online at ArmsControl.org/ACPOY/2025.
Follow the discussion on social media using the hashtag #ACPOY2025.
Defending the Global Moratorium on Nuclear Testing
Since President Trump’s sudden, but not surprising social media post threatening to break the 33-year moratorium on nuclear testing, ACA has been out front explaining why such a radical shift in U.S. policy would undermine U.S. and global security.
Within days of the announcement, ACA’s executive director was invited to join C-SPAN’s Washington Journal public affairs program to analyze Trump’s nuclear testing remarks.
On Nov. 21, we hosted a virtual briefing, “Renewed U.S. Nuclear Explosive Testing? Moving From Confounding Nuclear Testing Threats to a Constructive Test Ban Policy featuring Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.), who has introduced legislation to block the resumption of nuclear testing, former NNSA deputy administrator, Corey Hinderstein, and ACA’s Daryl Kimball, who has been campaigning for an end to nuclear testing for 35 years.
According to a Nov. 14 CNN report, neither Secretary of Energy Chris Wright nor administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Brandon Williams believe that a resumption of U.S. tests would be feasible nor is it necessary.
Since mid-November, however, there has been no clarification from the White House. A long-awaited National Defense Strategy has not yet been released, and the NNSA has not published its annual report on the weapons stockpile.
In Congress, Democratic legislators have introduced bills to block a resumption of U.S. testing in both houses.
The early international reaction to Trump’s Oct. 30 nuclear testing threat has been overwhelmingly negative. The day after Trump’s initial remarks, on Oct. 31, the United States was the sole country to vote “no” on a previously non-controversial UN First Committee resolution – offered annually – supporting the global moratorium on testing and the test ban treaty.
Thank you, Shizuka! Thank you, Lipi! Thank you, Naomi!
As the year ends, we say goodbye and thank you to three wonderful young colleagues for their tremendous contributions to the Arms Control Association and the cause.
Shizuka Kuramitsu, our former research assistant focusing on multilateral disarmament and nonproliferation issues, joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in October where we expect and hope she’ll continue to advance understanding and support for a nuclear weapons free world and bring back lessons from her work with U.S. civil society organizations to colleagues and partners in Japan.
This month, Lipi Shetty, our 2025 Herbert Scoville Peace Fellow, concluded her time with us, which was devoted to exploring the contemporary impacts of nuclear weapons production activities on the environment and on populations downwind and downstream. Among her contributions was our comments for the Department of Energy’s Programmatic Environmental Statement on its plan for expanded plutonium pit production.
We also thank Naomi Satoh, our Fall 2025 nuclear policy intern for her contributions to ACA work all the while she has been engaged in graduate studies at the University of Maryland studying Public Policy, with a specialization in International Security and Science/Technology Policy. [either all caps or not]
Need a Last-Minute Gift? Consider Arms Control Today!
Go Deeper: New Research, Analysis, and Updates
Policy White Paper: “The CTBT, the Global Nuclear Test Moratorium, and New U.S. Threats to Break the Norm,” by Daryl Kimball, December 11, 2025.
ACA’s latest Nuclear Disarmament Monitor: “China Signals Continuity in Nuclear Policy Paper [and more],” December 11, 2025.
ArmsControlNow blogpost: “Regulatory Gaps in Benchtop Nucleic Acid Synthesis Create Biosecurity Vulnerabilities,” by Lena Kroepke, ACA research intern, Nov. 24, 2025
Issue Brief: “Rebuttals to Common Arguments for Deploying More U.S. Strategic Warheads,” October 29, 2025, by Xiaodon Liang.
In the News*
“Russia says it awaits an answer from the US on New START as nuclear treaty ticks down,” Reuters, December 10. Cites the lead article in the December issue of Arms Control Today.
“Russia and the US threatened to resume nuclear testing after several decades. Here is why it matters,” Associated Press, December 2. Cites ACA’s Daryl Kimball saying that a resumption of U.S. atomic tests would “open the door for states with less nuclear testing experience to conduct full-scale tests that could help them perfect smaller, lighter warhead designs. This would “decrease U.S. and international security,” he said.
“The Forgotten Nuclear Weapon Tests That Trump May Seek to Revive,” The New York Times, November 24. Includes concluding comment from ACA’s Daryl Kimball: Such explosions, he argued, “would set off a dangerous chain reaction” of tests by other countries that could severely damage “U.S. and international security.”
“The Two-Front Nuclear Challenge: Iran, North Korea, and a New Era of U.S. Deterrence,” The Cipher Brief, November 19. Quotes ACA’s Kelsey Davenport.
“Donald Trump stirs global alarm with pledge to restart nuclear testing,” The Financial Times, October 31.
“Trump's push to resume nuclear testing 'immediately' is unrealistic and could backfire, experts say,” NBC News, Oct. 31.
“Putin sends chilling WW3 threat with 'Flying Chernobyl' nuke - 'It's unstoppable,'” The Telegraph (UK), October 26. Quotes ACA’s Tom Countryman calling the weapon a “uniquely stupid weapons system” that poses as much of a threat to Russia as other countries.
“Here's what experts say 'A House of Dynamite' gets wrong (and right) about nuclear war,” October 24, 2025 on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday. Quotes ACA Board Member Matthew Bunn and ACA’s Daryl Kimball.
*Note: In first 36 hours after Trump's Oct. 30 nuclear testing announcement, our team conducted interviews and briefed more than 35 other news outlets, including The Washington Post, BBC, CBS Evening News, MSNBC, The New York Times, Reuters, the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Izvestia, TASS, Politico, and more.