August 24, 2026
The Pentagon is planning revisions to U.S. nuclear employment guidance that will emphasize the role of tactical nuclear weapons and limited employment options, while possibly de-emphasizing certain missions for U.S. strategic nuclear forces.
The changes would mark a stark shift toward an embrace of nuclear warfighting at the tactical level while, at the same time, potentially opening a path toward avoiding a strategic arms race between the United States and Russia and the United States and China.
Key officials previewed the shift earlier in August at an annual conference organized by U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska. Further details of the Nuclear Strategy Review guiding the policy shift were reported Aug. 5 by NBC News.
“We want to be able to give the president and secretary credible, rational nuclear options,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby told attendees at the Omaha conference on Aug. 5.
In his comments, Colby argued for limited nuclear options that are proportionate to the limited U.S. stakes in regional crises.
“We’re going to have a strategy and force posture that is rationally tied to that interest [that is] in specific cases, you know, non-existential,” he said.
Conversely, the United States will have to accept that “we and China both have nuclear weapons, so nobody’s going to be in a position where they can absolutely dominate,” he said.
NBC News reports that the strategy review, helmed at the Pentagon by Colby and the head of U.S. Strategic Command, Adm. Richard Correll, will de-emphasize damage limitation requirements for U.S. strategic forces.
Such requirements call for strategic capabilities that can defeat enemy nuclear forces — by preemptively destroying them on the ground, intercepting them in the air, or disabling them non-kinetically — and have historically been a key driver of arms racing.
Although neither Correll nor Colby discussed strategic forces at length in their comments at the summit, the NBC News report provoked alarm among some nuclear primacists on the hill.
“It’s hard to imagine a study that is more out of line with President Trump’s stated position of making our nuclear deterrent great again,” a senior Congressional staffer told NBC. Proponents of a larger nuclear force regard strategic superiority as a prerequisite for credible threats of tactical nuclear weapons use, arguing that dominating the higher rungs of the escalation ladder deters enemies from responding effectively to U.S. action and prevents uncontrollable cycles of escalation to all-out nuclear war. With China’s nuclear force growing and U.S. strategic forces soon numerically insufficient to meet traditional damage limitation requirements, the margin of U.S. strategic advantage may slip.
But the willingness of Colby and Correll to break from this orthodoxy — as untested an approach to nuclear risk-taking as any — could obviate justifications for expansion of the U.S. strategic nuclear force, which the Biden administration foresaw in the coming years and which Congressional hawks have called for immediately.
At the same time, the embrace of so-called “limited” nuclear options raises questions about whether the United States will be increasingly reliant on threats to initiate a nuclear war as a central component of its regional defense strategy.
On the one hand, U.S. officials are quick to justify the need for more tactical nuclear weapons as a response to their acquisition by adversaries, suggesting the need to have the means to mirror enemy escalation.
Speaking in Omaha, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Yeaw expressed concern with the “modernization and expansion of adversary theater nuclear forces,” or what he called “the most destabilizing nuclear weapons.”
And Correll described on an Aug. 5 media call the integration of conventional, tactical nuclear, and strategic forces as intended to “raise the threshold for consideration of theater nuclear employment by any potential adversary…so it is about deterrence first and foremost.”
On the other hand, both Colby and Correll emphasized that U.S. declaratory policy on the conditions for nuclear weapons use would remain unchanged, reaffirming the existing policy that the U.S. would contemplate first use of nuclear weapons in emergencies to respond to non-nuclear strategic attacks on the United States or its allies and partners.
Colby, while outside of government, has long contemplated greater U.S. reliance on tactical nuclear weapons in Taiwan Straits scenarios.
“Washington may well seek to rely on its own nuclear weapons to compensate for outright inferiority or for the inability of its conventional forces to fight back,” he predicted in 2014.
In 2022, he recommended the limited use of nuclear weapons for “selective and conditional cost-imposition [that] would focus on striking at interests and targets that the Chinese government values and would ideally also degrade its current or future warmaking ability, but without precipitating a massive retaliation.”
Officials did not specify in Omaha what new tactical systems the Pentagon will ask Congress for in the coming years, although the Senate Armed Services Committee is proactively recommending that they adopt new ground-launched and air-launched cruise missiles.
A full-throated official embrace of nuclear warfighting may never come publicly. Law requires that the Pentagon provide a report on revised nuclear weapons employment guidance before it is implemented, but the description of changes in posture may remain muted.
A renewed emphasis on limited nuclear warfighting, without any reassurances regarding first use of nuclear weapons, offers the seductive trade of cheaper deterrence at greater risk of uncontrolled escalation. The half measure offered by the new strategy review, if reports are accurate, is no substitute for a genuine focus on reducing the role of nuclear weapons at all levels of conflict.—XIAODON LIANG and LIBBY FLATOFF
40th Anniversary of the Reykjavik Summit
This October marks the 40th anniversary of the Reykjavik Summit between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
The summit aimed to achieve a massive reduction in nuclear arsenals and, in fact, the two presidents came close to agreeing to eliminate all nuclear weapons in their arsenals, entirely. Although the summit ended in disappointment, foundering on Reagan’s unwillingness to set limits on the Strategic Defense Initiative, it opened the door for later arms reductions agreements like the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991, which oversaw an 80% reduction of strategic nuclear weapons.
During the summit, Reagan and Gorbachev issued a historic joint statement that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” This formulation continues to be reaffirmed not only by nuclear abolitionists, but by the nuclear powers themselves—most recently on Jan. 3, 2022.
On the 20th anniversary of the summit, Gorbachev submitted a statement to Arms Control Today, noting that the joint statement concluding the summit in 1986, “was not merely a declaration. The inescapable logical consequence of that statement had to be a genuine effort to reduce nuclear weapons, on the way to their eventual elimination.”
The anniversary reminds all nuclear weapons experts and activists of the unfinished work that remains to reduce the danger of nuclear weapons globally and to reach the goal of total abolition.
This month, a major Hollywood dramatization of the 1986 Summit, “The Brink of War,” will open in theaters across the nation.
For more information on this summit and its significance see:
- "When Gorbachev and Reagan Tried to End the Nuclear Threat” by Frank von Hippel
- "Reykjavik: When Abolition Was Within Reach,” by Thomas Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
- “LOOKING BACK: The Nuclear Arms Control Legacy of Ronald Reagan” by Daryl G. Kimball
Impasse with Russia on Strategic Talks
Six months after the expiration on Feb. 5 of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the United States and Russia are not in contact on nuclear arms control or strategic stability, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported Aug. 5 citing a foreign ministry official. The official said Russia considered U.S. support to Ukrainian deep strikes and the imposition of sanctions on Russian legal entities and individuals as not conducive to talks on strategic issues.
The report comes shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested the issue was still live on the bilateral agenda. “[The United States and Russia] are the two largest nuclear-armed countries on the planet. For us not to talk would be reckless and irresponsible,” he said on July 22, ahead of a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Manila.
On Aug. 4, the State Department imposed arms and dual-use export restrictions on a number of Russian state entities it suspects of contributing to Iranian, North Korean, or Syrian weapons of mass destruction programs. These entities include the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Main Missile and Artillery Directorate and Directorate for Advanced Inter-Service Research and Special Projects, as well as the Russian Ground Forces as a whole.
Golden Dome Passes First Hurdle, Faces Budget Cuts
All twelve contractors vying for contracts from the Pentagon to provide space-based missile interceptors have passed the first of four milestones, according to Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Space Force officer in charge of the Golden Dome missile defense initiative. The first milestone involved a ground test of propulsion systems as well as the integration of sensors, interceptors, and other components. The next two milestones involve flight tests, which are set to take place in 2027 and 2028.
Guetlein, speaking Aug. 12 to attendees of a conference in Huntsville, Alabama, said the program would face a funding crunch, however, if Congress does not provide money through a reconciliation bill later this year. The Pentagon split its fiscal year 2027 funding request into a regular $1.1 trillion defense appropriations ask, and a $350 billion partisan reconciliation request. Most of the $17.5 billion requested this fiscal year for continuation of the Golden Dome project is in the reconciliation portion. With a thin Republican majority in both houses of Congress split over defense spending, budget cuts, and other priorities, the prospects of additional funding for Golden Dome are now uncertain.
U.S., China Prepare for Xi Visit to White House
Chinese President Xi Jinping is still set to visit the White House Sept. 24 for a head of state summit, Politico confirmed Aug. 17, following a report that progress on negotiated deliverables had stalled ahead of the meeting. The South China Morning Post, a Hong-Kong based newspaper, reported Aug. 15 that officials in Beijing were worried by a lack of coordination and planning within the Trump administration.
Following the May meeting between Trump and Xi in Beijing, the U.S. president told press that subsequent bilateral summits would provide an opportunity to address nuclear issues between the two sides. Speaking to the media in Manila on July 22 following a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he has discussed nuclear arms control with his counterpart, Wang Yi, on past occasions but had not discussed it that day. The Chinese readout of the meeting also did not specify areas of work ahead of the presidential summit but described 2026 as a year of opportunity in bilateral relations and repeated the Chinese desire for a relationship based on “constructive strategic stability.”
U.S., Partners Push for Hague Code Universalization
The United States and 40 other countries issued a joint statement Aug. 11 at the Conference on Disarmament calling for “all relevant countries to commit to participate in arrangements for providing advance notification of launches” of long-range ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles (SLVs). The statement notes that 145 countries are already adherents to the Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation, a political agreement which includes a commitment to providing pre-notification of launches.
The statement comes in response to China’s launch on July 6 of a submarine-launched ballistic missile eastward over the Pacific Ocean. (See forthcoming issue of Arms Control Today). The statement does not name China, but refers to “recent missile testing activity in the Pacific area, which the 41 countries claim “did not follow the standard practices adopted by most states to notify and deconflict” launches.
Although China provided notice of the test to countries in the region, several voiced disappointment at the short time between when these notices were received and the test itself. The joint statement calls for all countries to provide notifications at least 24 hours in advance, even though the Hague Code does not set such a standard. Both the Hague Code and the joint statement also call for states to provide “generic class of the ballistic missile or SLV, the planned launch notification window, the launch area, and the planned direction.”
Nobel Laureates Oppose “Reckless” AI-Nuclear Integration
A group of Nobel laureates and policy experts convened by the Vatican issued a call July 16 for an international treaty prohibiting the “reckless” integration of artificial intelligence
(AI) in nuclear weapons operations. The Rome Declaration on AI and nuclear weapons also affirmed the “human in the loop” norm, stating that “an automated system should never make the final decision to launch a nuclear weapon.”
The declaration came after two days of discussions among more than 200 participants, including Nobel prize winners in peace, medicine, economics, and physics; AI experts from Anthropic, Open AI, and Google DeepMind; leaders from international peace organizations; nuclear weapons researchers and experts; and faith leaders. The meeting came a year after a similar Nobel Laureates’ dialogue on the prevention of nuclear war in Chicago.
The Rome Declaration also recognized the need to prevent “the malicious use of artificial intelligence in cyber operations and attacks against critical nuclear infrastructure” and the need for fail-safe reviews to understand the vulnerabilities of nuclear forces. The declaration reiterated the need for “urgent, sustained, and good-faith negotiations leading, within an agreed and time-bound framework, to the verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons,” and a “halt [to] renewed arms racing.”
On the Disarmament Calendar
August 24-28: Twelfth Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty, Geneva
August 29: International Day Against Nuclear Tests
September 7-9: Preparatory Committee of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, Geneva
September 10: 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
November 16-20: Seventh Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, Geneva
November 30: Day of Remembrance for All Victims of Chemical Warfare
November 30-Dec. 4: First Review Conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, New York
In Case You Missed It:
“Nuclear Tests Do Not Prove Strengthen, They Shatter Trust, Secretary-General Stresses in Observance Message, Urging Restraint over Ruin,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres, August 2026.
“Plutonium aging in U.S. nuclear arsenal not affecting weapons' performance, study finds,” Clara Bates, Santa Fe New Mexican, Aug. 10, 2026.
“AI and the Hunt for Ballistic Missile Submarines,” Eliana Johns and Barret Schlegelmilch, Council on Strategic Risks, August 2026.
“Anticipating the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in the Trump Administration’s Forthcoming Nuclear Strategy Review,” Xiaodon Liang and Daryl Kimball, Arms Control Association, Aug. 7, 2026.
“Engaging the Younger Generations: New Considerations for New Circumstances,” Mia Clarke, Arms Control Association, Aug. 5, 2026.
“Asserting Human Control to Reduce the Dangers of AI and Nuclear War,” Daryl Kimball, Arms Control Association, July 14, 2026.
“U.S. Underestimates Peril if Los Alamos Were to Leak Plutonium, Study Says,” Alicia Inez Guzmán, The New York Times, July 2026.
“Military AI governance under strain: the US–China dialogue,” Dongyoun Cho, International Institute for Strategic Studies, June 2026.
“Why Strategic Superiority (Still) Doesn’t Matter,” Christopher Preble and Lucas Ruiz, Stimson Center, April 2026.