Nuclear Disarmament Monitor
October 17, 2025
The 80th session of the UN General Assembly First Committee on disarmament and international security is underway. UN member states are gathering from Oct. 8 to Nov. 7 in New York to discuss and adopt resolutions and decisions to renew their commitments to advancing disarmament and maintaining international peace and security.
Coloring many conversations is the fast-approaching expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) on Feb. 5, 2026. As the First Committee convenes, a Russian proposal to continue adhering to the treaty’s central limits remains unanswered, despite President Donald Trump’s brief acknowledgement that the measure “sounds like a good idea.”
Russia has shown signs of impatience. In Oct. 10 comments to reporters while on a state visit to Tajikistan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “If the Americans decide they don’t need [an informal extension], that’s not a big deal for us.” The two presidents held a lengthy phone call Oct. 16 and announced a forthcoming summit meeting in Hungary, to take place after preparatory meetings between aides in the coming week.
Non-nuclear weapons countries are organizing to support the continuation of New START. Austria is once again leading efforts on a joint statement on the value of U.S.-Russian arms control, but a number of states have also independently touched on New START in their own statements. These include Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Malaysia, Norway, Turkey, the non-aligned movement nations, and the Nordic countries, among others.
Due to UN-wide reforms to streamline operations and increase efficiency, known as the UN80 initiative, however, this year’s First Committee session is expected to have fewer meetings and resolutions.
At the general debate that took place on Oct. 9, Paul Watzlavick, senior bureau official for the Bureau of Arms Control and Nonproliferation at the U.S. Department of State said that “the United States is leading by example” to reduce the number of resolutions and costs at the First Committee to “to reinvest efforts in a streamlined, efficient, fit for purpose, arms control and disarmament architecture that more effectively convenes member states to solve problems” on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the United Nations.
“We will not introduce any resolutions of our own this year, and we will continue to request others introduce periodicity into many of the annual resolutions that have not substantially changed from year to year, including those that we have both supported and not supported in the past,” said Watzlavick.
The First Committee is chaired this year by the Italian ambassador to the UN, Maurizio Massari. “This year’s first committee takes place in a very important moment being the last occasion of debate on nuclear disarmament before the review conference of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty,” he noted in opening remarks.
While acknowledging efforts to improve efficiency and streamline processes, Massari said “I will spare no efforts to foster constructive engagement and ensure the full and smooth functioning of the committee with an inclusive, pragmatic, and forward-looking approach aimed at revitalizing the disarmament agenda not as an abstract goal but as as a shared imperative for international peace and security.”
Votes on resolutions will begin Oct. 31, and the session will conclude on Nov. 7. —Shizuka Kuramitsu, research assistant; Xiaodon Liang, senior policy analyst; Libby Flatoff, program and development manager; Lipi Shetty, Scoville Peace Fellow; Naomi Satoh, research intern.
Pentagon Briefs Congress on Golden Dome Plan
Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Pentagon official in charge of President Donald Trump’s expanded Golden Dome missile defense effort, briefed members of Congress at least twice in September on the program’s architecture. The closed briefings came as Congress moves to finalize reporting and oversight requirements for Golden Dome in the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, versions of which have passed both chambers.
Speaking to trade press outlet Breaking Defense after a Sep. 29 closed session, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said, despite Guetlein’s briefing, “additional facts are absolutely necessary to assess the Golden Dome completely and accurately.” Leaks from an August industry conference suggest the Pentagon’s current plans foresee a role for an expanded network of ground-based interceptors and space-based missile warning and tracking satellites. The Space Force is meanwhile soliciting proposals for prototype space-based interceptors, after a request-for-information was first published in June.
House Delegation Visits China, Talk Nuclear Modernization
A bipartisan group of members of the House of Representatives visited China Sept. 21-23, meeting with Premier Li Qiang, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Defense Minister Dong Jun, among other officials. The delegation was led by Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.
According to Smith’s readout of the Sept. 21 meeting with Li, the two sides discussed the problem of nuclear proliferation as well as the U.S. and Chinese nuclear modernization programs. Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.), said in an op-ed that the delegation pressed for dialogue on nuclear proliferation, among a range of issues.
President Donald Trump will likely meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, which will take place between Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. The planned meeting was briefly in doubt after a flare-up in trade tensions between the two sides.
UN Report Laments Military Expenditure Crowding Out Development
A new Sept. 9 UN report on worldwide military expenditure reveals increased military expenses globally and a faltering commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The report, entitled “The Security We Need: Rebalancing Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future,” was requested by Action 13(c) of the Pact for the Future (A/RES/79/1) resolution. It finds that, in 2024, global military spending hit an all-time high of $2.7 trillion, while the financial shortfall for funding the SDGs rose to $4 trillion.
According to the report, “growing military expenditure today is crowding out resources essential for social investment, poverty reduction, education, health, environmental protection and infrastructure – undermining progress on nearly all the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Intensified geostrategic competition, deficits in trust, and the upward trend in global military spending have weakened the arms control architecture and “eroded bilateral strategic arms controls regime[s],” the report finds.
The report advises UN member states to prioritize diplomacy and the peaceful settlement of disputes, link arms control and development, and promote transparency in military expenditure, among other measures.
UN Scientific Panel on Effects of Nuclear War Holds First Meeting
The UN Independent Scientific Panel on the Effects of Nuclear War, established Dec. 24, 2024, by General Assembly Resolution A/RES/79/238 on ‘Nuclear War Effects and Scientific Research,’ convened Sept. 4-5 for the first time.
The panel consists of 21 experts tasked with creating a report examining “the physical effects and societal consequences of a nuclear war on a local, regional and planetary scale, inter alia, the climatic, environmental and radiological effects, and their impacts on public health, global socioeconomic systems, agriculture and ecosystems, in the days, weeks and decades following a nuclear war.”
At the first meeting, the panel outlined tasks needed to produce the final report and discussed the timeline for publication. The report is to be considered at the eighty-second session of the UN General Assembly in 2027.
Seven subject areas will be considered by the panel in the formulation of its report: nuclear and radiation studies; atmospheric sciences and climate; earth and life sciences; environment and environmental studies; agriculture, biology and life sciences; public health and medicine; and behavioural and social sciences and applied economics.
Senate Confirms Undersecretary for Arms Control
The U.S. Senate voted Oct. 7 to confirm Thomas DiNanno as the next Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. DiNanno was nominated to the position Feb. 11 by President Donald Trump; since then, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has restructured the offices that will report to DiNanno, combining the arms control and nonproliferation bureaus while adding new areas of responsibility.
DiNanno previously served as the acting assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance from 2019 to 2020. Prior to his confirmation, DiNanno served as director for strategic resiliency and wargaming within the strategic deterrence and nuclear programs at the University of Nebraska’s National Strategic Research Institute.
DiNanno will be joined at the Department of State by his former colleague from the University of Nebraska, Christopher Yeaw, who was nominated Sept. 3 to serve as assistant secretary for arms control, nonproliferation, and stability. Yeaw previously served at the National Nuclear Security Administration during the first Trump administration and was a lead author of the Department of Energy’s contribution to the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.
G7 Non-Proliferation Directors Call for Russia to Adhere to Follow-On
An Aug. 20 statement by the G7 Non-Proliferation Directors Group vocalized concern about China’s significant nuclear weapons build-up while seeking Russia’s return to full compliance with the New START agreement “and follow-on nuclear arms control measures.”
The group also noted the importance of “reciprocal transparency” for global stability and reiterated opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, urging Iran to refrain from “any escalatory action” and to resume full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The group convenes senior government officials of the Group of 7 countries, meeting annually to address issues related to arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. The statement issued by the group in 2025 was much briefer than last year’s text, which included lengthier sections on points of action, expectations, and commitments.
TPNW Crosses Majority Threshold
With Kyrgyzstan’s signature and Ghana’s ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), both on Sept. 26, a majority of the world’s countries – 99 states – have now signed, ratified, or acceded to the treaty. Currently, 95 states have signed the treaty and 74 have subsequently ratified and become states-parties. Four countries acceded to the treaty without signing beforehand.
The TPNW bans nuclear weapons and all nuclear weapons activities. The treaty was adopted on July 7, 2017, and entered into force January 22, 2021.
98 states are not party or signatory to the treaty. However, 40 have been identified by the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor as “other supporters” to the treaty. These states have been identified based on their voting record in the UN General Assembly. Eight of the “other supporters” – Andorra, Egypt, Guinea, Iraq, Morocco, Qatar, Tunisia, and Yemen – participated as observers at the second meeting of states-parties to the TPNW in 2024.
The first review conference for the TPNW will take place Nov. 30 to Dec.4, 2026, in New York. The conference will be presided over by South Africa.
Group of 42 States Back Next Steps on Autonomous Weapons Treaty
The Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, convened by the states-parties of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), met Sept. 1-5 for its second session of 2025 in Geneva. With progress advancing on a draft instrument on regulating autonomous weapons systems in the chair’s ‘rolling text,’ Brazil delivered Sept. 5 a joint statement on behalf of a group of forty-two states which opined that the GGE had fulfilled its mandate and that the CCW member-states should begin negotiations on the basis of the rolling text. Supporters of a comprehensive ban approach remain dissatisfied that the text does not contain a prohibition of weapons systems that target people or that inherently lack meaningful human control.
Russia Withdraws from Plutonium Agreement
Russia’s lower house of parliament voted Oct. 8 to withdraw from the U.S.-Russian Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA).
The PMDA was signed in 2000 when both the United States and Russia committed to dispose of at least 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium each, to eliminate Cold War surpluses. The agreement came into force in 2011 after a decade of discussions on how and at what rate the plutonium was to be processed. A 2010 protocol to the treaty set the disposition rate at a minimum of 1.3 metric tons per year.
Russia suspended the agreement in 2016 when the United States moved to diluting plutonium as its primary method of disposal without Russian approval. Russia also cited U.S. sanctions against Russia as cause for the suspension.
“The United States has taken a number of new anti-Russian steps that fundamentally change the strategic balance that prevailed at the time of the Agreement and create additional threats to strategic stability,” a note on the Russian legislation said, according to Reuters.
In Case You Missed It
“Sound this alarm,” Peter Wilk, The Washington Post, Oct. 12.
“Bigelow’s latest thriller shows why nuclear bombs are only part of the danger,” Erik English, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Oct. 9.
“Breaking Down A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE,” Nuclear Threat Initiative Fact Sheet, Oct. 9, 2025.
“China’s Plutonium Production for Nuclear Weapons,” David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, Victoria Cheng, William Goodhind and the Good ISIS Team, Institute for Science and International Security, Oct. 9.
“From Nagasaki, a Prescription for Survival,” Robert Dodge, Common Dreams, Oct. 7.
“Racing Towards Risk: The Hidden Costs of Nuclear Arms Build-up,” Tim Caughley, UNIDIR, Oct. 2.
“Putin just gave Trump the opportunity to maintain nuclear restraint. Will he seize it?” Matthew Bunn, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept. 25.
“Understanding the Two Nuclear Peer Debate,” Adam Mount, Hans Kristensen, Pranay Vaddi, John K. Warden, Federation of American Scientists, Sept. 24.
“All the King's Weapons: Nuclear Launch Authority in the U.S.,” Mackenzie Knight-Boyle, Federation of American Scientists, Sept. 5.
“Pakistan nuclear weapons, 2025,” Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight-Boyle, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept. 4.
“Build Your Own Golden Dome: A Framework for Understanding Costs, Choices and Tradeoffs,” Todd Harrison, American Enterprise Institute, Sept. 2025.
The Deal That Trump Can Secure With Russia," by Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Today, Sept. 2025