October 2026
By Daryl G. Kimball

In previous decades, the leaders of the largest nuclear superpowers often engaged in serious negotiations about nuclear arms control and disarmament. Presidential summits—such as the Oct. 11-12, 1986, encounter in Reykjavik, which was held amid enormous geopolitical tension and public demand for disarmament—catalyzed high-level negotiations that produced treaties mandating massive cuts in strategic arsenals and the elimination of intermediate-range missiles.

Forty years later, the nuclear sword of Damocles still hangs over all of us. The threat has become more complex, and in the absence of new arms control breakthroughs, we are headed for an unprecedented three-way buildup of Chinese, Russian, and U.S. nuclear forces.

Nevertheless, there are currently no high-level discussions among the major nuclear powers on reducing the nuclear threat, let alone on achieving nuclear zero, as U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev considered.

To his credit, U.S. President Donald Trump has, from time to time, talked of his concern about the nuclear threat and his desire for fewer nuclear weapons. But saying something and doing it are not the same.

By all indications, Trump’s Sept. 24 summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping was another missed opportunity. The White House said the U.S. leader “advocated for trilateral arms control negotiations between the U.S., Russia, and China,” but there was no corresponding mention in the Chinese readout of the meeting. Beijing has repeatedly rejected a trilateral approach since Trump first proposed it in 2019. Instead, Beijing has proposed that nuclear-armed states negotiate a no-first-use agreement among them to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in August 2025 was another blown opportunity. With the last bilateral nuclear arms control treaty about to expire, the two were scheduled to discuss arms control but the meeting was cut short before they reached that agenda item. Weeks later, Putin proposed that the two sides continue respecting the central limits of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty after it expired to provide time for talks on a follow-on deal. Trump failed to respond to the Russian offer.

Instead, when the treaty expired in February 2026, Trump’s national security team called for a new era of “multilateral” risk reduction talks that also involves China, which is increasing its strategic arsenal to ensure it retains its nuclear retaliatory potential.

Complicating the equation, China, Russia, and the United States are pursuing new nuclear capabilities for potential use in a regional war. The Pentagon is developing new strategic missile interceptors that would make reductions in offensive weapons more difficult. U.S. officials also allege that China conducted a prohibited nuclear test in 2020. In response, Trump has threatened to resume nuclear testing “on an equal basis.” None of these developments breed trust, but they do necessitate more, not less dialogue.

U.S. State Department officials say they have been quietly holding mid-level talks on Chinese nuclear force levels and nuclear testing, aimed at nuclear risk reduction and transparency, on the sidelines of the P5 process dialogue on nuclear matters. The next meeting is set for this month in New York.

Such discussions can be very useful if they are approached as opportunities to bridge differences, not to score points. Undoubtedly, China and Russia should do more to advance global nuclear disarmament negotiations. All five nuclear-armed members of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) are obligated to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.”

But, as the Reykjavik summit reminds us, without a bolder, more balanced, clearer U.S. strategy, progress on nuclear risk reduction and disarmament will be incremental at best.

One win-win goal for the nuclear five should be to reaffirm their commitment to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and agree on new voluntary technical measures to ensure no state is conducting clandestine low-yield nuclear explosions. They could also begin negotiations on a binding declaration on maintaining effective human control over nuclear use and operational best practices to mitigate the risks of AI integration in nuclear and military systems.

To jump-start serious disarmament diplomacy, even more ambitious concepts should be pursued. For instance, all five NPT nuclear-armed states could agree to indefinitely freeze deployment of additional strategic launchers. As of now, Russia and the United States each have fewer than 800 total strategic launchers; China has an estimated 550; and France and the United Kingdom have a combined total of about 96.

A freeze at these levels would not affect any country’s ability to deter nuclear attack (and inflict catastrophic harm), could be confidently verified through national means of intelligence, would reduce tensions, and would create a better environment for arms reduction talks.

Reykjavik shows that significant disarmament progress is achievable with the right preparation, sustained presidential leadership, and bold ideas that can produce significant results. In the face of today’s nuclear dangers, ordinary people and government leaders the world over need to demand more from the men who lead the world’s nuclear-armed states.

October 2026
By Oliver Meier

Member states of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at the 2026 NPT Review Conference failed to agree on steps to strengthen the treaty, putting the entire review process—and potentially also the treaty itself—in crisis mode. The visible disagreement over how to address Iranian noncompliance with its nuclear safeguards obligations and the Israeli-U.S. military attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities ostensibly prevented agreement on a final conference outcome document.¹ But the dispute masked deeper structural problems that have plagued the treaty, cornerstone of the international nonproliferation regime, for years. States-parties need to address these problems if they want to reverse the NPT’s slow but steady slide into irrelevance.

Admittedly, the outcome could have been worse. Ahead of the review conference, some observers feared that Iran might withdraw from the treaty.² Others worried that North Korea could steal the meeting spotlight by conducting a nuclear test. When, at the beginning of the conference, the United States objected to Iran being assigned as one of 25 largely ceremonial vice president posts, many participants were concerned that the maneuver would delay or derail the proceedings.³

In the end, no such drama took place during the four-week-long conference, which ran April 27-May 22. U.S. opposition to Iran holding a post overseeing the review conference proceedings was overcome. Other states-parties pledged their support for the treaty.⁴ In the final plenary session, all delegations regretted the impasse over the draft outcome document and approved a continuation of the review process, with three preparatory committee meetings scheduled in the lead up to the 2031 review conference.⁵

In his closing remarks, conference president Do Hung Viet, of Vietnam, captured the prevailing mood well: “It may not have been enough, but it was not nothing.”⁶ Yet, the failure of the third consecutive review conference to agree on any substantive outcome document accelerates the treaty’s downward trend since at least 2010, when states-parties last agreed on steps to strengthen the NPT.

States-parties and the broader NPT community, including civil society, the private sector, and other stakeholders, must do things differently in the next review cycle. They should build on best practices from previous meetings of states-parties, use initiatives on the sidelines of NPT meetings to inject new energy into diplomatic processes and build support structures that are able to address current issues and underlying problems consistently.

Over the next five years, the world is likely to face new proliferation crises, further nuclear buildups, possible renewed nuclear testing and maybe withdrawals from the treaty. The NPT is the best place for the international community to come together to address these issues politically. Yet, business as usual will be insufficient to deal with these challenges.

The NPT’s Structural Crisis

The review conference laid bare three worrisome, related, and mutually reinforcing problems around the nonproliferation regime, namely the prevalence of spoilers, the lack of political leadership, and the drag of outmoded procedures. If left unaddressed, these issues will intensify questions about whether a critical number of states will continue to see the NPT as the bedrock framework for effectively governing nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

The first worrying trend that surfaced at the 2026 review conference in New York was the increased willingness of some countries to single-handedly stand in the way of compromise. Obstructionists in the past have occasionally prevented agreement, but these days, the problem has become endemic, with more states apparently less concerned about being isolated.

In 2015, the United States, along with Canada and the United Kingdom, let the review conference fail over the issue of holding a conference on the establishment of a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone that would have addressed Israel’s status as a nuclear-armed state outside the NPT and as a U.S. protégé.⁷ At the 2022 review conference, Russia was the sole state objecting to the adoption of the draft final document that would have taken note of its war on Ukraine, including attacks on nuclear facilities.⁸ In 2026, the conference president shied away from putting the final draft up for adoption because neither Iran nor the United States was willing to back down over how to address Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. and Israeli attacks on it.⁹ Viet was sure that either Tehran or Washington would object no matter how he altered the draft and did not want to put either country on the spot. Thus, at the last three review conferences, nuclear-weapon states put their own interests in avoiding censure above the goal of having a good review conference outcome.¹⁰

Obstructionism is not limited to high-profile review conferences, however. At the 2023 NPT preparatory committee meeting, China successfully slow-walked—and thus prevented agreement on—a much-needed reform of NPT procedures, including those that would have ensured better transparency and accountability by nuclear-weapon states. China even objected to an informal reading of the proposed procedures into the meeting record.¹¹

All of this demonstrates that nuclear-weapon states are now among the worst spoilers. Russia and the United States are particularly robust in single-handedly preventing consensus and can seemingly withstand pressures others cannot. The fact that they are among the five NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon states (along with China, France, and the UK) that wield veto power, and thus can prevent any censure in the UN Security Council, partly explains the challenge and the brazenness of the behavior.

The problem is broader than Russia and the United States preventing criticism of their regional wars and hegemonic ambitions, including their attacks on nuclear facilities, however. All nuclear-weapon states have in recent years resisted binding and more specific disarmament commitments. At the 2026 review conference, “There were nuclear-weapon states that did not want to implement past commitments or even reiterate and reconfirm them,” Viet noted after the meeting.¹² Although the high-profile dispute over Iran was the center of attention, other issues lurked in the background. Viet specifically mentioned that nuclear-weapon states were “not ready to make progress on disarmament,” even if the Iran stalemate had been resolved.¹³

It is not surprising then that the New Agenda Coalition (NAC), a disarmament-minded group comprised of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand and South Africa, in its final statement explicitly noted that “the NAC does not consider disarmament language of the draft 2026 outcome document … as a new baseline or ‘new normal.’”¹⁴ All of this makes it much harder to use the tentative convergence around some issues in the draft final document as a reference for future NPT discussions.

A related challenge is the lack of leadership within the NPT. Success at multilateral conferences is facilitated if capable states are willing to invest in consensus-building, which can be politically costly and tedious. For good or bad, in the NPT context, this role of shepherding 191 states-parties to agreement usually fell to the United States, although occasionally others, including the European Union or the New Agenda Coalition, have offered positions that attracted widespread support and served as catalysts for agreement.¹⁵

Things have changed dramatically. The 2026 review conference was the first with the Trump administration representing the United States. The shift in behavior was predictable. Ahead of the conference, former U.S. diplomat Matthew Sharp warned that at the 2025 meeting of the UN General Assembly’s First Committee, which deals with disarmament affairs, Washington had already made clear “its comfort with diplomatic isolation.”¹⁶ Thomas Countryman, a former top U.S. State Department official on arms control, had cautioned that “the U.S. administration’s ideological approach to, well, almost everything, portends new battles at the RevCon over topics that have previously been considered settled, and even non-controversial.”¹⁷

At the review conference itself, some participants found the U.S. delegation surprisingly amenable. Yet, it all came crushing down in the final session, when John Zadrozny of the U.S. delegation delivered a blistering speech and ominously warned that “we may have witnessed the end of the relevancy of the review conference process.”¹⁸

Russia, Iran, and others also appeared unwilling to work toward meaningful compromises, but the U.S. turn from the NPT—and multilateralism—is a particular problem because the United States is one of the two largest nuclear-weapon states and because no other state or group of states has been able and willing to fill the leadership vacuum that the Trump administration created.

Many states-parties are afraid of supporting middle-ground initiatives simply because they might anger the Trump administration. This was noticeable, for example, in the number of countries signing on to the 2026 “joint statement on integrating gender perspectives in the NPT review cycle.”¹⁹ A similar statement at the 2022 review conference was supported by the United States and many allies, including Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Romania, and South Korea.²⁰ None of these countries signed on at 2026 conference, after the United States in January justified its withdrawal from 66 international organizations citing their alleged “gender equity” campaigns.²¹

The problem of pre-emptive acquiescence to positions of populist leadership is not limited to U.S. allies. Some observers have noted how China used the Non-Aligned Movement to shield itself from criticism.²² It is likely to further diminish the relevance of the NPT review process if important norm entrepreneurs are perceived as acting as mere agents of powerful states and not engaging honestly on the basis of their own preferences and interests.²³

Finally, dysfunctional procedures complicate the process of agreeing on a good outcome at NPT meetings. Russia and the United States, in particular, have turned diplomatic practices to their own advantage. They abuse the consensus rule, which was created as a safeguard for smaller states to avoid being overruled or pressured, and use it as a tool to prevent any agreement they dislike. In this way, Russia in 2022 avoided being called out for its attacks on Ukrainian nuclear facilities and the United States in 2026 countered criticisms of its attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities by pointing the finger at Iran.

The misuse of the consensus principle goes hand-in-hand with a tendency toward cherry picking—that is, trying to force progress on a favorite topic while ignoring issues of importance to others. Once upon a time, the understanding that “nothing is agreed until everything agreed” was a way to get closer to consensus. It created opportunities and pressures for trade-offs among issues under the NPT’s three pillars: disarmament, nonproliferation, and cooperation on peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Now, some states have turned linkages into a tool to prevent overall agreement. The give-and-take attitude that is necessary to keep multilateralism alive has given way to a “what’s-in-it-for-us” attitude, undermining the grand bargain that has underpinned the NPT.

These three structural problems cause a cascade of other, related issues, including a reduction of political and media attention. Six countries were represented at the 2026 review conference at the minister level or higher. That is less than half of the high-level representation at the conference in 2022. When Viet and Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN high representative for disarmament affairs, gave a press conference at UN headquarters on the final night of the 2026 conference, the vast majority of journalists came from Japan. International reporting on the conference was sparse and, according to many longtime NPT watchers, has been in decline for many years.

A New Way Forward

Going into the next review cycle, the question is what can be done differently to achieve better results at the next review conference in 2031. There are no easy answers because most responsibility for the lack of progress rests with the three largest nuclear-weapon states: China, Russia, and the United States. Locked in competition and governed by nationalists, they are no longer willing to address nuclear dangers through multilateral instruments, such as the NPT. Instead, they misuse their privileged position as nuclear-weapon states to advance their regional hegemonic ambitions in Ukraine, the Middle East, and East Asia. As a result, states-parties and civil society working toward a better review process and stronger NPT should prepare to focus on three different settings: inside the review process, on the sidelines of NPT meetings, and outside of NPT diplomacy.

Those interested in tackling proliferation challenges and advancing nuclear disarmament through diplomacy will have to assume that for the time being they have to work around Beijing, Moscow, and Washington in the next review cycle. The nationalist ideology and hegemonic policies of U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are incompatible with the international law-based approach to disarmament and nonproliferation embodied in the NPT. China’s nuclear build-up and its resistance to more transparency and accountability also remain stumbling blocks for progress on disarmament.

NPT states-parties, therefore, must be prepared to seek solutions and outcomes at NPT meetings that circumvent populist opposition to consensus outcome, even, or maybe particularly, if such resistance is coming from the three main nuclear-weapon states.

Given the recalcitrance of some states, conference chairs may want to consider voting to get to an outcome. The rules of procedure do provide for votes on procedural and, with a 48-hour cooling off period, substantive matters. Although review conferences have never used voting to adopt decisions, NPT participants in recent years have given greater consideration to voting, including conference presidents.²⁴

The president of the 2022 review conference, Gustavo Zlauvinen, said that he was “tempted” to put the final document up for a vote for adoption when it became clear that Russia would object to a consensus outcome.²⁵ Viet also acknowledged that “there were questions” directed at him “about why not put the [2026] draft outcome document out there for one country to break the consensus, or even put it up for a vote.” Although Viet argued that “to maintain the principle of consensus is paramount,” he said that he “floated the idea to states-parties that if they came to me with a proposal about a separate decision, I could certainly facilitate a discussion about that.”²⁶

Yet, dividing a final document into separate elements and putting them up for adoption separately, possibly by voting, is a risky proposition. It could play into the hands of those who want to divide the three pillars on which the treaty rests and focus on their favorite parts only. The nuclear-weapon states, in particular, have been trying to reinterpret the NPT and downplay their disarmament commitments. In his closing statement at the 2026 conference, Zadrozny of the U.S. delegation bluntly argued that the NPT “is called the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, not the nuclear disarmament treaty;”²⁷ other nuclear-weapon states share that sentiment.

Once broken, it may be difficult to re-establish the holistic approach to nuclear issues that the NPT has so successfully embodied over the last 66 years. As Nakamitsu warned after this year’s conference, “It is simply wrong for nuclear-weapon states to assume that nonproliferation obligations will be adhered to without nuclear-weapon states’ commitment to and implementation of disarmament commitments under [the NPT] Article VI.”²⁸

Importantly, the 2026 review conference offered glimmers of hope that nonproliferation diplomacy can be made livelier and more interesting. This was largely due to the conference president’s way of chairing the meeting. Viet’s decision to strictly enforce speaking time limits and table the opening draft of the outcome text at an earlier point in the process were procedural changes that many observers felt brought fresh air into stuffy procedures and created more space for actual discussions and negotiations.

Yet, some innovations also had downsides. Thus, the attempt to improve inclusivity by having more discussions in plenary sessions and fewer in exclusive, behind-closed-door talks in small groups came at the price of a largely unstructured endgame. Some delegations apparently felt that they did not have sufficient skin in the game because they had not been able to implant their pet topics in the draft outcome document, which in the past often has happened in small group discussions. Future chairs of NPT meetings will have to carefully review the track record of such changes and weigh the pros and cons of more inclusivity.

Injecting New Energy from the Sidelines

States-parties should also be more creative in using the space around regular NPT meetings. The trend of using such meetings as forums, where ideas are presented and agendas shaped, rather than specific steps agreed to tackle nuclear risks and advance nuclear disarmament, is regrettable. It undermines the importance of multilateral diplomacy.

Yet, if that pattern is inevitable, the drift toward more informality may also offer opportunities: Governments and other stakeholders can be more creative in using NPT meetings to present their ideas and engage in open formats. Many conference participants found the input from nongovernmental organizations and business representatives during side events relevant and interesting because they had more liberty to address problems directly, offer new perspectives, and propose novel solutions.

“Minilateral” groupings, a subset of countries that is committed to making progress on a specific problem or set of problems through multilateral institutions, can help address the problem of the lack of political leadership.²⁹ Such groups have been load-bearers of the substantive NPT agenda for some time. Some take forward the collective views of groups of states that are like-minded on a specific issue. Others, such as the European Union, have been important catalysts of consensus by clustering divergent views and providing a microcosm of positions held among the wider NPT membership.

The important work by the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative on transparency or the new group on Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Conflict about ways to avoid accidental or unintentional nuclear weapons use have advanced discussions on current problems by putting forward specific proposals. The New Agenda Coalition has promoted nuclear disarmament in ways that connect to broader debates.

Over time, certain initiatives, including some initially carried by the United States, have gone out of fashion. The cross-regional Stockholm Initiative, created to give life to a step-by-step approach on nuclear disarmament, has fallen into disrepair. But in this current review cycle, the role of minilateral formats in clustering views, connecting different states, and pushing issues, is likely to grow. Their ability to keep debates alive between NPT meetings and to involve civil society, states-parties, and other stakeholders can at least help to fill the leadership gap. These groups may want to consider ways of better deconflicting and coordinating their work.

Establishing an NPT Support Structure

Finally, the NPT needs support structures outside of formal NPT diplomatic processes. Given the deadlock at the past three review conferences, Nakamitsu emphasized that future work to strengthen the treaty should use “all avenues inside and outside of NPT processes.”³⁰ She mentioned the first review conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, set for November 30-December 4, and the First Committee as examples of such processes where progress can be made, even without the consent of nuclear-weapon states.

In addition, a civil society group of eminent NPT experts that can react to nuclear crises, support NPT diplomacy, and drive issues forward could help to support NPT disarmament and nonproliferation goals. The next five years are likely to be stormy for the treaty. China, Russia, and the United States have been taking steps to resume testing, should one of the others go first. Threats of withdrawal from the treaty are lingering and proliferation pressures are building, including among countries that traditionally have supported the NPT. Regional wars, including those against Ukraine and in the Middle East, are taking place under the shadow of nuclear threats. Cooperation on peaceful uses of nuclear energy has become a geopolitical battleground, rather than a shared endeavor, as intended.

A group of senior experts, from different regions, could help build political support for tackling such challenges through the NPT and associated institutions.³¹ They could develop practical ideas for key middle powers to take forward within the NPT structure and build consistent support over time.

With the next NPT preparatory committee scheduled to take place in 2028, the temptation for governments to move on to other issues will be great, but this would be a mistake. Multilateral structures need constant tending. Nakamitsu warned that “we are really on a trajectory toward a very dangerous path” when it comes to nuclear weapons.³² The time to tackle the nonproliferation regime’s problems is now, even if the resumption of formal NPT diplomacy still seems far away.

ENDNOTES

1. Libby Flatoff, and Daryl G. Kimball, “2026 NPT Review Conference Stymied by Disputes,” Arms Control Today, June 2026.

2. Adam Scheinman and Mark Goodman, “How to salvage the NPT Review Conference,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 27, 2026.

3. David Brunnstrom, “US, Iran clash at UN after Tehran gets nuclear non-proliferation role,” Reuters, April 27, 2026.

4. Different perspectives on the outcome of the review conference can be found in “Experts Assess NPT Review Conference,” Arms Control Today, June 2026; and “ELN reflections: 2026 NPT Review Conference,” European Leadership Network, May 13, 2026.

5. The meetings will take place in 2028 in Vienna, in 2029 in Geneva and in 2030 in New York. See “Decision on the next Review Cycle,” 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT/CONF.2026/DEC.2., 2026.

6. United Nations, “(17th Meeting) Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, UN Web TV, May 22, 2026.

7. Daryl Kimball and Kingston Reif, “NPT Conference Fails to Reach Consensus,” Arms Control Today, June 2015.

8. Gabriela Rosa Hernandez and Daryl Kimball, “Russia Blocks NPT Conference Consensus Over Ukraine,” Arms Control Today, September 2022.

9. “Implementation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons for Its Twelfth Review Cycle,” 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT/CONF.2026/CRP.4, May 21, 2026.

10. Mark Goodman, “The 11th NPT Review Conference ends with a whimper,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 27, 2026.

11. William C. Potter, “Behind the Scenes: How Not to Negotiate an Enhanced NPT Review Process,” Arms Control Today, October 2023.

12. Ways to address attacks on civilian nuclear facilities was the other issue where “brackets were not visible,” as Viet noted after the conference had closed. See “NPT Review Conference Fails to Reach Agreement for Third Consecutive Time - Press Conference,” United Nations on YouTube, May 22, 2026.

13. Ibid.

14. “New Agenda Coalition (NAC) Closing Meeting Statement,” New Agenda Coalition, May 22, 2026.

15. Matthew Sharp, “The U.S. Has Been Central to the NPT Since the Beginning. What Will It Do in 2026?” Arms Control Today, April 2026.

16. Ibid.

17. Thomas Countryman, “P5 perspectives on the 2026 NPT Review Conference: United States,” European Leadership Network, March 27, 2026.

18. UN Web TV final session video recording on May 22, 2026.

19. “Joint Statement on Integrating Gender Perspectives in the NPT Review Cycle,” Government of Canada, April 29, 2026.

20. “Joint Statement on Gender, Diversity and Inclusion at the 10th NPT Review Conference,” Government of Canada, August 4, 2022.

21. Marco Rubio, “Withdrawal from Wasteful, Ineffective, or Harmful International Organizations,” U.S. Department of State, January 7, 2026.

22. Diya Ashtakala, “How China uses the Non-Aligned Movement to avoid nuclear accountability,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 8, 2026.

23. On the concept of norm entrepreneurs in the NPT, see Harald Müller and Carmen Wunderlich, “Not lost in contestation: How norm entrepreneurs frame norm development in the nuclear nonproliferation regime,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 39, No. 3 (2018), pp. 341-366.

24. Adedeji Ebo and Katherine Prizeman, “Revisiting consensus in multilateral disarmament negotiations: Trends, challenges and the way forward,” UN Office for Disarmament Affairs Occasional Papers, No. 47 (February 2026).

25. Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung conversation with Gustavo Zlauvinen, “Webinar: The NPT Review Conference,” Multilateraler Dialog KAS on YouTube, September 8, 2022.

26. European Leadership Network, “ELN Webinar: Three strikes and we’re out? What’s next for the NPT Review Process?” European Leadership Network (ELN) on YouTube, August 25, 2026.

27. UN Web TV final session video recording on May 22, 2026.

28. “NPT Review Conference Fails to Reach Agreement for Third Consecutive Time.”

29. On the role of minilateral formats in the NPT see for example Megan Dee, “Minilateralism and effective multilateralism in the global nuclear order,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 45, No. 3 (2024), pp. 494-524.

30. NPT Review Conference Fails to Reach Agreement for Third Consecutive Time.

31. In the 1990s, the Programme for Promoting Nuclear Nonproliferation played a similar role around the 1995 review and extension conference. See Michal Onderco, “The Programme for Promoting Nuclear Non-Proliferation and the NPT Extension,” The International History Review, Vol. 42, No. 4 (2020), pp. 851-868.

32. “NPT Review Conference Fails to Reach Agreement for Third Consecutive Time.”

October 2026
By Julia Elizabeth Rodríguez Acosta

By the time states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty gathered in New York for the 2026 NPT Review Conference in April and May, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies had become increasingly prominent in discussions about the future of the nuclear order. States raised concerns about AI in the areas of nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3); nuclear decision-making; strategic stability; and human control, as well as possible applications in risk reduction, verification, safeguards, and peaceful uses.¹

Yet the draft final document that came closest to consensus did not explicitly address the nexus between AI and nuclear weapons.² This contrasted with the growing attention devoted to AI throughout the eleventh review cycle, which covered 2022 to 2026, that led up to the conference. This progression in the debate illustrates a broader challenge: Technologies such as AI, cyber capabilities, quantum technologies, autonomous systems, and developments in the space domain increasingly intersect with the NPT’s three pillars of nonproliferation, disarmament, and peaceful use of nuclear energy. Yet, states-parties do not necessarily agree on their risks and opportunities, the concepts that should guide their governance, or the extent to which the NPT should address them.

This article traces the treatment of AI and other emerging technologies from the 2022 review conference through the three preparatory committee processes and the 2026 review conference. It examines how AI entered the NPT debate, why growing attention did not translate into explicit AI language in the final 2026 draft document, and the options and necessity for creating a more structured discussion of technological change within future review cycles.

The Road to a More Structured Debate

At the 2022 NPT Review Conference, AI was not yet a prominent issue, although some states and working papers produced for the conference began drawing attention to AI, machine learning, and other technological developments in connection with nuclear risks.³ These references were limited but they anticipated a discussion that became progressively more visible in 2024.

At the first NPT preparatory committee meeting in Vienna in 2023, Bangladesh and Kazakhstan explicitly raised AI and emerging technologies as topics of interest. Working papers also addressed technological change through nuclear risk and strategic stability, while France, the United Kingdom, and the United States emphasized maintaining human control and involvement in decisions concerning the employment of nuclear weapons. The conference chair’s reflection referred to the potential impact of emerging and disruptive technologies on the risk of nuclear weapon use.⁴ Emerging technologies had entered the NPT conversation, but not yet as a prominent or structured area of discussion.

A clearer shift occurred at the second preparatory committee in Geneva in 2024. States from different regions, groups of states, and observers raised the issues of AI, cyberspace, space technologies, and other technological developments. The predominant framing remained one of risk, particularly the potential consequences of integrating AI into the nuclear domain and NC3 systems. The New Agenda Coalition (involving Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, and South Africa) identified developments in AI, cyberspace, and outer space among the factors that could increase nuclear risk, while the chair encouraged consideration of developments in science and technology and later reflected calls to mitigate risks associated with AI and offensive cyber capabilities.⁵ Discussions also began to connect technological change with peaceful nuclear applications, suggesting a broader risk and opportunity debate.

By the third preparatory committee meeting in New York in 2025, the discussion had become substantially more developed. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the African Group, states-parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), and individual states addressed AI integration into nuclear weapons, NC3, and the importance of human control. The debate also expanded beyond AI, as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons highlighted dual-use technologies including AI, synthetic biology, and three-dimensional printing.⁶

At the same time, states increasingly considered the possible benefits of emerging technologies for risk reduction, arms control, verification, and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. A Stockholm Initiative working paper offered one of the most comprehensive treatments of this dual character of positive and negative aspects and recommended further NPT dialogue on the issue.⁷ Negotiations over preparatory committee recommendations nevertheless revealed differences over terminology, including formulations such as “meaningful human control” and whether AI should be framed primarily as a source of risk or also as an opportunity. The chair’s final working paper recognized risks as well as opportunities and reaffirmed the importance of human control but did not mention AI by name.⁸ By the end of the preparatory process, the question was no longer whether emerging technologies were relevant to the NPT, but how they should be characterized and addressed.

A Broader Multilateral Debate

The NPT discussion did not evolve in isolation. Elsewhere in the UN disarmament machinery, AI and nuclear weapons were receiving increasingly specific attention. In 2024, the UN Disarmament Commission began a three-year cycle with a working group mandated to consider common understandings related to emerging technologies in international security. Its discussions addressed a broad range of technological developments, whereas a secretary-general report, which was considered by the commission, examined AI and its potential implications for nuclear command and control and early-warning systems. The 2025 chair’s summary of the working group also reflected discussions on human control, AI, autonomy, and machine learning. In 2026, however, the commission was unable to achieve consensus on its agenda, thus preventing the working group from completing its work or producing agreed recommendations.⁹

The UN General Assembly also expanded its consideration of AI in the military domain. Resolution 79/239 led to a secretary-general report compiling member state and stakeholder views, several of which addressed human control and AI in nuclear command and control.¹⁰ The 2025 political declaration of the TPNW’s third meeting of states-parties likewise raised concerns about AI in nuclear decision-making and emphasized maintaining human control.¹¹ This language was particularly relevant to the NPT because all TPNW states-parties are also NPT states-parties, and similar positions would subsequently be advanced at the 2026 NPT Review Conference.

Most directly, General Assembly Resolution 80/23 focused on the possible risks of integrating AI into NC3. It identified limitations that could contribute to accidental, unintended, or unauthorized nuclear weapon use; emphasized human control and oversight; and encouraged consideration of the issue across relevant disarmament machinery, treaties, and regional and multilateral forums.¹² The 2026 review conference therefore began against a backdrop of intensified and specific multilateral discussion about AI, nuclear risk, and human decision-making.

AI at the 2026 NPT Review Conference

At the 2026 review conference, emerging technologies were considerably more prominent than earlier in the cycle. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned at the opening of the meeting that nuclear threats were being compounded by rapidly evolving technologies, including AI and quantum computing.¹³ In the general debate, some 26 national delegations referred in their official statements to emerging technologies and AI. Major groups, including NAM, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the African Group, the Group of Arab States, and TPNW states-parties also raised these issues. Most interventions emphasized nuclear risk, NC3, and human control; references to potential benefits were less frequent.

The discussion was even more pronounced in Main Committee I. Of more than 70 national and group statements delivered during the general exchange of views, approximately 30 referred to emerging technologies, AI, nuclear command and control, or human control. Some delegations also highlighted possible applications for risk reduction and disarmament verification. Emerging technologies appeared in Main Committees II and III as well, particularly in relation to safeguards and peaceful nuclear applications.¹⁴

The evolution of the negotiated text, however, demonstrates the continuing difficulty of converting this attention into agreed language. The opening draft established that human control should be maintained at all times pending the elimination of nuclear weapons and called for further discussion of emerging technologies and potential risks, including interference with NC3 systems. The first revision went further and explicitly referred to AI, but that reference did not survive. Subsequent revisions progressively narrowed the treatment of emerging technologies, and the final revision retained a reference to emerging technologies, but no longer explicitly referred to AI or the preservation of human control over nuclear weapons.¹⁵

This omission cannot be attributed to a lack of attention during the conference. AI was raised by numerous states and major groups, and several delegations expressed concern, including in closed consultations, that the issue was not adequately reflected in successive drafts. Conversations with delegates during the conference similarly revealed disappointment over the removal of the explicit AI reference. These exchanges suggest that the principal obstacle was political: Although there was growing interest in addressing AI and emerging technologies, some states-parties remained reluctant to address these issues explicitly within the NPT framework. Differences also persisted over terminology, the balance between risks and opportunities, and formulations concerning human control.

The narrowing of the text therefore illustrates a broader NPT challenge: Growing interest in the AI issue—and a growing sense of urgency about its implications for the nuclear order—does not necessarily produce agreement on how it should be characterized, much less dealt with, in a consensus outcome.

Adapting the NPT to Technological Change

The eleventh review cycle demonstrates that emerging technologies have become part of the NPT debate. The challenge for the next review cycle is to move beyond recurring references toward a more structured approach that can help states-parties develop common understandings and where possible, translate them into concrete recommendation and action. One option would be to establish a dedicated working group on emerging technologies. Such a mechanism could provide space to develop common understandings without requiring immediate agreement on negotiated recommendations. Under current geopolitical tensions, establishing a new group may be difficult. A more achievable approach might therefore be to integrate structured discussions into existing NPT preparatory committee and review conference processes. Dedicated sessions or focused exchanges could examine developments across three pillars, drawing on expertise from international organizations, scientific advisory bodies, academia, and other relevant stakeholders.

This broader approach matters because emerging technologies present both risks and opportunities. AI may affect nuclear decision-making and strategic stability, but emerging technologies may also contribute to solutions advancing such challenges as verification, safeguards, transparency, risk reduction, and peaceful nuclear applications. Sustained dialogue is necessary to understand these dimensions and their implications for the NPT. AI does not operate independently of cyber capabilities, quantum technologies, autonomous systems, and space and aerospace technologies. A technologically informed NPT discussion should consider the relationship among these interactions rather than treating each technology in isolation.

Any structured discussion should also be inclusive. Interest in emerging technologies is not limited to nuclear-weapon states or technologically advanced countries; groups representing developing and non-nuclear-weapon states contributed substantively throughout the cycle. Yet increasingly technical discussions require expertise and institutional capacity. Future NPT processes should therefore encourage broad regional representation, access to scientific and technical expertise, and capacity-building that enables all states-parties to participate effectively.

States-parties do not need to resolve every conceptual disagreement before beginning such a dialogue. A structured process could clarify differences over terminology, human control, and the balance between risks and benefits while identifying areas of possible convergence. The technological environment surrounding nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy will continue to change. Ensuring that the NPT remains responsive will require creating sufficient space not to only understand technological developments, but also, where possible, to translate emerging areas of common understandings into recommendations and action before their implications for the nuclear order become more difficult to address.

ENDNOTES

1. Author’s analysis of national and group statements, working papers, and committee records of the 2026 NPT Review Conference.

2. 2026 NPT Review Conference, draft final document, NPT/CONF.2026/CRP.2/Rev.4, May 2026.

3. 2020 NPT Review Conference, NPT/CONF.2020/SR.1; NPT/CONF.2020/WP.6; NPT/CONF.2020/WP.9/Rev.1.

4. 2026 NPT Review Conference Preparatory Committee, NPT/CONF.2026/PC.I/SR.3; SR.4; WP.24; WP.30; WP.38 (2023); see also NPT/CONF.2020/WP.70.

5. 2026 NPT Review Conference Preparatory Committee, NPT/CONF.2026/PC.II/SR.1-SR.6; New Agenda Coalition, NPT/CONF.2026/PC.II/WP.2; Chair’s summary, NPT/CONF.2026/PC.II/WP.44 (2024).

6. 2026 NPT Review Conference Preparatory Committee, NPT/CONF.2026/PC.III/SR.1-SR.7 (2025); Julia Elizabeth Rodríguez Acosta, “Impacto de las tecnologías emergentes en las armas nucleares: una aproximación desde América Latina y el Caribe,” in A 80 años de la era nuclear, ¿dónde estamos y a dónde vamos? (AMEI, 2025), p. 291.

7. Stockholm Initiative for Nuclear Disarmament, NPT/CONF.2026/PC.III/WP.35 (2025).

8. 2026 NPT Review Conference Preparatory Committee, NPT/CONF.2026/PC.III/SR.17-SR.18; Chair’s working paper, NPT/CONF.2026/PC.III/WP.45 (2025).

9. UN Disarmament Commission, Reports for 2024 to 2026; Chair of Working Group II, “Chair’s Summary,” April 23, 2025; UN Secretary-General, A/79/224.

10. UN General Assembly Resolution 79/239 (2024); UN Secretary-General, A/80/78 (2025).

11. Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, “Political Declaration,” 2025.

12. UN General Assembly Resolution 80/23, “Possible risks of the integration of artificial intelligence into command, control and communications systems of nuclear weapons,” 2025.

13. António Guterres, remarks at the opening of the 2026 NPT Review Conference, New York, April 2026.

14. Author’s analysis of 2026 NPT Review Conference summary records, NPT/CONF.2026/SR.1-SR.7; MC.I/SR.1-SR.7; MC.II/SR.1-SR.4; MC.III/SR.1-SR.4.

15. 2026 NPT Review Conference draft final document and revisions, NPT/CONF.2026/CRP.2 through NPT/CONF.2026/CRP.2/Rev.4, May 2026.

October 2026
By Wu Riqiang

Normative restraint in outer space is steadily eroding. Although great powers continue to reaffirm their commitment to the peaceful use of outer space and refrain from deploying space weapons, they have developed counterspace capabilities, and some have placed dual-use systems in orbit. The United States is now going a step further by openly embracing the weaponization of outer space and explicitly adopting an offensive counterspace posture.¹ If deployed, the proposed “Golden Dome” system would further erode the longstanding space weapons taboo.

One week after U.S. President Donald Trump began his second term in 2025, he issued an executive order announcing the development of a next-generation missile defense system that includes a space-based layer, called the Golden Dome. Breaking with previous policy, the Trump administration explicitly presented the proposed Golden Dome as protection against attacks from “peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries,”² rather than limiting homeland missile defense to rogue-state threats.

Space-based interceptors (SBIs) have inherent anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities. Ironically, although the Golden Dome is likely to face significant technical and economic challenges as a missile defense architecture, its SBIs could prove far more effective as ASAT weapons. Accordingly, the Golden Dome’s most consequential impact on international security may lie not in undermining strategic stability among the great powers, but in eroding the norm of restraint in outer space.

Missile Defense and ASAT Capabilities

The use of SBIs against ballistic missiles in their boost phase is constrained by fundamental physical limitations. The boost phase of a typical intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) lasts only three to four minutes and may not be detected until one minute after launch. This leaves interceptors little time to reach their targets, limiting the coverage of each SBI. As a result, it is estimated that approximately 1,600 interceptors would be required to ensure that at least one of them is in position to engage a single solid-propellant ICBM launched from anywhere on the earth. A peer or near-peer adversary could easily overwhelm the system with a coordinated missile salvo.

As a potential alternative, employing SBIs for midcourse interception of ballistic missiles also encounters major difficulties. The midcourse phase can last more than 20 minutes—significantly longer than the boost phase—allowing each SBI to cover a much larger area and thereby reducing the number of interceptors required. Nevertheless, after booster burnout, ICBMs are designed to deploy nuclear warheads along with decoys and other countermeasures that follow similar trajectories outside the atmosphere, making discrimination by defense systems very difficult.

Although their effectiveness in missile defense is limited, SBIs could be highly effective as kinetic ASAT weapons. Deployed in low Earth orbit at an altitude of roughly 300-400 kilometers, each interceptor would have a delta-V (signifying a change in velocity) of 4-5 kilometers per second, thus enabling significant orbital maneuvering and attacks on satellites across different orbital regimes, including geostationary orbit at an altitude of approximately 35,786 kilometers.

The use of kinetic ASAT weapons would generate large amounts of space debris, threatening the long-term sustainability of the outer space environment. If debris density exceeds a critical threshold, it may trigger a collision cascade—known as the Kessler syndrome—by which each collision generates additional fragments that, in turn, collide with other objects, producing yet more debris and potentially rendering entire orbital regions unusable.

Eroding Normative Restraint

For decades, great powers have exercised strategic restraint in outer space, helping establish a de facto taboo against space weapons. During the 1960s and early 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union generally regarded space as a sanctuary, recognizing both the fragility of the space environment and the importance of satellite reconnaissance for strategic stability and treaty verification. Only limited ASAT capabilities were developed, largely as a hedge against a potential technical breakout.

Since the mid-1970s, concerns that Soviet satellites could enable the targeting of U.S. warships prompted Washington to develop ASAT capabilities against satellites supporting tactical military operations. The Jimmy Carter administration continued U.S. ASAT research and development while simultaneously seeking a verifiable ban on ASAT capabilities with the Soviet Union. U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative further intensified debates over missile defense and the weaponization of outer space. In 1985, the United States successfully tested a kinetic ASAT missile launched from an F-15 against the U.S. Air Force Solwind (P78-1) satellite. However, Congress subsequently prohibited further destructive ASAT testing.

The 1991 Gulf War demonstrated the decisive role of space systems in supporting terrestrial military operations. After the Cold War, the United States enjoyed unrivaled military and technological superiority, and its military space activities primarily focused on enabling joint force operations rather than pursuing space control.

This relatively benign environment began to change in the early 21st century as outer space became an increasingly contested domain. Beyond the 1985 U.S. ASAT test, China, India and Russia also have conducted ground-launched kinetic ASAT tests. The 2008 U.S. test using a Standard Missile-3 interceptor validated earlier concerns that exoatmospheric missile defense systems could be adapted for anti-satellite purposes. Russia is reportedly developing a nuclear ASAT satellite. If deployed, such a system would violate the Outer Space Treaty. To mitigate the vulnerability of its space assets, the United States has sought to enhance the resilience of its space architecture by shifting away from large, expensive satellites that could become “big, fat, juicy targets” toward proliferated constellations.³

All major space powers are developing and deploying dual-use technologies that could potentially be repurposed for counterspace operations. China, for example, has developed and demonstrated satellites with robotic arms, debris-removal satellites, on-orbit refueling technologies, and a reusable spaceplane similar to the U.S. X-37B. China, Russia and the United States have also deployed inspector satellites capable of conducting rendezvous and proximity operations.

Meanwhile, the United States shifted toward a more offensive counterspace posture as China increasingly relied on space capabilities to support terrestrial military operations. The 2014 U.S. Space Strategic Portfolio Review concluded that resilience measures alone were insufficient and called for capabilities to counter adversary space systems. U.S. military leaders subsequently spoke more openly about offensive space control and preparing for war in space, a shift sometimes described as a “counterspace awakening.”⁴

An increasing number of countries have begun to incorporate counterspace elements into their space strategies and conduct military exercises involving counterspace operations. For example, France has adopted an “active defense” approach, exploring concepts such as bodyguard satellites and potential on-orbit laser capabilities. Germany’s space strategy identifies restricting adversaries’ use of space as one of the purposes of space operations. The United Kingdom has designated space control as one of the three priority areas for investment in its space capabilities. In 2025, France and the UK conducted joint rendezvous and proximity exercises with the United States under the Multinational Force Operation Olympic Defender framework. It was reported that five Chinese satellites had conducted what were described as on-orbit “dogfighting” exercises in 2024.⁵ The Pentagon accused Russia of deploying a satellite in 2022 into nearly the same orbit as a classified U.S. reconnaissance satellite.⁶

Although most space powers continue to refrain from openly declaring an intention to deploy space weapons and reaffirm their commitment to the peaceful use of outer space, their actions reveal a widening gap between rhetorical commitments and actual practices.

Dropping the Pretense of Restraint

The establishment of the U.S. Space Force in 2019 marked a decisive shift in U.S. space policy as Washington openly designated space as a war-fighting domain and explicitly embraced an offensive counterspace doctrine. The Space Force leadership has emphasized that space is a war-fighting domain alongside land, sea, air, and cyberspace and that its personnel—known as guardians—are war-fighters in space rather than merely supporting forces. The new military service’s primary mission is to achieve space superiority, which entails not only defending U.S. space capabilities but also denying adversaries access to and use of space.

The U.S. military has also sought to normalize the deployment of weapons in space. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman has called for investment in “six categories of counter-space weapons,” including three types of capabilities—jamming, directed-energy, and kinetic capabilities—in both space-based and ground-based configurations.⁷ Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, was equally explicit: “It’s time that we can clearly say that we need space fires and we need weapon systems. We need orbital interceptors. And what do we call these? We call these weapons.”⁸

In September 2026, U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink publicly acknowledged that the United States has deployed “space control weapons” in orbit, without specifying their type, making the United States the first country to publicly confirm having weapons deployed in orbit.⁹ Meink’s disclosure represented a symbolic breach of the space weapons taboo. If deployed as planned, Golden Dome’s space-based interceptors would represent a more consequential erosion of that taboo, as the United States would openly field a specifically identified class of space-based weapons.

The U.S. military has further sought to legitimize space war-fighting. The Space Force’s theory of success—competitive endurance—advocates “responsible counterspace campaigning,” and stresses that efforts to achieve space superiority must not compromise the long-term sustainability of outer space. John Shaw, the first commander of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Operations Command, argued that achieving space superiority would require a paradigm shift from traditional positional space operations to space maneuver warfare, which in turn would require new designs for future military space platforms as well as new logistics architectures.¹⁰

Some may argue that space is already weaponized; that the space weapons taboo never existed or was already broken; that opposing space weapons while pursuing dual-use capabilities is inherently hypocritical; and that the U.S. doctrinal shift merely acknowledges this reality. There is some validity to the charge of hypocrisy, as aligning words with actions is certainly preferable. Yet even rhetorical commitments to a norm matter: They create expectations, generate reputational costs, constrain state behavior, and can help sustain the norm over time. By contrast, dropping the pretense of restraint may appear honest, but it would fundamentally erode the norm itself.

Contested Domain, Contested Norms

The traditional restraint governing outer space is eroding but not yet dead, as competing normative visions seek to shape the future rules governing the use of space. These visions can be situated along a spectrum ranging from restraint to war-fighting, as illustrated in the table below.

At one end, nonmilitarization reflects the most restrictive normative vision, asserting that outer space should be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and rejecting the legitimacy of all military activities, including support functions such as communications, positioning, and reconnaissance. Only a small number of states endorse this view.

Moving along the spectrum, China and Russia advocate nonweaponization, which accepts the legitimacy of military support activities in space while opposing the deployment of space weapons and the use of force against space objects through legally binding instruments. Western states oppose this approach, arguing that the proposed treaty is unverifiable and fails to ban ground-based ASAT weapons, while accusing China and Russia of hypocrisy for developing and deploying dual-use technologies in space.

Further toward the war-fighting end lies the framework of responsible space behaviors, promoted by the UK and other Western states. It aims to identify and characterize responsible, irresponsible, or threatening behaviors in outer space and to develop norms, rules, and principles of responsible space behaviors to avoid miscalculation and reduce the risks of unintentional escalation. Critics argue, however, that this approach cannot restrain space weaponization, just make space warfare safer.¹¹ They also contend that, by promoting a highly politicized dichotomy between “responsible” and “irresponsible” behaviors, this approach serves to preserve U.S. advantages in potential space weaponry.¹²

Officially, Washington supports responsible space behaviors. In practice, however, it has moved further along the war-fighting end of the spectrum by endorsing the norm of responsible counterspace campaigning. This approach accepts overt weaponization and explicit offensive counterspace postures to achieve space superiority while claiming to preserve long-term sustainability.

At the far end of the spectrum, a small number of hawkish strategists advocate unrestricted space warfare, calling for loosening policy restrictions over the fielding of weapons in space and normalizing counterspace operations “like warfighting operations in all other domains performed by the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.” At the same time, they warn that responsible counterspace campaigning “may undermine a warfighting mentality and the core of the Guardian identity.”¹³ No state has openly embraced such an unrestricted vision of space warfare as official policy.

The prospects for the current contest over space norms appear bleak. Given the unparalleled U.S. influence in space, the emerging normative order may tilt toward accepting space as a war-fighting domain rather than preserving traditional restraint. Whether this trajectory can be reversed will depend on whether the remaining taboo against space weapons can be preserved.

Preserve the Taboo

The continuing erosion of normative restraint could have a profound impact on the future of outer space. The fragile nature of the space environment makes the consequences of a great-power conflict in space potentially catastrophic. More fundamentally, disruption is far easier than dominance in space—and once achieved, hard to reverse.¹⁴ The U.S. concept of “responsible counterspace campaigning” seeks to win a space war without triggering large-scale, destructive ASAT exchanges. In practice, however, a state that loses access to space is unlikely to prioritize the sustainability of the space environment; once a conflict in space begins, escalation to kinetic attacks may be difficult to prevent.

Moreover, crossing the threshold of deploying dedicated weapons in space could encourage other states to pursue similar capabilities, fueling a new cycle of space arms racing. If Washington’s international lawyers build the legal case for deploying Golden Dome’s space-based interceptors, this could pave the way for other states to pursue similar systems, potentially leading to multiple rival constellations of SBIs that possess inherent ASAT capabilities. This could create incentives for preemptive attacks against adversary space assets during a crisis or conflict.

The priority now should be to preserve the taboo against space weapons, halt the ongoing erosion of space restraint, prevent the normalization of space war-fighting, and, if possible, reverse this trend altogether.

As a first step, states that support space arms control, together with civil society, need to speak out and draw clear red lines. In ongoing debates on space norms, the deployment of any dedicated weapons in outer space should be explicitly framed as irresponsible, regardless of whether such systems are labeled as missile defense interceptors, space weapons, or weapons in space. Given its vulnerability, space should not be treated as a war-fighting domain and certainly should not be transformed into a battlefield. Offensive counterspace activities and doctrines should be considered inherently unacceptable.

Second, all states should commit not to conduct kinetic ASAT operations, regardless of whether they are carried out using dedicated ASAT weapons, dual-use space systems, or missile defense interceptors. More than 30 states have committed unilaterally not to conduct destructive ASAT tests. These commitments, while welcome, impose no substantive constraints on the development of counterspace capabilities or their operational use. Extending this logic from nontesting to non-use would therefore represent a natural next step. Although such voluntary non-use commitments are not legally binding and can be withdrawn at any time, they can nevertheless raise the bar for destructive ASAT operations and, in doing so, help reinforce the taboo against space weapons and strengthen broader norms of restraint in outer space.

Traditionally, China and Russia have opposed restrictions on particular categories of ASAT weapons, arguing that selectively banning certain capabilities would disproportionately favor the United States, given its comparative advantage in other forms of ASAT capability. Instead, they have advocated a comprehensive ban on all ASAT weapons. These concerns are well-founded. Yet the uniquely destructive consequences of debris-generating ASAT weapons suggest that they are better understood as weapons of last resort than as practical war-fighting capabilities. Beijing and Moscow could therefore view a commitment to forgo such weapons not merely as a practical restraint, but also as a means of reinforcing normative restraint in outer space and, over the longer term, supporting the broader goal of nonweaponization.

For the United States, such a commitment would come at relatively little cost. Although Golden Dome’s SBIs possess inherent ASAT capabilities, they are unlikely to become the U.S. military’s preferred counterspace option. As a result, pledging not to employ SBIs for anti-satellite operations would impose minimal operational constraints while generating significant symbolic and normative benefits.

Finally, all major space powers should engage in sustained dialogue on space security and strategic stability across Track 1, Track 1.5, and Track 2 channels. Current discussions on space security have largely focused on the impact of space operations on the risk of nuclear escalation—so-called space in strategic stability. Although this perspective is undoubtedly important, it also risks implying that space warfare is acceptable so long as it does not trigger nuclear escalation. Instead, greater attention should be devoted to the “strategic stability in space” framework aimed at preventing war in outer space.

The world is approaching a point of no return. The long-standing taboo against space weapons is on the brink of collapse, and an arms race in outer space is looming. Space has become an indispensable infrastructure for human society and economic development. Its continued viability hinges on preventing weaponization, which would otherwise transform space into a battlefield and jeopardize humanity’s access to and use of it.

ENDNOTES

1. Sandra Erwin, “Space Command identifies capabilities it needs for the next space war,” Space News, August 12, 2026.

2. Donald J. Trump, “Executive Order 14186: The Iron Dome for America,” January 27, 2025.

3. Sandra Erwin, “STRATCOM chief Hyten: ‘I will not support buying big satellites that make juicy targets,’” Space News, November 19, 2017.

4. Maximilian Betmann, “A counterspace awakening?” The Space Review, May 22, 2017.

5. Mikayla Easley, “China practicing on-orbit ‘dogfighting’ tactics with space assets, Gen. Guetlein says,” Defense Scoop, March 18, 2025.

6. Brett Tingley, “Pentagon space chief condemns ‘irresponsible’ launch of Russian inspector satellite,” Space.com, August 18, 2022.

7. Theresa Hitchens, “Saltzman: Space Force in ‘pretty good spot’ regarding DoD funding shift,” Breaking Defense, March 20, 2025.

8. Audrey Decker, “The US needs ‘weapons in space,’ SPACECOM head says,” Defense One, April 8, 2025.

9. Courtney Albon, “Meink Reveals Space Force Has ‘On-Orbit Space Control Weapons,’” Air & Space Forces, September 14, 2026.

10. John Shaw, “The Age of Space Maneuver Warfare Is Imminent,” Forbes, April 6, 2026.

11. Jessica West, “Arms Control and the Myth of Peaceful Uses in Outer Space,” in Saadia M. Pekkanen and P. J. Blount, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Space Security (Oxford University Press, 2024), pp. 223-247.

12. Zhou Bo and Wang Guoyu, “The Future of Cooperation in Space: Irreconcilable Differences?” in Saadia M. Pekkanen and P. J. Blount, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Space Security (Oxford University Press, 2024), pp. 839–852.

13. Charles S. Galbreath and Jennifer K. Reeves, “Ensuring a Spacepower Advantage in Prolonged Competition: Findings and Recommendations from the Space Endurance Workshop,” Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, 2025, p. 2.

14. Clayton Swope, “Can Space Be Disrupted Like the Strait of Hormuz?” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 1, 2026.

October 2026
By Susan F. Burk

A great man, a national treasure, a man who believed in peace: These are the words used to describe Thomas Graham, Jr. at his memorial service last month in Washington, D.C. When Tom died on September 3 at the age of 92, the world lost one of the leading authorities in international arms control and nonproliferation, and a public servant whose career was uniquely dedicated to reducing the dangers of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Many of us also lost a trusted colleague, mentor, and dear friend.

Before joining the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) in 1970, Tom earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, served in the U.S. Army for two years, graduated from Harvard Law School, and held various other positions, including on Capitol Hill. He joined the ACDA as its general counsel and held that role for 15 out of his 27 years with the federal government.

At the ACDA, Tom brought his formidable intellect, diplomatic skills, and deep commitment to mitigating the threat of nuclear Armageddon by negotiating international agreements with robust verification measures to address that threat. He held the rare distinction of being at the center of every major international arms control and nonproliferation negotiation from 1970 to 1997. This included the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He also supported the negotiation and ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention protocol to strengthen compliance.

In 1993, Tom served as acting director of the ACDA, and then as acting deputy director until July 1994. From 1994 through 1997, he was President Bill Clinton’s special representative for arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament with the rank of ambassador. It was in that position that he undertook the defining mission of securing the indefinite extension of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the cornerstone of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. The ACDA led the U.S. government preparations for the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, where 175 states-parties met to decide whether to make the treaty permanent. Graham’s energetic commitment to the diplomatic strategy that was aimed at persuading a majority of NPT parties to support indefinite extension was legendary.

As a veteran of difficult and complex bilateral nuclear arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union, he enthusiastically embraced the challenge of the multilateral diplomacy required by the NPT. Tom met with senior representatives of more than 100 treaty parties in capitals all over the world and in New York. He patiently listened to the concerns of scores of foreign ministers, senior policy officials, and leaders of civilian nuclear programs. In addressing concerns about the U.S. commitment to its NPT disarmament obligations, Tom could respond authoritatively, including with anecdotes based on personal involvement, about the real progress that had been and was being made. He made clear how a strong, reliable NPT had been providing, and would continue to provide, an essential foundation for arms control progress.

The treaty was not a favor to the non-nuclear-weapon state-parties, he would argue, but was indispensable to the security of all parties, including the United States. He was relentlessly optimistic about its prospects. This personal optimism, and his reputation in the arms control field, served as a valuable antidote to the pessimism that so often characterized NPT meetings. “Susan,” he would tell me, “we will get an indefinite extension.” Thank goodness that he was absolutely right.

After Tom retired from government in 1997, he proceeded to write more than a dozen books and was a sought-after speaker. He worked at organizations including Lawyers Alliance for World Security and the law firm Morgan Lewis. He was Lightbridge Corporation’s executive chairman and served on the board of CanAlaska Uranium. He also taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Stanford University, University of Virginia, and University of Washington, and other institutions.

He penned well over 100 commentary articles in major newspapers and online publications. Until his death, he wrote regularly for his Substack blog, Defending Democracy, whose articles were often amplified on the platform by a larger blog, The Contrarian. His writings addressed not only nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, but a variety of other topics including Ukraine, Taiwan, and worldwide attacks on democracy.

In addition to working closely with Tom on the NPT extension, I supported him on many of his diplomatic missions, including to Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Namibia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa, as well as frequent meetings with the NPT depositary states (Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). He was indefatigable, unflappable, and very kind.

Tom was born in Louisville, Kentucky and remained devoted to his Kentucky roots. The Kentucky Derby was a “religious holiday,” he used to tell his friends. He actually attended more than 50 derbies. When we were both retired, he invited me to speak to students at the University of Louisville about the NPT. While there, we visited his beloved Churchill Downs—another memorable Tom Graham moment.

With Tom’s passing, the world has lost a giant in the arms control field at a time when the arms control and nonproliferation successes of the past are fading and the future for constraining nuclear weapons looks bleak. For those still fighting the fight and those preparing to join their ranks, it might be useful to consider: “What would Tom Graham do?”

He is survived by his wife, Christine Ryan; three children from his first marriage to Clover Nicholas; two stepchildren from his second marriage; and seven grandchildren.

October 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

For the first time, the United States acknowledged the deployment of weapons in space, marking a decisive departure from a long-standing practice of maintaining ambiguity regarding U.S. offensive space capabilities.

U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink made the announcement Sept. 14 at an event near Washington organized by the Air & Space Forces Association. Providing no additional detail, Meink said the United States “has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.”

According to U.S. Space Force doctrine, space control “comprises the activities required to contest and control the space domain,” and does not include support from space-based assets to other military operations.

Meink did not specify whether the weapons were kinetic. In addition to kinetic anti-satellite options, U.S. counterspace capabilities include electromagnetic and cyber warfare.

Speaking a day later at the same conference, the chief of space operations, Gen. Douglas Schiess, said the U.S. Space Force now operates “on-orbit weapons that can defend the joint force against space-enabled attacks.” Schiess’s remark suggests the Pentagon might use its now-declared weapons not only to defend U.S. satellites, but also to disable other countries’ satellites when they support military operations.

CNN, citing US officials and international intelligence sources, reported Sept. 16 that Russia provided satellite-enabled intelligence to Iran ahead of a March 27 missile attack on a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia. The attack, which wounded 12 U.S. service members and destroyed an Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, was an early Iranian success in the seven-month-long war that the United States and Israel initiated in February.

The Space Force intends to continue improving its ability to target enemy assets in space, but “still has a long way to go,” Gen. Stephen Whiting, the commander of U.S. Space Command, said Sept. 16 at a conference in Maui, Hawaii.

In the first week of September, Whiting’s command conducted its “inaugural live-fly exercise designed to demonstrate dynamic on-orbit operations, validate contested logistics, and advance collective space maneuver doctrine,” Space Command announced Sept. 8. The exercise, Apollo Maneuvers 2026, involved “coordinated maneuvers” in low-earth, medium-earth, and geosynchronous orbits. Representatives from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom participated in a parallel exercise with the United States.

The shift in U.S. declaratory approach to offensive space capabilities comes more than two and a half years after U.S. officials accused Russia of developing a space-based nuclear weapon. (See ACT, March 2024.)

The deployment of nuclear weapons in outer space is categorically banned by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, but the deployment of other weapons is not. The preamble to the treaty, however, emphasizes that space is to be used for peaceful purposes.

Following the U.S. allegation, Russia vetoed an April 2024 UN Security Council resolution reaffirming the Outer Space Treaty. China abstained on the resolution, which was proposed by Japan and the United States. (See ACT, May 2024.)

China, Russia, and the United States have each demonstrated the capability to conduct direct-ascent, kinetic anti-satellite operations and likely also field spacecraft capable of so-called rendezvous and proximity operations (RPOs), permitting direct physical interaction or close-range interference with satellites.

The United States pledged not to conduct any further direct-ascent, kinetic anti-satellite tests in April 2022. (See ACT, May 2022.)

China and Russia voted against a December 2022 UN General Assembly resolution calling on all states not to conduct such tests.

U.S. Space Force officials noted in March 2025 that China has stepped-up RPO exercises in low-earth orbit, “practicing dogfighting” in space, in the words of Gen. Michael Guetlein, who was then the vice chief of space operations and now leads the Golden Dome program office.

Seven other countries have more limited counterspace capabilities, according to the latest edition of the Secure World Foundation’s annual assessment of global counterspace capabilities.