July/August 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

Iran and the United States announced a memorandum of understanding to end their war and begin new talks on a nuclear agreement, but negotiators face significant obstacles to a final deal, including a resurgence in fighting.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced June 14 on the social media platform X that the United States and Iran reached a peace agreement and that, “Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

The ceasefire broke down two weeks later when the United States blamed Iran for launching drone attacks on two vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliated. Despite the strikes, the U.S. and Iranian negotiating teams conducted a second round of talks on implementing the memorandum in Doha June 30-July 1.

The United States and Israel initiated the 2026 war when they illegally attacked Iran Feb. 28, prompting retaliatory strikes by Iran that included targets in Gulf states. Several days later, Israel began attacking targets in Lebanon that it claims are tied to the Iranian-supported Hezbollah militia.

Pakistan helped broker an initial ceasefire between the United States and Iran April 8 and mediated talks on the memorandum.

Following Sharif’s announcement, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed the deal in a June 14 post on Truth Social saying “Congratulations to all!” He announced that the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for shipping oil and other commodities that Iran closed by targeting ships, was now open as a result of the memorandum.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a June 18 message shared with Iranian media that he “issued [his] permission” for Iran to sign the memorandum despite having a “different view” of what should be included. He warned that “in-person negotiations that will take place in the future will not mean acceptance of the enemy's position.”

Trump, in Versailles, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in Tehran, signed the memorandum June 17. The next day, Pezeshkian called the memorandum an “historic document.” He wrote on X that “peace will be achieved in the shadow of mutual respect.”

The United States released the text of the 14-paragraph memorandum June 17. It said that the United States, Iran, and their allies “declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other.”

Specifically on the nuclear program, the memorandum reaffirmed Iran’s commitment to never “procure or develop nuclear weapons.” It also noted that the United States and Iran “agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled, enriched material pursuant … with the minimum methodology to be down-blending on site” under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision. The issue of uranium enrichment and other nuclear issues would be negotiated as part of a final deal, according to the memorandum. In return, the United States committed to “terminate all types of sanctions against Iran,” including at the United Nations. It specified that U.S. primary and secondary sanctions on Iran would be included in the sanctions lifting.

The memorandum committed the United States and Iran to negotiate a final nuclear deal “in maximum 60 days extendable with mutual consent.”

The agreement declared the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and committed Iran and Oman to “define the future administration and maritime services” through that waterway, in discussion with other regional states. Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was an open waterway, but Iran now seeks to profit from it.

The memorandum includes a commitment to establish a fund to rebuild Iran and requires that the United States issue waivers for Iranian oil sales. The U.S. Treasury Department quickly issued a license for Iran to sell oil and other petrochemical products through Aug. 21.

Although Vice President JD Vance, who was deeply involved in the memorandum negotiations, repeatedly stated that Iran does not receive any unilateral benefits, the upfront sanctions relief and vague nuclear commitments spurred bipartisan criticism of the memorandum as a win for Iran.

Reaching a final agreement in 60 days will be challenging, as negotiators appear far apart on key issues and will likely face opposition.

Although the memorandum references Iran, the United States, and “their allies,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country is not bound by the interim deal. He said June 14 that Israeli troops “will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary” to protect against Hezbollah attacks. Netanyahu also continues to reiterate that Iran must give up its entire nuclear program as part of any agreement.

Trump wrote June 18 on Truth Social that he expects a “complete Ceasefire on all fronts” and that all states in the Middle East should “maintain their commitment to allowing our negotiations to beautifully unfold.” He has also threatened to resume attacks on Iran if a deal is not reached, in an apparent violation of the ceasefire.

Despite Trump’s threat, U.S. and Iranian negotiating teams met in Lucerne, Switzerland, June 21-22 for the first round of talks after reaching the memorandum.

Pakistan and Qatar mediated the talks and afterwards said that “encouraging progress has been made, including the creation of a mechanism for further technical talks.” A high-level committee will provide political oversight of the process and there will be working groups on nuclear issues, sanctions, monitoring, and dispute resolution, according to a June 22 statement.

After the talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X that they “delivered major progress to end Lebanon War.” He described deconfliction in Lebanon as the first “real test” of the process.

The two sides offered different accounts of what transpired on the nuclear issue. In a press conference following the meetings, Vance said that “we made a lot of good progress on other nuclear talks.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said that the United States presented its “positions regarding the nuclear issue,” but there was “no discussion of details.” He suggested that nuclear issues also were not a focus of the second round of talks in Doha.

Trump suggested to The New York Times in a June 14 interview that the United States would accept a 15-year suspension on Iran’s uranium enrichment, moving away from his previous demand for a permanent enrichment ban. Iran is open to a suspension but seeks a shorter duration. Although the memorandum suggests that the United States is now open to diluting the highly enriched uranium in Iran, it still appears that Trump wants the blended-down material shipped elsewhere, whereas Iran wants to keep the enriched uranium in the country.

Before the Lucerne talks, Vance suggested that the two sides would discuss a resumption of IAEA inspections. Iran is legally required to implement a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, but it suspended cooperation with the agency and blocked its access to bombed sites after the 12-day U.S.-Israeli war in June 2025. (See ACT, July/August 2025.)

After the meetings ended, Vance said the United States, the IAEA, and Iran will discuss inspections “this week.”

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi suggested the resumption of inspections is not imminent. He said in a June 24 post on X that Iran held “no meeting with [IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano] Grossi took place in Switzerland, despite his request,” and that there is “no plan for access to the attacked facilities and nuclear materials.” Inspections will be “resolved with the framework of the final agreement,” he said.

Grossi told reporters at a June 24 press conference in Japan that “inspections will indeed take place.” The IAEA and Iran will be “working on the modalities—dates, procedures, places—very soon,” he said.

July/August 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

A key U.S. Senate committee recommended imposing on the military a regulatory framework for autonomous weapons and military artificial intelligence that emphasizes human judgment and ultimate human responsibility, while largely endorsing the Pentagon’s embrace of lethal autonomous weapons and urging that the department “maximize uses” of these emergent technologies.

The Senate Armed Services Committee endorsed the new framework in its draft of the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, which the panel finished marking up June 10.

The sections pertaining to autonomous weapons and military AI would require the department to “ensure personnel exercise appropriate levels of human judgment” and that relevant systems are “designed and employed in a manner that enables commanders and operators to exercise ultimate human responsibility over the use of force.”

The requirement of “appropriate levels of human judgment” is already established in Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, on autonomy in weapons systems, but has lacked a clear definition. (See ACT, March 2023.)

The new framework seeks to elaborate on the principle by specifying that systems must allow for supervision by human operators, include methods for intervention or termination, include fail-safe mechanisms to enable manual control, provide adequate monitoring data to controllers, maintain records of target selection data and logic, and operate in compliance with “international law, rules of engagement, the law of armed conflict, applicable treaties, and Department of Defense policy.”

The proposed legislation would codify the existing review process mandated by the 2023 directive, while also specifying verification, validation, testing, and evaluation criteria. The department’s office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, which has had its proposed budget slashed by two-thirds in this year’s Pentagon budget request, would be charged with ensuring that covered systems function “as anticipated in realistic operational environments against adaptive adversaries and are sufficiently robust to minimize failures.”

The committee text also would establish an incident repository for tracking data on system failures, unintended behavior, and near-miss events.

The language on autonomy and AI would categorically prohibit the use of these technologies for any “decision to initiate the launch or detonation of a nuclear weapon,” a move sought on a bipartisan basis in 2023 by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.).

The new Senate Armed Services Committee proposal does not, however, include a ban on the use of AI for the targeting of nuclear weapons, as proposed by Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in a stand-alone bill introduced June 2.

Gillibrand’s bill was one of several introduced in the last few weeks seeking to address autonomous weapons and military use of AI by primarily Democratic members of Congress. The others included separate proposals by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) in collaboration with Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.).

Ultimately, the Senate committee language largely tracks a bill introduced June 8 by Democratic leadership, represented by ranking member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and his counterpart on the Senate’s defense appropriations subcommittee, Chris Coons (D-Del.). The text, which was accepted by the Republican majority into the base text of the draft of the key policy bill, also incorporates substantial portions of the Kelly-Subramanyam bill.

The Senate committee text, as based on the Coons-Reed bill, is less specific in its protections against domestic surveillance as compared to the other proposals put forward by Democratic senators.

Elsewhere in the draft bill, the committee recommends that the Senate mandate creation of a robotics and autonomous systems command that would be responsible for “force generation, joint training, interoperability, doctrine development, and operational employment through other combatant commands.”

Reflecting bipartisan concerns about the effects of AI adoption, a separate section in the Senate’s draft act incorporates a bill proposed by Kelly and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) that would instruct the Pentagon to assess the effect of AI use “on the maintenance and retention of essential warfighter skills.”

Otherwise, the text is largely supportive of Pentagon efforts to expand usage of generative AI and so-called agents, or AI-powered autonomous software.

The new draft legislation for regulation of autonomous weapons systems and military AI faces an uncertain path toward gaining final passage by the full Congress.

The sparer House variant of the defense policy bill, which was approved by the House Armed Services Committee June 5, instructs the Pentagon to update its directive on autonomous systems and military AI while taking into account many of the issues covered in the Senate bill, but provides less specificity and more deference to the Pentagon.

The recent wave of legislative interest in the Senate in autonomous weapons and military AI reflects growing unease over the Trump administration’s revisions to Pentagon policies on the use of AI.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth instructed the department Jan. 9 to adopt a new policy that vendors be required to accept that their AI models may be deployed for “any lawful use.” The order implied that previous departmental restraints would be reassessed.

In February and March, the Pentagon took unprecedented coercive actions against a prominent U.S. technology firm, Anthropic, when the company rejected contract modifications that removed safeguards against use of its AI models in fully autonomous weapons systems and for domestic mass surveillance. (See ACT, April 2026.)

President Donald Trump signed a national security presidential memorandum on AI in the national security enterprise June 5 that, among other measures, tasks the Pentagon to rewrite Directive 3000.09, which was last updated in January 2023.

July/August 2026
By Libby Flatoff

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the United States will conduct a six-month review of U.S. basing and force posture in Europe for what he called “NATO 3.0.”

“[W]e’re doubling down on our effort to make NATO what it always was supposed to be, a balanced alliance with Europe in the lead for its own defense,” Hegseth told NATO defense ministers in Brussels June 18.

The announcement came after The Financial Times reported June 1 that the United States was in internal discussions with the alliance about deploying nuclear dual-capable aircraft to additional countries in Europe.

Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey currently operate their own dual-capable aircraft, purchased from the United States and designed and certified to deliver U.S. nuclear weapons. Turkey remains in a reserve and contingency role.

The newspaper said that two sources briefed on the discussions believe that this signaling was “intended to show the U.S. commitment to providing a nuclear umbrella even as NATO allies were pushed to shoulder more of the conventional defence burden.”

“Europe can and must take primary responsibility for its conventional defense as it pledged at the Hague Summit,” Hegseth told the defense ministers. “Going forward, [U.S.] annual NATO dues will be contingent on other countries meeting their defense spending targets. Where other allies do not spend with urgency, our dues contributions will go down. NATO will be a two-way street.”

On the same day, the Nuclear Planning Group, NATO’s senior body for nuclear deterrence, met and released a statement on nuclear deterrence matters for the first time since 2007. The group, which includes all NATO members except France, agreed to “continue enhancing NATO’s nuclear deterrence mission by modernising NATO’s nuclear capabilities, strengthening its nuclear planning capacity, and adapting to achieve its security interests.”

PBS News reported June 3 that Poland and Lithuania confirmed that they began discussions with the United States on their role within NATO nuclear deterrent efforts. Polish Deputy Defense Minister Pawel Zalewski told Polish Radio, “We are talking, in order to create better conditions for nuclear deterrence and for Poland to play an important role in that.”

Poland has also expressed interest in France’s new “forward deterrence” plans, which were announced by President Emmanuel Macron in March and could allow for the temporary deployment of nuclear strike aircraft outside of France. (See ACT, March 2026.) Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have expressed their intention to discuss nuclear cooperation with France.

Most recently, Norway announced in a May 27 press release that it signed a comprehensive defense agreement with France “to commit to come to each other’s aid should the need arise.” The press release added that, “Together with nine other European countries, Norway will also participate in a process to determine how France’s nuclear weapons can contribute to security and deterrence in Europe.”

Finland, which joined the alliance in 2023, lifted its national ban on nuclear weapons June 17, 2026, after a vote by parliament. Heikki Autto, chair of the parliamentary defense committee, stated in an interview that “nuclear deterrence is, in the end, the guarantor of peace in Europe.… It’s the ultimate deterrence against the Russian aggression.”

Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned June 3 that, “By placing nuclear weapons on its territory, Finland will begin to pose a threat to us. And if Finland threatens us, we will take appropriate measures.”

In a March 5 press release, the Finnish Defense Ministry first announced its intention to amend the state’s Nuclear Energy Act to allow nuclear arms within its territory “to remove legal barriers to enable Finland’s homeland defence as part of the Alliance and the full utilisation of NATO’s deterrence and defence.” (See ACT, April 2026.)

The next NATO summit will be July 7-8 in Ankara.

July/August 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a new uranium enrichment facility at an undisclosed location, which he described as necessary to bolster the country’s nuclear arsenal.

The state-run Rodong Sinmum published June 3 a report of Kim’s visit to a “newly commissioned nuclear material production plant” and showed a photo of him walking between rows of centrifuges, machines used to enrich uranium, at the site.

The report said that Kim inspected the factory and reiterated the necessity of “implementing ambitious future plans designed to strengthen our state’s nuclear forces exponentially.” Kim expressed satisfaction with the facility and said that North Korea’s “weapons-grade nuclear materials production capacity more than doubled during the past 5-year” period.

North Korea announced plans to continue expanding its nuclear arsenal at the Ninth Party Congress, which took place in February. (See ACT, March 2026.)

After the visit, Kim held a “consultative meeting on bolstering the nuclear forces,” according to the report. At the conclusion of the meeting, Kim announced that North Korea “updated the digits that are critical for our nuclear activities.”

The updated number “comprehensively considered the tactical and strategic requirements for building up our nuclear deterrent,” the report said, suggesting that Kim set a new target for North Korea’s stockpile of nuclear warheads. Fissile material production capacity must continue to grow to increase the country’s nuclear arsenal, Kim was quoted as saying.

North Korea does not disclose the size of its nuclear arsenal, but a March 2026 report from the Federation of American Scientists estimated that North Korea possesses about 60 nuclear warheads.

Rodong Sinmum and other state-run media did not disclose the location of the facility, but it is likely within the Yongbyon nuclear complex.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been tracking the construction of a building at the site that is similar in size and design to two other known uranium enrichment facilities in North Korea. Satellite imagery indicates that North Korea began construction on the building in December 2024.

In a June 8 statement to the agency’s Board of Governors, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi referenced North Korea’s reports on the new enrichment facility and said that the “interior structure and layout of the facility is consistent with the Agency’s observation of the features of the new building at Yongbyon.”

He said that the “ongoing operation of enrichment facilities at Kangson and Yongbyon and the reported further expansion of [North Korea’s] production of weapons-grade nuclear material is a cause for serious concern.”

The June 3 report from Rodong Sinmum suggested that the centrifuges at the newly unveiled facility will enrich uranium more efficiently because the new site features “more sophisticated technologies.”

In addition to the expanding uranium enrichment capacity, Grossi noted that it appears that North Korea is continuing to operate the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon. North Korea uses plutonium separated from the spent fuel produced by that reactor for nuclear weapons.

In a June 10 statement to the IAEA Board of Governors, Howard Solomon, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. mission to international organizations in Vienna, said that the United States is “gravely concerned by [North Korea’s] ongoing nuclear activities” and described reports on the new enrichment facility as “deeply troubling.” The United States remains committed to the “complete denuclearization” of North Korea, he said.

North Korea continues to reject denuclearization and reaffirm its status as a nuclear-armed state. In a June 13 statement, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that the United States and South Korea are “accelerating arms buildup” in the region and reiterated that its nuclear arsenal is an “irreversibly finalized matter.”

The statement was issued after the United States and South Korea held the sixth meeting of the Nuclear Consultative Group, a body formed in 2023 to strengthen the alliance and provide Seoul with more input in Washington’s extended deterrence planning. (See ACT, May 2023.)

After the June 11 meeting, the United States in a joint statement “reaffirmed the commitment to provide extended deterrence to [South Korea], utilizing the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.”

A second statement published in KCNA June 13 criticized South Korean President Lee Jae Myung for condemning North Korea’s “illegal military cooperation” with Russia in a June 10 joint statement issued after the South Korea-European Union summit. The statement also said that North Korea “will never be accepted as a nuclear-weapon state.”

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said that Lee’s proposal for peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas is impossible. The statement said Lee’s push for peace was a “deceptive farce” and South Korea is an “enemy state obsessed with hostility and confrontation.”

July/August 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

South Korea’s nuclear-powered attack submarines will run on low-enriched fuel produced domestically, according to a government document outlining Seoul’s plans for the submarine program.

The Ministry of National Defense released the Basic Plan for the Development of the Republic of Korea Nuclear-Powered Submarine May 26. Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back told press during the plan’s unveiling that South Korea aims to launch its first submarine in the mid-2030s.

The “nuclear-powered submarines can monitor and track North Korean submarine forces more covertly and swiftly than conventional diesel submarines,” Ahn said, thus significantly contributing to South Korea’s “underwater kill chain capability.” The underwater kill chain refers to South Korea’s plans to track and target North Korea’s nuclear-armed submarines before Pyongyang can attack.

The plan was published six months after President Donald Trump pledged U.S. support for South Korea’s decision to build nuclear-powered attack submarines and its ambition to enrich uranium and separate plutonium, capabilities Washington previously sought to prevent Seoul from acquiring. (See ACT, December 2025.)

The plan states that, “to secure autonomy and stability in force acquisition, sustainment, and maintenance, the nuclear-powered submarine will be developed and built within the Republic of Korea.”

The plan did not specify the uranium enrichment level for the planned submarine reactor fuel, but the document’s reference to “low-enriched” suggested that the fuel would be less than 20 percent enriched uranium-235. Uranium enriched to less than 20 percent poses less of a proliferation risk because it cannot immediately be used for nuclear weapons. But as a practical matter, if South Korea is producing the enriched uranium to fuel the reactors, it could use the same technology to produce weapons-grade uranium, which is enriched to above 90 percent U-235.

The submarine plan committed South Korea to “establish a safeguards system applicable to nuclear-powered submarines in cooperation” with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Seoul also pledged to “faithfully fulfill its nuclear non-proliferation obligations throughout the entire process of securing and managing low-enriched uranium, the nuclear fuel required for the propulsion system of nuclear-powered submarines, in close communication with the United States.”

In a June 8 statement, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said the agency noted South Korea’s commitment to “fulfilling its non-proliferation obligations” and welcomed its “intention to work with the Agency on safety, security and safeguards measures applicable to nuclear-powered submarines.”

After publication of the plan, South Korea and the United States met to discuss the nuclear cooperation provisions that Trump and Lee agreed to in November.

First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo led the South Korean negotiating team. After the June 2-3 meeting with U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker, Park said that a “separate agreement” with the United States on the reactor fuel will be necessary, because “nuclear-powered submarines are related to the military use of nuclear energy.” South Korea has a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States, but it is restricted to civil nuclear cooperation.

Hooker described the discussions as a “success” in a June 3 post on the social media site X and said the talks “set the stage for continued technical conversations.”

July/August 2026
By Libby Flatoff

Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition on Chemical Weapons (OPCW) uncovered a significant cache of undeclared chemical weapons and documentation in Syria after the new government of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa pledged to help the agency resolve outstanding issues relating to the arsenal amassed by deposed leader Bashar al-Assad.

In a briefing June 4, Undersecretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu told the UN Security Council that the cache included rockets of the same type used in the 2013 sarin gas attack in Ghouta that killed an estimated 1,400 people. “These findings are a momentous discovery, not just for Syria, but for international security and the global disarmament regime,” she said.

According to a UN press release, Syria’s UN ambassador, Ibrahim Olabi, described the discoveries as a “decisive turning point” and a “major leap forward in delivering accountability.” He said that his government had facilitated 32 visits by OPCW inspectors and handed over more than 60,000 pages of documents.

The OPCW has been unable to confirm Syria’s chemical weapon declaration since it was submitted in 2014 by Assad’s government, which was ousted in 2024 after a civil war.

In 2017, Damascus used sarin to attack civilians in Khan Shaykhun. In April 2018, chlorine gas was used in Douma. The United States responded with airstrikes both times.

Mohamad Katoub, Syria’s ambassador to the OPCW, told Arms Control Today in May that it was important to confirm and take accountability for these stockpiles because, “Accountability is a measure of nonrecurrence.” (See ACT, May 2026.) “The Syrian people suffered from those chemical weapons, and part of justice is the destruction of the remnants of chemical weapons,” he said. “Without holding perpetrators accountable and bringing justice for the victims, the peace in Syria will keep being fragile.” However, Katoub acknowledged that he doesn’t “believe that we’ll be able to have a 100-percent accurate declaration.” He said that ferreting out remnants of the CW arsenal had been complicated partly by “the Israeli airstrikes [and] what’s happening now in the region.” He noted that the OPCW Technical Secretariat team had to be evacuated from Syria March 17 over security concerns after the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began Feb. 28.

After the 2024 collapse of the Assad regime, Israel undertook several airstrikes against known Syrian chemical weapon stockpiles.

According to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, “We attacked strategic weapons, the residual chemical weapons capabilities, [and] long-range missiles and rockets, so they won’t fall into the hands of radicals.”

In December 2024, the OPCW affirmed its “commitment to clarifying gaps, discrepancies, and inconsistencies in Syrian chemical weapons declaration amidst political transition.”

The UN Security Council press release said that Nakamitsu “stressed that the newly discovered weapons must now be formally declared and destroyed under OPCW verification, and that further inspections of additional sites are needed.”

During the Security Council briefing, France cautioned that this was “only just beginning to reveal the extent of the programme hidden from the international community.”

July/August 2026
By Mia Clarke

The Department of Energy announced the list of companies selected to participate in an unprecedented program under which they would receive weapons-grade plutonium recycled from U.S. nuclear weapons for use in nuclear power plants.

The five companies tapped to begin advanced negotiations on plans for transferring and securing the plutonium are Oklo, Standard Nuclear, Exodys Energy, Shine Technologies, and Flibe Energy, the department said June 22 in a written statement. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright was previously on the board at Oklo but divested his shares before joining the Energy Department.

“Surplus plutonium was once viewed solely as a nuclear liability and a multi-billion-dollar financial drain on taxpayers—but it doesn’t have to remain one,” Josh Jarrell, the deputy assistant secretary for the nuclear fuel cycle, said in a statement June 22. “[W]e are redirecting this Cold War legacy to serve as a vital energy asset, powering the next generation of American nuclear innovation.”

In the same press release, the Office of Nuclear Energy stated that the “Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program was … formed to broaden domestic nuclear fuel supplies, spur innovation on American recycling technologies, and unlock private sector funding to fuel America’s nuclear renaissance.”

Although department officials and other advocates say the program will harness the private sector to deliver national energy independence, some members of Congress and nonproliferation experts have expressed concerns that it could create new security risks. “It raises serious weapons proliferation concerns, makes little economic sense, and may adversely affect the nations defense posture,” Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.) and Reps. Don Beyer (Va.) and John Garamendi (Calif.), all Democrats, wrote in a September letter to the department.

In May 2025, President Donald Trump initiated a new nuclear energy policy that aims to promote a “nuclear renaissance” in order to increase domestic energy stability and independence by building new nuclear power reactors.

In October, the Energy Department reported that it had approximately 20 tons of weapons-grade plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons to make available to U.S. power companies.

As the Energy Department dismantled Cold War-era nuclear weapons over the years, it accumulated more than 50 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. The department managed it by blending some stocks into mixed-oxide fuel, and later by diluting and disposing of other stocks.

A May 2025 executive order instructed the energy secretary to stop the dilute-and-dispose program and explore alternatives, including recycling, for surplus plutonium. Another executive order that month called for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to simplify the licensing process for new reactors.

At that time, Ernest Moniz, a former U.S. energy secretary, warned that allowing companies to use plutonium-based fuels could “Encourage states without nuclear weapons to develop and deploy technologies that are usable in nuclear weapons programs” and “Produce new radioactive waste streams that must be managed, at considerable cost and risk.”

When coupled with pressure on the NRC, this program “could lead to the hasty deployment of advanced reactors with safety and security flaws,” Moniz said. “Additionally, reorganizing and reducing the independence of the NRC could lead to the hasty deployment of advanced reactors with safety and security flaws. A major event would, like those in the past, increase regulatory requirements and set back nuclear energy for a long time.”

In their letter, Markey, Beyer and Garamendi voiced concerns that giving weapons-grade plutonium to private entities would damage the U.S. nonproliferation strategy. Citing policies dating to the Ford and Carter administrations, they highlighted the contradiction in discouraging other states from reprocessing plutonium while doing so itself on domestic soil and noted the potential dangers of rogue states or terrorists accessing this material.

July/August 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

Defense policy committees in both houses of Congress have proposed expansions to the U.S. nuclear arsenal in their respective drafts of the key annual defense policy bill, ahead of floor votes expected later this summer.

The Senate Armed Services Committee recommended June 10 in its approved draft of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027 that the full chamber authorize two new nonstrategic nuclear weapons—also known as “theater” or “tactical” nuclear weapons—despite the fact that the departments of Defense and Energy have yet to request funding for them.

If Congress also appropriates funding for the programs, the proposed authorizing language would allow the departments to begin developing one new surface-launched and air-launched nuclear weapon each.

Writing in Real Clear Defense May 26, five former nuclear policy officials from Democratic and Republican administrations called for development of a standoff nuclear-capable missile to pair with the F-35 combat jet, a delivery platform currently only certified to deliver the B-61 gravity bomb.

The unusual proposal to preauthorize new nuclear weapons programs comes as the Pentagon reviews the nuclear strategy internally, following the Trump administration’s decision not to pursue a full interagency nuclear posture review. (See ACT, April 2026.)

In a move that would provide insight into any changes that would result from this review, the House Armed Services Committee proposed an adjustment in its draft of the defense policy bill to the existing requirement that the president publish a report on the nuclear employment strategy of the United States following a nuclear posture review 60 days before implementing any changes.

The proposed change would mandate such a report—known as a “491 report,” after the relevant section of Title 10 of U.S. Code—after an evaluation “similar” to a full nuclear posture review. (See ACT, December 2024.)

The House committee also expressed interest in expanding U.S. nuclear forces but took a different approach from the Senate in its draft bill, as approved by the committee June 5. The bill proposed that the full House ask the Pentagon to conduct a study on potentially recertifying the B-1B bomber for nuclear missions.

The B-1B bomber was decertified following the George W. Bush administration’s 2002 Nuclear Posture Review. (See ACT, January/February 2002.)

The House committee also proposed granting the Pentagon increased flexibility to move funds across research and development, procurement, and operations and maintenance accounts for the Sentinel and Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Although the new authority comes with notification requirements, it will likely diminish Congress’s ability to specify how the Pentagon uses appropriated funds for the land-based leg of the triad.

Plutonium pit production requirements also would change, according to the House committee’s draft bill. The panel would modify the law to require that the National Nuclear Security Administration be capable of producing 180 plutonium pits per year by 2050. This goal builds upon the existing ambitious requirement that the agency be able to produce 80 pits per year by 2030.

Both committees continued to express concerns with the Pentagon’s plan for space-based missile-defense interceptors, with the House panel proposing that Congress ask the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office for an independent lifecycle cost estimate.

The Senate panel seeks to ring-fence travel funding as long as the department fails to submit a similar report from the Institute for Defense Analyses, as directed by Congress in its fiscal 2024 policy bill.

Senate committee members voted, however, against rescinding funding appropriated by Congress last year for space-based interceptors. Several Democrats joined the Republican majority to defeat the measure, 18-9.

The same committee did not take up any amendments related to nuclear testing.

Congressional sources had informed Arms Control Today earlier this spring that certain Republican offices in the Senate were considering sponsoring language that would seek to improve the readiness of the Energy Department to resume extremely low-yield explosive nuclear testing.

July/August 2026
By Michael T. Klare

UN member states and nongovernmental organizations met in June to discuss artificial intelligence in the military domain and its implications for international peace and security, the first such gathering under UN auspices.

The June 15-17 “informal exchange” in Geneva was organized by the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 80/58 of Dec. 5, 2025, which proposed the consultation to address the risks and opportunities posed by the accelerating application of AI to military targeting and decision-making tools.

Participants were encouraged to reflect on a report on this topic released by the UN secretary-general in June 2025 and to consider possible next steps that the General Assembly could take at its fall 2026 meeting. The United States was among the countries that did not attend.

At the three-day meeting, participants heard from a number of governmental and academic experts on the ways in which AI is being applied to military operations and the resulting implications for international peace and stability. The applications include automatic targeting systems, such as the Maven Smart System used by U.S. forces to help identify targets in Iran for attack during U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in February-April 2026, and AI-enabled decision-support systems, used by some militaries to provide combat commanders with recommended courses of action. (See ACT, May 2026.)

Many governmental and civil society participants noted that the military use of these technologies increases the risk of unintended escalation in a military conflict and unnecessary civilian casualties by accelerating the pace of combat decision-making—leaving less time for informed human judgment—and by maximizing the potential for AI errors and malfunctions. Participants also expressed concern that the use of these technologies could undermine compliance with international humanitarian law.

Although most of the discussion in Geneva focused on the use of AI in conventional military operations, some participants warned of escalatory dangers arising from the integration of AI in nuclear weapons command and control. Numerous participants stressed that decisions involving the use of nuclear weapons must be made by humans, not machines.

In a session on possible responses to these challenges, participants considered various measures, ranging from a legally binding ban on the use of AI in targeting systems to a variety of nonbinding measures, such as information exchanges and a voluntary pledge to exclude AI from decisions involved in killing humans. No consensus was reached on this matter—Russia’s representative, for example, was adamantly opposed to any binding measures—but participants largely agreed that further consultations on the topic would be useful.

South Korean Ambassador Song Si-Jin proposed that states use the coming months to consider possible follow-up steps for the General Assembly to discuss at its meeting this fall.

July/August 2026

A May 17 drone strike on a nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates prompted an emergency response from the UN Security Council amid renewed concerns about the risks that escalating regional armed conflicts pose to civilian nuclear facilities.

According to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi, the attack struck an electrical generator outside the inner security perimeter of Barakah Nuclear Power plant in Abu Dhabi. No injuries were reported and radiation levels remained normal. But the strike caused a fire and temporarily disrupted offsite power to Unit 3, requiring operators to rely on emergency diesel generators for about 24 hours until external power was restored. This is the first known case of an operating commercial nuclear reactor losing off-site power as a result of a military attack.

UAE defense officials said that the drones originated in Iraq, suggesting that Iran-backed militias targeted the UAE because of its close security ties with the United States. Responsibility has not been independently verified. The Barakah facility supplies about one-quarter of the country’s electricity.

The Security Council convened an emergency meeting May 19 to discuss the attack. Addressing the Council, Grossi warned that a direct strike on reactors or spent fuel facilities could result in a “very high release of radioactivity to the environment,” potentially requiring evacuations, sheltering orders, iodine distribution, and long-term food restrictions.

Grossi said that attacks disabling power supplies could increase the risk of reactor core damage and meltdown. On May 26, the Council condemned the strike “in the strongest terms,” calling it a “flagrant violation of international law” and warning of grave risks to civilians, infrastructure, and the environment.

The incident comes amid heightened regional tensions and follows previous IAEA warnings about the dangers posed by military operations near nuclear facilities. Grossi reiterated that attacks on nuclear facilities dedicated to peaceful purposes are against international law. “Attacks on nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes are unacceptable … Zaporizhzya NPP, Kursk NPP, Bushehr NPP, Barakah NPP or any other nuclear power plant. Nuclear Power Plants are protected under international humanitarian law,” he said in a statement.

Grossi also told the Security Council that “the only sustainable path forward to peace, stability, and cooperation is one grounded in dialogue and diplomacy.” He stressed that durable agreements concerning nuclear activities require robust IAEA verification and international engagement.—SHAGHAYEGH CHRIS ROSTAMPOUR