The U.S. president offered conflicting messages for his decision but he may have been trying to signal interest in renewed diplomacy with North Korea.
September 2026
By Kelsey Davenport
President Donald Trump announced that the United States would scale back a joint military exercise with ally South Korea because of the message it sends to North Korea.
Trump has offered conflicting rationales about why he ordered a shortening of the annual drill, but it appears that he is trying to signal interest in diplomacy with North Korea. He told reporters Aug. 19 that he expects to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by the end of the year.
In an Aug. 16 post on Truth Social announcing the decision, Trump wrote that he was “not happy” with U.S. participation in the joint military exercises because of his “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un.”
The drills “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which has been “unthreatening and respectful” to the United States during his presidency, Trump said. But he also criticized the drills as expensive, saying most costs are “paid for by the United States of America (as usual!),” and complained that South Korea is not doing enough to support U.S. efforts against Iran. Trump implied he would have canceled the exercises outright, but it was “too late” to do so.
The drills, which began Aug. 17 and were set to run through Aug. 28, ended Aug. 21. The Defense Department said in an Aug. 18 statement that “there will be no degradation to U.S. training objectives” due to the shortened schedule.
South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung did not respond to Trump’s post directly, but he raised the issue during an Aug. 18 cabinet meeting. According to a report on the meeting issued by his office, “Lee emphasized that while creating peace without the need for conflict is of the utmost importance, preparation for the worst-case scenario is also necessary.” The readout stated that the August military exercises are defensive in nature and that South Korea has no intention of attacking North Korea or escalating tensions on the peninsula through it.
North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) denounced the drill, despite the reduced duration and South Korea’s description of it as defensive. In an Aug. 19 commentary, KCNA accused the United States and South Korea of “hiding the aggressive and provocative nature of the largest-ever exercises.” The statement said the exercise “is pushing again the tensions on the Korean peninsula to the threshold of a war.”
The day after Trump announced a curtailment in the exercises, he told reporters that he has been in contact with Kim and that Kim responded to his request for a meeting.
Yet, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korea’s leader, denied any contact with Trump. In an Aug. 19 statement on KCNA, she said the relationship between Trump and Kim “is still excellent,” but her brother is “not aware” of any communication. The “U.S. hostile policy toward [North Korea] has remained unchanged,” she said.
Kim Yo Jong also said the U.S. decision to shorten joint exercises with South Korea is “unworthy of comment” and suggested that the curtailment will not alter North Korea’s view of engagement with the United States. If the United States “calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get desired answer,” she said.
The last time the United States adjusted its military exercises with South Korea on short notice was in 2018, after Trump’s historic meeting with Kim in Singapore. (See ACT, July/August 2018.) During that meeting, Trump and Kim signed a declaration committing their two countries to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Trump and Kim met twice after that during the following year, but the negotiations achieved few tangible results before breaking down.
Since then, North Korea has taken steps to expand its nuclear weapons program, solidify the role nuclear weapons play in its defense, and strengthen its relationship with Russia. Pyongyang now says that North Korea will not negotiate with the United States unless Washington drops its demand for denuclearization.
When previously asked about Trump’s willingness to negotiate with Kim during his second term, the White House stated that dialogue should take place based on the Singapore summit declaration. It is unclear if Trump will move from that demand in order to meet with Kim.
The Lee administration has already deemphasized denuclearization. South Korea’s new strategy toward North Korea drops denuclearization as Seoul’s priority and emphasizes the need to pursue peaceful coexistence before the elimination of nuclear weapons, according to South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young.
Chung outlined the new approach to negotiations with North Korea in a July 23 press briefing. He said that “the ultimate goal of denuclearization has not been abandoned, but denuclearization first has.” Chung said that the Lee administration’s decision to “reset the goals of its North Korea policy” to emphasize “peace first” is a more pragmatic approach that acknowledges the reality of the situation on the Korean peninsula.
He also said that if South Korea emphasizes denuclearization “at the entrance to dialogue, the reality is that dialogue cannot begin.” Instead of insisting on denuclearization early in the process, South Korea’s strategy will call for North Korea to halt nuclear weapons development and later roll it back.
North Korea’s state-run media did not respond directly to Chung’s remarks, but the Foreign Ministry said in a statement July 24 in KCNA that the United States, Japan, and South Korea cannot “bring up for discussion again the issue of ‘denuclearization,’ which was irreversibly and finally concluded.”
Lee’s willingness to deemphasize denuclearization, however, may make it easier for the Trump administration to move away from the Singapore declaration as a starting point for any new talks with North Korea.
Testifying to Congress, the officials said an ongoing review of U.S. nuclear forces will recommend additional limited options for nuclear warfighting below the strategic level.
September 2026
By Xiaodon Liang
An ongoing review of U.S. nuclear forces will recommend additional limited options for nuclear warfighting below the strategic level, according to senior Pentagon officials.
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby and the commander of Strategic Command, Adm. Richard Correll, previewed Aug. 5 the results of the review, first announced in March, to attendees of an annual conference hosted by Correll’s command near its Omaha headquarters. (See ACT, April 2026.)
The review will examine “rationally employable, limited options that advantage us and stand the chance of favorably managing escalation and not getting us into an inexorable spiral,” Colby said during a conference event.
The limited options referred to by the officials likely imply acquisition of more types of tactical nuclear weapons—weapons with a shorter range and smaller yield, and intended for tactical missions on the battlefield.
But neither official directly addressed whether the administration of President Donald Trump would increase the size of the deployed U.S. strategic nuclear force to match growth in the combined number of potential targets in Russia and China, a key policy decision deferred by the Biden administration. (See ACT, December 2024.)
Advocates for a strategic buildup argue that a larger U.S. force may be needed to deter Russia or China if the United States were to be involved in conflicts with both simultaneously or sequentially. Opponents argue it would trigger an acceleration of the arms race as Russia and China respond in kind.
An Aug. 5 story by NBC News reported that the review would de-emphasize strategic nuclear forces and traditional damage limitation requirements, which task U.S. troops with effectively preventing enemy nuclear forces from retaliating against a U.S. strategic first strike.
Colby spoke only obliquely regarding strategic forces and missions in Omaha. “We need to have a plausible plan that doesn’t [depend on] ‘Well, if we get to that point, we blow up the world,’ or … ‘We take them out, you know, problem solved,’” he said.
Although the United States has traditionally rejected Chinese requests to recognize mutual vulnerability between the two sides’ nuclear forces, Colby came close, noting that “We and China both have nuclear weapons, so nobody’s going to be in a position where they can absolutely dominate.”
He sought to contrast “credible,” “rational” tactical options that are currently lacking against strategic options that, if used, could “result in a catastrophe whose costs are way out of proportion to whatever we’re fighting about, or more plausibly cause the political leadership to say ‘No, I don’t want do that.’”
The move to downplay strategic superiority will meet skepticism in some corners of the Republican-controlled Congress. “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,” an unidentified staffer told the authors of the NBC report.
Congress has already appropriated funding to open tubes on Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines and ordered the Pentagon to study and plan for uploading additional warheads to the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.
The legislature will likely greet the nuclear strategy review’s emphasis on tactical nuclear weapons with greater enthusiasm. The Senate Armed Services Committee’s draft of this year’s key policy bill recommends authorization of new air-launched and ground-launched tactical nuclear weapons. (See ACT, July/August 2026.)
These would supplement weapons already in the arsenal, such as the B61-12 gravity bomb and the W76-2 lower-yield warhead for the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile. The Navy is also planning to field a nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile by 2032, and the Air Force’s long-range standoff weapon—a new air-launched cruise missile presently entering full-scale production—and its selectable-yield warhead may also be relevant to tactical nuclear missions.
Colby and Correll confirmed that U.S. declaratory policy would remain unchanged, while providing little clue as to whether additional tactical nuclear weapons would be intended for initiating or responding to a nuclear conflict.
Both the 2018 and 2022 nuclear posture reviews declared that the United States might use nuclear weapons first in extreme circumstances in response to non-nuclear strategic attacks against itself or allies and partners.
Some U.S. analysts have called for a more explicit focus on the tactical use of nuclear weapons to blunt a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
A 2022 report by Colby and a co-author recommended planning to target not only People’s Liberation Army troops, but also China’s defense industrial base with limited use of nuclear weapons.
In contrast, Correll told reporters on an Aug. 5 media call that the review contemplates “deterrence, first and foremost.”
A larger number of tactical launchers and platforms would “raise the threshold for consideration of theater nuclear employment by any potential adversary,” Correll said.
The strategy review will inform an update to the president’s nuclear weapons employment guidance. By law, the executive branch is required to provide a summary of the changes to Congress 60 days before they are implemented.
Observable changes “do not call into question present weapons performance,” the JASON group of scientists reported.
September 2026
By Xiaodon Liang
The plutonium pits at the core of U.S. nuclear weapons are “aging slowly” and observable changes “do not call into question present weapons performance,” a panel of independent technical experts concluded.
The JASON group of scientists, which has long served as independent advisers to the U.S. government, encourages the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), however, to continue “establishing pit production capabilities that may be needed to provide options to mitigate any future aging-related issues.”
That recommendation was one of several in the executive summary of a JASON study completed in March. The group also called on NNSA to accelerate construction of the Scorpius machine, a linear accelerator that will create radiographic images of subcritical plutonium experiments.
By fiscal year 2030, the NNSA will be on track to better understand plutonium pit performance degradation as it continues executing a decade-long research plan into pit aging begun in 2021, the study predicted.
The NNSA released the unclassified executive summary Aug. 7 but has withheld the full report, which Congress commissioned in the fiscal year 2024 energy and water appropriations act.
The conclusions of the new JASON report may complicate the NNSA’s rationale for prioritizing resumption of large-scale plutonium pit production.
During the Cold War, the United States produced plutonium pits at scale at the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado. After Rocky Flats closed in 1989, Los Alamos National Laboratories produced 31 pits for the W88 warhead program between 2007 and 2011.
The agency is currently executing a plan adopted in 2018 to produce 30 pits per year at Los Alamos and 50 per year at the future Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility. Congress mandated in 2019 that the NNSA be able to produce 80 pits annually.
The JASON group last conducted a full study of plutonium aging in 2006, at which point it concluded that “most primary types have credible minimum lifetimes in excess of 100 years,” referring to the first stage of a nuclear weapon within which pits are a key component.
The executive summary to the new study notes that NNSA began observing “some aging effects” in 2010. The NNSA’s current plans for pit production were in part justified by a 2019 two-page abbreviated assessment by the JASON group of the state of research into plutonium aging, which called for pit production to be re-established “expeditiously.”
Although Trump administration officials expressed confidence earlier this year that plutonium pit production at Los Alamos could be accelerated to produce 100 pits by 2028, construction at Savannah River remains at an early stage. (See ACT, April 2026.)
In its fiscal 2027 budget request, the NNSA described a $25 billion working cost estimate for the Savannah River facility as a “budgetary placeholder.” (See ACT, June 2026).
The agency anticipates completion of the facility by between late 2031 and mid-2035. In February, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that NNSA employees were skeptical of the timeline.
The GAO also said that contractor performance at Savannah River has been unsatisfactory, with delays and inadequacies in the delivery of designs. In February, NNSA decided to open for tender the next management and operating contract for the Savannah River Site, in a sign of frustration with the current consortium led by Fluor Corp. (See ACT, June 2026.)
The agency nonetheless exercised
an option Aug. 10 to extend the current contract for one year, through September 2027.
The NNSA said the move would “ensure continuity and stability of the contractor workforce” as it assesses bids.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy James Danly also raised questions about the NNSA’s plutonium pit production plans in August 2025, tasking the Energy Department’s Office of Enterprise Assessments to conduct an internal review.
Danly set a Dec. 9 deadline for the process and Congress later instructed the NNSA in its fiscal 2026 energy and water appropriations act to provide a copy of the review report.
In July, the nonprofit organization Nukewatch New Mexico filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in a bid to obtain the internal report.
His announcement that the agreement is contingent upon the kingdom’s recognition of Israel throws the deal’s future into doubt.
September 2026
By Kelsey Davenport
The United States signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, but President Donald Trump’s announcement that the deal is contingent upon the kingdom’s recognition of Israel throws the deal’s future into doubt.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed the nuclear cooperation agreement, commonly known as a “123 agreement,” July 20 and July 22, respectively.
The agreement, which is necessary before U.S. companies can sell certain nuclear materials and related technologies, was expected after the White House announced a framework for nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia in November 2025. (See ACT, December 2025.)
In a statement issued after the signing, Wright said that the agreement upholds “the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation.” The deal, however, supports Saudi Arabia’s plan to acquire uranium enrichment technologies necessary to produce nuclear fuel, without insisting on more intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring. That same technology can be used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Saudi Arabia does not have a nuclear weapons program and pledged as a member of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) not to acquire such weapons, but officials, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have threatened to build nuclear weapons if Iran does. (See ACT, June 2018.) According to documents obtained by Arms Control Today, Trump formally signed the required presidential determination that the agreement does not “constitute an unreasonable risk to common defense and security” July 16, despite those threats.
The day after Wright signed the deal, Trump posted on Truth Social that the nuclear cooperation agreement “will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”
Saudi Arabia has not responded to Trump’s demand regarding the Abraham Accords, a diplomatic framework that led several countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to recognize Israel, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the decision. In a July 23 statement, Netanyahu said that Saudi Arabia joining the accords would be a “historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East.”
The Trump administration submitted the nuclear cooperation agreement and the required nonproliferation assessment to Congress for a 90-day review, as required by the Atomic Energy Act on Aug. 24.
The deal is expected to receive pushback from Republican and Democratic legislators, but it is unclear if there will be enough opposition to pass a joint resolution of disapproval, which would block the deal from going forward.
Several members of Congress have already expressed concerns about the agreement because it abandons longstanding conditions for U.S. nuclear cooperation that have bipartisan support. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told the CBS show, “Face the Nation,” July 26 that he was not comfortable with the nuclear cooperation agreement as presented but said, “I don’t think it’s going to happen, anyway.”
All U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements must meet certain nonproliferation criteria enumerated in Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, such as the requirement that all nuclear material transferred under an agreement be under IAEA safeguards. Congress, however, has generally supported requiring states to adhere to even more intrusive IAEA monitoring and pushed them to forgo the option to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, an approach to nuclear cooperation agreements known as the “gold standard.”
The Trump administration already acknowledged in a November 2025 report to Congress that the nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia will not meet the gold standard. The text of the deal confirms that the United States will support Saudi Arabia’s decision to develop uranium enrichment and will not require it to negotiate a more intrusive IAEA safeguards agreement, known as the additional protocol. (See ACT, April 2026.)
The additional protocol, which was finalized in 1997 after illicit nuclear programs in Iraq and North Korea exposed gaps in the NPT-required safeguards, gives the IAEA expanded access to a country’s nuclear sites and additional information about the program. The United States has long supported the universalization of the additional protocol and pushed for its inclusion in nuclear cooperation agreements.
In the November 2025 report to Congress, the Trump administration said that the United States would implement a bilateral safeguards agreement with Saudi Arabia in lieu of the additional protocol. A document outlining the safeguards arrangements submitted to Congress Aug. 24 includes additional details on the information and access that Saudi Arabia will provide the IAEA.
The documents confirm that cooperative U.S.-Saudi nuclear activities could include uranium enrichment, a capability that Riyadh says it wants to develop in order to produce nuclear reactor fuel. (See ACT, March 2023.)
The nuclear cooperation agreement requires a two-year feasibility study that examines the commercial viability of uranium enrichment in Saudi Arabia. If the study supports enrichment, one option could be for the United States to build and operate an enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia to prevent Riyadh from having direct access to U.S. enrichment technology—but it is unclear how Washington would prevent information about enrichment from leaking to Saudi officials or secure the facility in the event of conflict. The United States has never supplied enrichment technology as part of a nuclear cooperation agreement.
According to The Wall Street Journal, if the study does not support enrichment, Saudi Arabia will be free to pursue uranium enrichment domestically or with another foreign partner after 10 years.
Members of Congress have also raised concerns about the implications of the Saudi nuclear agreement on proliferation risks in the Middle East. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) warned that the deal could increase proliferation risks in the region and make it more challenging to get Iran to give up uranium enrichment. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said it could “end up pushing Iran closer to a nuclear weapon.”
As executive director for the past quarter-century, Daryl G. Kimball has led the Arms Control Association through setbacks and breakthroughs, gloom and hope in the arms control field.
September 2026
By Thomas Countryman
A couple of years ago, the Arms Control Association celebrated its 50th anniversary as one of the leading nongovernmental organizations dedicated to confronting the risk of planetary suicide by nuclear weapons. We marked last month with an equally significant milestone: Daryl G. Kimball has now led our association as executive director through 25 years of setbacks and breakthroughs, gloom and hope in the arms control field.
Daryl came to this work inspired partly by his family. His mother organized and campaigned tirelessly to demand a cleanup of the consequences of the government’s uranium enrichment program near their home in Ohio. His father was a noted scholar of U.S. nuclear policy.
Daryl first came to Washington in the Scoville Fellowship, the innovative program that—to this day—gives so many scholars and activists their first experience with arms control and nonproliferation issues, and from which the ACA team has drawn several of its top experts.
Daryl started not just in research, but in media and public education efforts that still inspire the association’s efforts to be not just a think tank, but a “think and do” tank. At Physicians for Social Responsibility, his leadership and partnership helped achieve a U.S. Congress resolution endorsing a nuclear testing moratorium in 1992 and engendered administration and congressional support for negotiation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the 1990s were a time when many of us believed that still more significant progress could be made toward a world free of nuclear weapons. In 1997, Daryl became the executive director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, which brought together 17 of the largest nongovernmental organizations to push for ratification of the CTBT and demand additional reductions in the world’s nuclear arsenals.
Asked by the ACA Board of Directors to become the association’s executive director in 2001, Daryl brought the same focus and drive to an organization already prominent not just for its longevity, but for its credibility and objectivity in analyzing the national security choices facing the United States and the world. The ACA has become a prime forum for senior officials in successive U.S. administrations, and even future presidents, to outline their vision of managing nuclear risk. When we had administrations whose officials were open to dialogue, ACA’s voice was not just heard, but respected, and—yes—influential. In 2011, the association received the MacArthur Award for Creative & Effective Institutions for its ability to address “pressing national and international security challenges with an impact that is disproportionate to its small size.”
All of us who have worked with or for Daryl—and the list of senior officials and creative thinkers who began their careers at ACA is long and impressive—appreciate the asset that best marks a successful leader: genuine appreciation for his coworkers and an active concern for their professional advancement. It matters no less in a small organization than in a lumbering bureaucracy, and it shines through in Daryl’s daily work.
Our challenges today are aggravating: an economic environment that puts the financial squeeze on nongovernmental organizations in national security and other spaces; an ever more crowded public marketplace of ideas, where an even-tempered voice strains to be heard; an erosion of the arms control agreements that have provided a small measure of peaceful breathing to the world; a government disinclined either to listen, or to explain, to the experts whose experience has contributed so much to decades of complex national security issues.
But we do not have the luxury of being discouraged, the time to indulge despair, nor the option to admit defeat. For a quarter-century, we have relied on Daryl Kimball’s judgment, focus, and energy to confront challenges great and small. This would be a good moment for all of our readers to express our thanks to him and honor his significant contributions.
Thomas Countryman, chairman of the board of the Arms Control Association, is a retired U.S. foreign service officer who served as acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, among other senior positions.
This analysis was updated on September 1, 2026, to take into account details of the text of the agreement and associated documents after they had been transmitted to Congress.
These two existential challenges—disarming AI and preventing nuclear war—can no longer be understood or governed in isolation. Immediate and decisive action is required to counter these growing nuclear dangers before it is too late.
September 2026
By Daryl G. Kimball
The danger of nuclear war continues to loom over humanity. Without new restraints, a more dangerous era lies ahead. The United States, China, and Russia are seeking to modernize and upgrade their arsenals to address perceived nuclear deterrence gaps, including by increasing deployed strategic arsenals and fielding “more usable” tactical nuclear weapons for regional war scenarios.
Into this volatile landscape comes artificial intelligence—not as a future concern, but as a present reality. Private technology companies and governments are caught up in a high-stakes competition to develop advanced frontier AI systems. Leading technologists warned in July that “they could be close to automating AI research,” which will accelerate AI development possibly “beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems.”
These two existential challenges—disarming AI and preventing nuclear war—can no longer be understood or governed in isolation.
As nuclear weapons competition and risk grow, the U.S., Chinese, and Russian militaries are racing to integrate AI tools into their conventional military systems and nuclear command-and-control systems to process more information more quickly to provide, as the Pentagon describes it, a “decision advantage” in a crisis or a war.
But the unconstrained use of AI tools may distort the information humans use and the choices they consider when making world-changing decisions regarding nuclear weapons. For example, AI-enabled warfare will compress the time available for meaningful human judgment. Commanders under pressure may be handed algorithm-generated menus of response options that neglect creative, human-centered solutions.
Leaders under stress are also vulnerable to automation bias—the tendency to trust a machine-generated information and analysis over one’s own judgment—even though AI systems are well known for projecting confidence when they are wrong. Another risk is that autonomous weapons with AI-enabled targeting plans could be used to attack nuclear weapons-related infrastructure and prompt a nuclear retaliation. India launched such an attack during its 2025 war with Pakistan.
These and other factors mean that the reckless integration of AI into military and nuclear operations will introduce new uncertainties to the already uncertain and unsustainable practice of nuclear deterrence. The likely introduction of recursive, self-improving, and agentic AI systems in the near future will only increase the risks of catastrophic outcomes.
Unfortunately, the political, diplomatic, and legislative responses to regulate these technologies, and to mitigate the nuclear risks they pose, are failing to keep pace. The best we have, for now, is the growing international consensus that machines must never supplant human judgment in the authorization or execution of nuclear weapons launches.
This “human in the loop” principle, while necessary, is insufficient. There are no agreed definitions, rules of the road, or accountability mechanisms. Nuclear-weapon states have, so far, failed to engage in sustained discussions on how they each plan to put the principle into practice and enforce it.
As a prestigious group of Nobel laureates, technologists, and nuclear experts recommended in an appeal issued from Rome in July, governments, with help from frontier AI developers, researchers, and the international community, need to act now to avoid the reckless integration of AI into nuclear operations.
There are steps that could be pursued to enhance mutual security, starting with a formal commitment by the major nuclear-armed states, through coordinated action or ideally a binding agreement, to retain effective human control over any decision to use nuclear weapons.
These states could also engage in technical talks on measures to insert automated “firebreaks” in advanced command-and-control systems to disallow AI-enabled actions leading to nuclear escalation. By taking concrete steps to move away from postures that call for prompt retaliatory nuclear counterattack and agreeing that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack, they could also reduce the risk of miscalculation.
Military officials from the nuclear-armed states should be required to report regularly on their use of AI-assisted tools in nuclear operations and the measures that they have implemented to mitigate risks. Independent audits should be conducted to ensure that best practices are being followed.
Progress toward adopting such nuclear risk reduction measures, as well as new and verifiable agreements to cap and reduce nuclear arsenals, is not possible without sustained, serious dialogue among the major nuclear-armed states. Since promising a “new era” of multilateral nuclear arms control after the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expired in February, however, the Trump administration has failed to engage constructively with either China or Russia on nuclear weapons matters.
Although such dialogue may appear unlikely, it is necessary and possible. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could set a new and safer course by launching high-level, bilateral talks on nuclear risk reduction and rules of the road for AI use in nuclear weapons systems at their summit this month in Washington.
Immediate and decisive action is required to counter these growing nuclear dangers before it is too late.
In a declaration issued at a conference at the Vatican, the laureates and other experts called for an international treaty prohibiting “reckless integration” of AI in nuclear weapons operations.
September 2026
By Mia Clarke, with additional reporting from Daryl Kimball in Rome
Motivated by the accelerating development of artificial intelligence and multiplying nuclear weapons dangers, Nobel laureates and other experts have called for an international treaty prohibiting “reckless integration” of AI in nuclear weapons operations.
The declaration emerged from a conference July 14-16 at the Vatican. The conference followed the publication of Pope Leo XIV’s path-breaking May 15 encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which calls for a global effort to shape and regulate AI in ways that protect human dignity and promote just peace and urges civil society, AI builders, and governments not to leave pivotal decisions in AI policy solely to the technology elites.
In preparatory materials for the conference at the Pontifical Villas in Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s traditional summer retreat, the organizers asserted that “In the midst of a worsening nuclear arms race, we are embarking on an equally dangerous AI race” and these “great challenges of the twenty-first century can no longer be understood or governed in isolation.”
Called the “global Nobel laureates assembly on artificial intelligence and nuclear war,” the conference brought together a diverse array of more than 200 participants, including Nobel Prize winners in peace, medicine, economics, and physics; AI experts from Anthropic, Open AI, and Google DeepMind; founders and leaders of international peace organizations; nuclear weapons researchers and experts from more than 30 institutions; and religious leaders from several faiths.
The conferees heard expert presentations on key themes including the rapid development of increasingly powerful frontier AI models, the risks posed by the integration of AI in conventional military systems as well as nuclear command and control; the moral and ethical implications of AI adoption on a societal scale; and potential pathways to nuclear conflict.
At the conclusion of the assembly July 16, the participants issued the “Rome Declaration,” which recommends measures that would: ensure the responsible development and governance of AI models so they align with “humanity’s interests, including international law and respect for human rights” and prevent “fully-automated recursive self-improvement in artificial intelligence systems without the means to monitor, and if needed, to halt such systems.”
They called for “an international treaty prohibiting the reckless integration of artificial intelligence into nuclear command, control, and launch systems so that meaningful human control is maintained.” The declaration also urged measures that would “halt renewed arms racing and the expansion of [nuclear] arsenals, resume bilateral and multilateral negotiations on arms control and disarmament” to “diminish the role of nuclear weapons, and reduce the likelihood of first use and catastrophic war.”
The gathering occurred a year after another Nobel Laureates assembly in Chicago on the prevention of nuclear war, which also included a “call on all states to engage in increased cooperative dialogue on the scientific, legal, and military implications of [AI] technologies.”
Reflecting on the importance of these assemblies, 2011 Nobel physics laureate Brian Schmidt said, “It’s a very complicated new space. I think by bringing the groups together, it has clarified the risk.”
But the organizers and participants also recognized that the assembly’s call to action requires urgent follow-up and action. At the July 16 press conference announcing the Rome Declaration, Daniel Holz, a University of Chicago astrophysicist and chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board cautioned, that “AI is a technology we do not understand, and it’s developing faster than humans can comprehend.”
Shortly after the assembly concluded, more than 1,300 frontier AI developers and corporate leaders issued their own appeal, warning that they “could be close to automating AI research.”
Their July 29 statement, entitled “Pacing the Frontier,” said this achievement could “risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems.” They end their statement with a vague “request that the U.S. government support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.”
Nikita Gryazin, a fellow at the European Leadership Network, wrote in a July 27 commentary about the conference’s outcome document: “The Rome Declaration is a useful starting point, but its practical value will depend on what follows. Governments and international organisations must turn its principles into rules and risk reduction mechanisms, while technology developers must make relevant systems transparent.”
The launch was the second Pacific-facing long-distance Chinese missile test in recent years.
September 2026
By Xiaodon Liang
The Chinese military successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) July 6, delivering a dummy warhead to a target location in the Pacific Ocean, according to state media.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy fired the missile approximately 7,000 kilometers from the South China Sea to open waters in the South Pacific, between Kiribati and Tuvalu. Warning notifications issued by Chinese authorities before the test indicate that a second launch from the Bohai Sea, off northern China, was canceled.
The PLA Navy characterized the test as “a routine arrangement … [that] complies with international law and international practice, and is not directed at any specific country or target,” according to a Xinhua report.
The U.S. military also routinely conducts land- and submarine-launched missile tests in the Pacific.
The launch was the second Pacific-facing long-distance Chinese missile test in recent years, following an intercontinental ballistic missile test in late 2024. (See ACT, November 2024.)
Since a pair of Pacific-facing tests in 1980, all of China’s long-distance missile tests have been conducted in the opposite direction, toward targets in western China. These include prior successful tests of land- and sea-based intercontinental missiles, which often occur without notice unless disclosed by other countries.
The missile tested July 6 may have been either a Julang-2 (JL-2), which the Chinese Navy has deployed for a decade, or the newer JL-3, deployed in 2022. The trajectory would have exhausted the range of the JL-2. The JL-3 likely has an extended range of 10,000 kilometers, allowing PLA Navy ballistic missile submarines to range most of the continental United States from littoral waters.
Open-source analysts warn that the JL-2 and JL-3 missiles are difficult to distinguish based on external observation. In July 8 parliamentary testimony, however, a senior Taiwanese intelligence official said the tested missile was a JL-2.
The test was conducted off the coast of Guangdong province from a surfaced vessel in the South China Sea, according to the official, Hsieh Jih-sheng, the deputy chief of intelligence of the general staff of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.
Regional states protested the July 6 test despite receiving prior notification of the event from Beijing.
Japan “strongly urged” China not to conduct the test or endanger Japanese airspace, a government statement said. Although the test trajectory from the South China Sea could not have infringed on Japanese sovereignty, the scrapped prospective test from the Bohai site might have.
“Australia has been clear with China that we regard this as destabilizing to the region,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong told press July 6. She added that the “rapid military buildup by China … [lacks] the transparency and reassurance as to intent that the region expects.”
Matthew Wale, the prime minister of the Solomon Islands, said July 7 that his country does not “want to see any more countries—China, America, anybody—testing in the Pacific Islands region, that’s the bottom line,” according to Australia’s ABC News.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said that “This missile was fired into the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone established by the Treaty of Rarotonga. China’s action goes against the object and intent of that Treaty,” according to a July 7 report by Radio New Zealand.
He also noted that a pre-launch notification was received only “hours” before the test.
On Aug. 11, the United States and 40 other countries, in a joint statement issued at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, called on “all relevant countries” to commit to providing “sufficient advance notice” of at least 24 hours before ballistic missile tests.
The statement, which cites “Recent missile testing activity in the Pacific area,” noted that 145 countries already participate in the Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation, a political agreement that includes a prelaunch notification obligation.
Although the Hague agreement does not include a 24-hour standard for advance notice of launches, the 1988 U.S.-USSR and 2009 China-Russia launch notification agreements do.
Code adherence have privately discussed and recommended a 24-hour standard, however.
The Aug. 11 statement also called on states to provide in launch notifications “the generic class of the ballistic missile or [space-launch vehicle], the planned launch notification window, the launch area, and the planned direction.” In response to a question regarding criticism of the SLBM test, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said July 7 at a press conference that “there is no need for any country to overinterpret the test launch.”
Syria’s new government also allowed IAEA inspectors access to the site, which was likely part of the former government’s illicit nuclear weapons development program.
September 2026
By Kelsey Davenport
Syria’s new government notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of a newly discovered cache of nuclear materials and allowed agency inspectors access to a site that was likely part of the former government’s illicit nuclear weapons development program.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi praised Syria’s “courageous decision” to notify the IAEA about the nuclear material in an Aug. 18 joint press conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani in Damascus.
Grossi visited Syria Aug. 17-18 and went to the location where Syria discovered several tons of undeclared nuclear material, which Damascus described as a legacy of the former Assad government. Syria informed the agency that it discovered the material in a July 17 letter. The letter has not been made public but Shibani referenced it during the Aug. 18 press conference.
Grossi did not specify what type of material was found at the site, but Shibani, said that the nuclear “materials do not pose a risk.” Axios reported Aug. 10 that U.S. officials said that the nuclear material is uranium oxide, or yellowcake, a refined uranium ore that can be converted into gas for enrichment. The enriched uranium is then fabricated into fuel for a nuclear reactor.
Under deposed President Bashar al-Assad, Syria conducted undeclared nuclear activities, including the construction of a nuclear reactor at al-Kibar in the Deir el-Zour province. The reactor, which was never declared to the IAEA, was likely intended to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Israel destroyed the unfinished reactor in a September 2007 air strike. The U.S. intelligence community later assessed that North Korea assisted Syria in constructing the reactor. (See ACT, April 2018.)
After the Israeli strikes, the Assad government refused to allow the IAEA to inspect the bombed site when the agency first requested access in 2008 and denied conducting undeclared nuclear activities. Syria continued to obstruct the agency’s efforts to investigate its undeclared nuclear activities and later cleared the site. In 2011, the IAEA Board of Governors adopted a resolution finding Syria in noncompliance with its legally required safeguards obligations under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. (See ACT, July/August 2011.)
Before being overthrown in 2024, Assad let an agency team visit the al-Kibar site. The IAEA took samples, which indicated that uranium had been present at the location. In June 2025, Grossi met Syria’s transitional President Ahmad al-Sharaa and announced that Syria’s new government agreed to give the agency unrestricted access. (See ACT, July/August 2025.)
During his Damascus visit, Grossi said the newly discovered nuclear materials will now be accounted for and “put within the international safeguards system.” He added: “In this way, we will be able to work towards the restoration of Syria as a country in full compliance with all its legal obligations in the area of nuclear nonproliferation.”
Shibani said the nuclear materials will “remain in Syria’s custody, while being subject to the agency’s supervision system.” He suggested during the press conference that Syria may seek to use the nuclear materials for a peaceful nuclear program.
Grossi also visited the al-Kibar site while in Syria. He confirmed that the IAEA’s inspection and excavation of the site was already underway and described the results of the cooperative effort as “really, really remarkable.” He said the agency’s work at al-Kibar “validates the long-standing evaluation” that the nuclear reactor at the site “was being built in secrecy.”
An Aug. 18 joint statement from Grossi and Shibani said that Grossi will report the agency’s conclusions to the IAEA Board of Governors “with the aim of a full resolution of the outstanding issues.”
The Syrian government is also cooperating with the Organisation on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to dispose of chemical weapons stockpiled by the Assad regime. (See ACT, July/August 2026.)
