"[Arms Control Today] has become indispensable! I think it is the combination of the critical period we are in and the quality of the product. I found myself reading the May issue from cover to cover."
Published Op-eds
March 28, 2023
Earlier this month, Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, traveled to Tehran amid growing concern over the proliferation risk posed by Iran’s expanding nuclear activities. In particular, the IAEA had recently detected uranium enriched to 84 percent in an Iranian nuclear site, at a time of heightened tensions due to the breakdown in multilateral talks on reviving the Iran nuclear deal.
During Grossi’s trip, Iran agreed to allow the IAEA to reestablish certain transparency measures at select nuclear sites. Iran had suspended IAEA access and…
March 24, 2023
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has inflicted much suffering, amplified international divisions, and made any attempt to build common security extremely difficult. Moscow’s war on Ukraine also hobbled several arms control and security agreements—including, now, the Vienna Document.
Hosted by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Vienna Document is a confidence- and security-building mechanism that allows participants to observe and notify each other about their military exercises and other relevant activities to prevent misinterpretation of each other’s…
March 10, 2023
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s recent detection of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels in Iran should send a strong message to the United States and Europe that it is necessary to ratchet up diplomatic efforts to reduce the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran. While the spike in enrichment did lead the agency to begin negotiations on additional transparency measures with Iran, these steps alone are insufficient to mitigate the growing proliferation threat and stabilize the current crisis. It is imperative that the United States look to build on the positive momentum…
March 1, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calamitous invasion of Ukraine has killed at least tens of thousands, displaced millions, and disrupted countless lives around the globe. Putin’s implied threats to use nuclear weapons against any who would interfere, have also raised fears of a nuclear conflict in ways not seen since the end of the cold war.
Now, Putin is backing away from the last remaining bilateral treaty capping Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals, the world’s two largest. The decision could open the door to an unconstrained, destabilizing and dangerous global arms race involving Russia…
December 1, 2022
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has committed over $22 billion in security assistance to Ukraine in less than a year. The United States and its allies have rushed to provide Ukraine with the capability to defend itself, retake its territory from Russian forces, and secure it. Entering the 10 month of a war of attrition, there is little to suggest that Russia will cease attacking Ukraine or that either side will seek a negotiated settlement in the near future. As a result, the Biden administration and allied governments will likely continue to…
November 17, 2022
Admittedly, expectations for the November 4 meeting between Presidents Biden of the United States and Xi of China were not particularly high, so no one should be surprised that little of real substance emerged from their encounter in Bali, Indonesia. Both leaders laid out their concerns about the other side’s behavior while promising to contain their mutual antagonisms at a level below that of armed conflict. They also agreed to increase high-level contacts—Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Beijing early next year as part of this process—and to resume formal talks over climate…
November 9, 2022
Securing a new US-Russian nuclear arms control arrangement that can supersede the current treaty has been an endeavor that has stood on shaky, fractured ground for years, with Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine earlier this year making the future for nuclear arms control and disarmament all the more uncertain. But there yet remains a sliver of opportunity for the two countries to agree to a new arms control framework that would help ensure that the possibility of an outbreak of nuclear war, whether intentional or inadvertent, is minimized.
In early 2021, US President Joe Biden and Russian…
October 16, 2022
Thanks to Vladimir Putin's recent implicit threat to employ nuclear weapons if the U.S. and its NATO allies continue to arm Ukraine — "This is not a bluff," he insisted on Sept. 21 — the perils in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict once again hit the headlines. And it's entirely possible, as ever more powerful U.S. weapons pour into Ukraine and Russian forces suffer yet more defeats, that the Russian president might indeed believe that the season for threats is ending and only the detonation of a nuclear weapon will convince the Western powers to back off. If so, the war in Ukraine could prove…
September 1, 2022
The clock is ticking down on the last remaining U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty, leaving open the possibility that the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals may soon be entirely unconstrained — a harrowing reality understood by most countries, which urge quick action.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), signed between the United States and Russia in 2010, is the only nuclear arms control treaty left standing after cracks in the arms control regime have emerged over the past few years. The treaty established a ceiling on the size of the U.S. and Russian strategic…
August 24, 2022
State Parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) finally met in New York at the Tenth Review Conference (RevCon) — and at a moment when the international strategic environment is more unsettled than usual. This RevCon’s goal is similar to others, where NPT signatories are tasked with producing a consensus document that reviews implementation and compliance, and establishes updated commitments, recommendations, and follow-up steps for actions to advance the goals and objectives of the treaty in the future.
But this is no ordinary RevCon. Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of…