April 17, 2026
Delegations head to New York this month for a critical, month-long meeting to review implementation and compliance with the bedrock nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The conference will take place as nuclear dangers are on the rise, key treaties come under threat, and in the wake of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. These challenges, as well as disagreements that surfaced at the last review conference, held in 2022, will make it very challenging for states parties to produce a meaningful, consensus-based final outcome document.
One issue at the center of debate is the deficit of disarmament diplomacy and the risk of nuclear arms racing. China and France are expanding their nuclear stockpiles, and the United States and Russia are no longer constrained by legally binding limits on their larger arsenals. The Trump administration has also accused China of conducting a nuclear test explosion in 2020 and has threatened to resume U.S. nuclear testing on an “equal basis.” Since 2022, there has been little progress on preventing military attacks against nuclear facilities and bringing into force protocols to regional weapons-free zones that provide legally binding assurances against attacks by nuclear-armed states against nonnuclear weapon states.
“The NPT and the NPT review conference are not in a vacuum,” said conference president Do Hung Viet in a recent interview with Arms Control Today.
Amb. Viet, Vietnam’s ambassador to the United Nations, reaffirmed his support for an outcome document, cautioning that failure again to produce an agreement would “send an extremely negative signal to the international community.”
And “any outcome document will probably have to reaffirm the past commitments in order for it to be accepted by the vast majority of state-parties,” Viet said.
But even a simple reaffirmation of prior NPT commitments may be too much for the United States, warns Matthew Sharp in an article in Arms Control Today. Until last year, he served in the U.S. Department of State and was involved in efforts on multilateral nuclear affairs.
Because President Donald Trump has threatened to violate the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by resuming U.S. testing for the first time since 1992, U.S. diplomats may oppose any effort by other states to reaffirm the de facto global moratorium on testing, Sharp writes.
Diplomats who might argue for ignoring the hardline U.S. position and abandoning consensus “should first reflect on the value of an outcome if the first NPT vote in 50 years does not include the support of the United States, a treaty originator and depositary,” Sharp writes.
Other states, however, may not be in the mood to entertain U.S. obstinance. The European Union, for instance, previewed a strong position in support of the test ban, calling on “all States to abide by the existing moratorium on nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosion, and to refrain from any action contrary to the object and purpose” of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Statements by U.S. officials in March suggest the United States delegation will try to rally opposition to China’s nuclear build-up, which Washington argues is inconsistent with its NPT Article VI obligation to engage in good faith negotiations on disarmament. U.S. officials will also promote Trump’s new, but still vague, call for some form of multilateral nuclear arms control negotiations involving China and the four other recognized nuclear-armed states-parties to the NPT.
Meanwhile, China is pursuing new efforts in preparation for the Review Conference, including convening a number of delegations to a conference on multilateral arms control in Beijing on March 23-24. The list of invitees included the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, and the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitzu.
With multiple possible routes to failure and a narrow path to success – or at least the avoidance of a major diplomatic meltdown – diplomats will struggle to find a way through the 11th hour of the conference to indicate that their governments still value the NPT and the national leadership and global cooperation it requires to work. —Xiaodon Liang, Libby Flatoff
No Signs of Progress from “P5 Process” Dialogue
Following the Trump administration’s announcement that it will pursue a multilateral approach to developing a new arms control framework to succeed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired on Feb. 5, 2026, little news of diplomatic activity to implement the strategy has emerged.
Diplomatic sources tell ACA that a meeting of the five nuclear weapons states recognized by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (the “P5 Process”) took place last week in Casablanca, Morocco.
Our sources indicate that “P5” nations, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China, are unlikely to issue a joint statement at the upcoming nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference.
Nuclear Spending to Grow in Trump's $1.5 Trillion Military Budget Request
The White House released on April 3 a $1.5 trillion military budget request to Congress that calls for $1.1 trillion in spending through the regular bipartisan appropriations process and $350 billion through a partisan budget reconciliation bill.
The request for fiscal year 2027 includes proposed funding increases to several nuclear weapons programs, including $5.6 billion for the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, which is up from $5.1 billion appropriated by Congress last year; $15.5 billion for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, rising from $9.6 billion last year; and $6.1 billion for the B-21 bomber, which is down from the $10.1 billion in last year’s enacted total that included a one-off $4.5 billion for expansion of production capacity. The Long-range Standoff Weapon, the Air Force’s new nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missile, would have a $1.7 billion budget under the president’s plan, while upgrades to the B-52 strategic bomber would cost another $2 billion.
Although the Department of Defense released line-by-line programmatic budget requests along with the White House’s overall federal budget request, program budget justification documents will not be published until later in April.
Meanwhile, the Department of Energy has requested $27.4 billion for nuclear weapons activities at the National Nuclear Security Administration for fiscal year 2027, up from $24.2 billion provided by the appropriations process and reconciliation last year.
For more on the nuclear weapons budget, please read the next issue of Arms Control Today.
Catholic Church Clashes with Trump Administration Over Disarmament
The Catholic Church and the White House are caught in an escalating cycle of recriminations prompted by disagreements over the church’s advocacy of peace and disarmament in the midst of the U.S.-led war against Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump accused Pope Leo XIV of being “Weak on Nuclear Weapons” in an April 12 social media post, after the pontiff voiced disapproval over the war.
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the president continued, and “I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected […] to do.”
During his April 6 Easter Mass, Leo called for “those who have weapons [to] lay them down,” and stated his opposition to “a peace imposed by force, [not] through dialogue.”
In an April 10 social media post, the pontiff said his church’s followers should “never [be] on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
The public spat follows a Jan. 22 conversation behind closed doors between Vatican and senior Pentagon officials. First revealed by The Free Press, the meeting was attended by the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby and Cardinal Cristophe Pierre, the Vatican ambassador. In the report, an unidentified senior Pentagon official is quoted as saying that “America has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world [and]…The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
The Department of Defense confirmed the meeting, on X, but stated their officials “had a substantive, respectful, and professional meeting.”
Earlier this year, upon the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and Russia, Leo issued an urgent appeal “that everything possible be done to avert a new arms race that would further threaten peace among nations.”
In March, the pontiff highlighted disarmament and peace in a communal prayer video series, noting that leaders of all nations should “demand that everything possible be done to avert a new arms race that would further threaten peace among nations.”
Comment Period Opens on U.S. Plutonium Pit Production Plan
On April 10, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released its draft of a programmatic environmental impact statement for its plan for expanding plutonium pit production for nuclear warheads, inaugurating a public comment period that will last through July 16, 2026. The agency will hold five public consultations in May to brief the public on the draft and collect comments. The NNSA invites comment from state and local governments, public interest groups, businesses, and individual members of the public.
The agency was forced to conduct an environmental impact study for its two-site pit production plans following a lawsuit brought by local environmental and nuclear safety groups, alleging violations of the National Environmental Policy Act.
In September 2024, a judge agreed with plaintiffs that the NNSA had failed to conduct a proper analysis of alternatives. Until the ongoing study is completed, the NNSA is prohibited from installing or constructing certain equipment and facilities at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, where the agency plans to produce 50 plutonium pits per year.
France and Germany Establish High-Ranking Nuclear Steering Group
France and Germany released March 2 a joint declaration establishing a high-ranking nuclear steering group to deepen strategic cooperation.
The declaration states that both governments sought “to enter into closer cooperation in the field of deterrence in response to the evolving threat landscape.”
Joint cooperation will begin this year when Germany is due to provide conventional military support for French nuclear exercises and send a delegation to visit strategic sites. Both countries also agreed to increase their ability “to manage escalation beneath the nuclear threshold – in particular in the fields of Early Warning and Air Defence and Deep Precision Strike.”
Both countries stressed that this new cooperation does not substitute for NATO nuclear deterrence but rather “aims at strengthening the systems of collective security both countries belong to.”
France and Germany also reaffirmed their obligations under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is convening a Review Conference this year between April 27 and May 22.
The Franco-German declaration was released the same day French President Emmanuel Macron announced a new deterrent strategy that he called “forward deterrence,” during a trip to the Ile Longue operational base. France will also expand its nuclear stockpile, Macron said.
The new strategy involves new and expanded European cooperation in nuclear exercises, signaling beyond French borders, conventional participation of allies’ forces in French nuclear activities, and “the temporary deployment of elements of our [French] strategic air forces to allied countries.”
In justifying the new strategy, Macron cited increased threats to the European continent including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian development of new nuclear weapons, and the Chinese nuclear buildup.
“In the same way that our strategic submarines dilute naturally in the oceans, guaranteeing a permanent-strike capability, our strategic air forces will also be able to be spread deep into the European continent. This dispersal across European territory, a sort of archipelago of forces, will complicate the calculations of our adversaries and will make this forward deterrence very valuable to us,” Macron said.
Several countries have already agreed to further discussions with France on the forward deterrence model. These include: the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, and Denmark. France also held a March 11 bilateral meeting with the United States on deterrence, strategic stability, and non-proliferation.
Pentagon Reiterates “Human Control” Language
Trump administration officials earlier this year reaffirmed Department of Defense policies for maintaining human control over nuclear weapons in two statements.
Testifying before Congress on March 17, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Adm. Richard Correll, said his forces “remain committed to ensuring that these [artificial intelligence and machine learning] will not replace the human decision-making critical to advising and executing” presidential decisions.
In February, an unnamed senior Pentagon official told The Washington Post that it “remains the Department’s policy that there is a human in the loop on all decisions on whether to employ nuclear weapons.” This reiteration of a U.S. policy first explicitly endorsed by the Biden administration was buried in an article primarily covering the Pentagon’s efforts to blacklist artificial intelligence firm Anthropic.
Reflecting ongoing Congressional skepticism of the Pentagon’s commitment to these policies, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) introduced a bill March 17 proposing to codify a prohibition on the use of artificial intelligence for “the execution of launching or detonating a nuclear weapon.” S. 4113, the “AI Guardrails Act of 2026,” would also impose restrictions on lethal autonomous weapons systems and the use of artificial intelligence in mass surveillance, two issues at the center of a recent dispute between the Pentagon and the technology firm Anthropic.
On the Disarmament Calendar
April 5: Anniversary of U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech on nuclear arms control, Prague
April 27-May 22: The 2026 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, New York
May 31: 30th anniversary of Ukraine becoming a nuclear-weapons-free state
July 7: 9th anniversary of the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
July 16: 81st anniversary of the Trinity test
August 6 and 9: 81st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
In Case You Missed It
“Critical Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference Opens April 27,” Arms Control Association Media Advisory, April 16.
“P5 Perspectives on the 2026 NPT Review Conference,” European Leadership Network, Spring 2026.
“Roundtable: Emerging Technologies and the Future of Strategic Stability,” Sheena Chestnut Greitens et al., Texas National Security Review, Spring 2026.
“The U.S. and China Need to Talk About Unmanned Nukes: ‘Human-in-the-loop’ is Not Enough,” Robert Rust and Tianjiao Jiang, The Diplomat, April 14.
“Nuclear War Shouldn’t Come Down to Just One Person — Especially When it’s Trump,” Rep. Scott Peters, The Hill, April 6.
“How the Iran War Undermines the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” George Perkovich, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 2.
“As Arms Agreements Fray, China Secretly Expands its Nuclear Weapons Infrastructure,” Tamara Qiblawi et al., CNN, April 2.
“What Happened When They Installed ChatGPT on a Nuclear Supercomputer,” Joshua Keating, Vox, April 2.
“Global Counterspace Capabilities, 2026,” Victoria Samson and Kathleen Brett, Secure World Foundation, April 2026.
“Missile Cancer Study Finds Increased Rate of Two Cancers Based on More Data,” Matthew Cox, Air and Space Forces Magazine, March 30.
“If China Builds More Nukes, Do We Need More? Results from my new Verasight survey of U.S. citizens,” Paul Musgrave, Systemic Hatreds, March 27.
“The Misguided Quest for Nuclear Weapons in Nordic Countries,” Tytti Erästö, Vladislav Chernavskikh, and Vitaly Fedchenko, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 27.
“Strategy in the New Missile Age,” Erik Sand, Security Studies, March 19.
“Does Macron’s Nuclear Upgrade Mark the End of France’s ‘Strict Sufficiency’ Principle?” Astrid Chevreuil, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 13.
“Nuclear Handbook: United States Nuclear Weapons, 2026,” Hans Kristensen et al., Federation of American Scientists, March 12.
“AI in the Information Ecosystem and its Impact on Nuclear Escalation” Herbert Lin, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 12.
“Nuclear victims of Marshall Islands remembered almost 80 years on in Geneva,” World Council of Churches, March 11.
“War is Not The Way to Stop the Spread of Nuclear Weapons,” William Hartung, Forbes, March 2.
“Statement by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control and Nonproliferation,” Christopher Yeaw, Conference on Disarmament, Feb. 23.
“Jesse Jackson: The Nuclear Disarmament Candidate”, Vincent Intondi, Nuclear Times, Feb. 17.