April 2026
By Kathleen Sullivan

On March 14, Shigeaki Mori, a beloved hibakusha, historian, and humanitarian, died at the age of 88. He was 8 years old August 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 bomber dropped the first nuclear weapon ever used in war on the city of Hiroshima. Mori was walking to school with a friend at 8:15 on that hot summer morning. A searing bright light blinded the boys, followed by hurricane-force winds from the blast that blew them off a bridge and into the creek below. When Mori regained consciousness, he climbed out of the water and found himself, as he later described the scene, in near-total darkness, inside the mushroom cloud. He eventually found his way to an air-raid shelter and would later be reunited with his family, who also survived. His school companion did not make it out alive.

By the end of September 1945, some 140,000 people, mostly noncombatants, perished from the U.S. atomic bombing. According to Tim Wright in his harrowing report, “The Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Children,” more than 38,000 children perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “According to surveys by the city of Hiroshima, 73,622 children under 10 years of age were exposed to the bombing, of whom 7,907 had died by the end of 1945. Among older children and adolescents, the death toll was thought to be 15,543,” Wright wrote.

As one of these 70,000-plus children who survived, Mori spent his life, in an extraordinary act of kindness, in the search for U.S. prisoners of war who perished in Hiroshima. He was driven by a desire to inform the loved ones of the fate of these 12 U.S. service members and to help them find closure and healing. After decades of research and reconciliation, Mori’s book was published: The Secret History of the American Soldiers Killed by the Atomic Bomb. His life and research is portrayed in Barry Frechette’s 2016 documentary film, “Paper Lanterns.” Perhaps due to his lifelong pursuit to identify the U.S. POWs, Mori was chosen to be one of the hibakusha who met President Barack Obama, the first sitting U.S. president to visit a city to experience an atomic bombing, in Hiroshima in May 2016. Mori was overcome with emotion by the meeting and in response, Obama embraced him.

This hug that was felt around the world did not please all hibakusha. Many were disturbed by the lesser-known fact of Obama’s visit to the Peace Park in Hiroshima, accompanied as he was by the U.S. nuclear football. Otherwise known as the “presidential emergency satchel,” this 45-pound briefcase contains communication codes and devices needed to initiate a nuclear attack. It is never far from the president’s reach and an additional device is dispatched with the U.S. vice president.

It is terrifying to think of how accessible the nuclear codes are to the current U.S. commander-in-chief, or to any human being who, as with all of us, are fallible and do not always have total control of our faculties. In any case, to bring what is essentially a leather-bound mechanism used to launch nuclear weapons into the Peace Park in Hiroshima was unforgivable to many Japanese people.

Thomas Merton referred to the atomic bomb as the “Original Child Bomb” in his 41-point prose poem, asking: What will happen and speculating that people today are “fatigued by the whole question.” Mori, who spent his adult life identifying U.S. POWs, and in some cases befriending their families, was never fatigued. With gratitude, his memory lives on in those who seek reconciliation and who work for nuclear abolition. As it is written on the cenotaph in Hiroshima: “Let all the souls here rest in peace; for we shall not repeat the evil.”

April 2026
By Daryl G. Kimball

For more than five decades, the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) has served as the essential framework and catalyst, albeit an imperfect one, for global efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, end nuclear testing, and advance disarmament diplomacy to help achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.

But now, due to years of inattention, inaction, and reckless disregard for international norms of behavior by some NPT nuclear-armed states, the nonproliferation system is facing an uncertain future. States-parties at the past two NPT review conferences, in 2015 and 2022, have failed to overcome differences that have blocked agreement on measures to advance treaty goals.

This makes it essential that diplomats at this month’s 11th NPT Review Conference join together (as they did in 2022 in paragraphs 102-148 of the final draft document) and reaffirm their governments’ support for the treaty, as well as for the principles, objectives, and action steps endorsed by consensus at the 2010 and 2000 review conferences and the pivotal 1995 Review and Extension Conference.

A successful consensus outcome document must also commit key states to concrete action steps that reduce the nuclear danger and advance the NPT’s core goals. As 2026 Conference President Du Hong Viet told Arms Control Today, without such an outcome, “We may lose the credibility of the NPT itself, and the review process.”

This NPT meeting arrives at a time of increasing nuclear danger and serious geopolitical tension. Moreover, key treaties that have served as guardrails against nuclear catastrophe have expired or are under threat.

For the first time since 1972, there are no binding limits on the size of the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals, the world’s largest. Both countries might soon begin increasing the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons for the first time in 35 years. China is expanding the size and diversity of its nuclear arsenal. France just announced that it will increase its arsenal.

Worse yet, there are no active arms control talks between or among the five nuclear-armed NPT states. Each is in violation of the obligation to engage in “negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament” as required by Article VI of the treaty.

The 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a core element of the NPT bargain that has 187 signatories and near-universal support, is also under duress. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to resume nuclear explosive testing “on an equal basis” and has accused China of conducting a nuclear test in 2020.

However, the seismic data gathered and analyzed by the Comprehensive Test-Ban-Treaty Organization and independent experts is inconclusive, and a retaliatory U.S. nuclear test would not only be technically unnecessary, but it would ignite a chain reaction of nuclear testing by other states that would blow apart the NPT system.

In recent years, threats of nuclear use have also been on the rise, and nuclear-armed states continue to engage in exercises intended to signal their willingness to use these mass terror weapons if provoked.

The illegal attacks against Iran by two nuclear-armed states—NPT nonmember Israel and the United States—have sabotaged active negotiations designed to return International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to Iran and achieve new limits to block potential pathways to produce bomb-grade material. The ongoing war will certainly revive debate about the goal, as agreed in 1995, of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

Despite these strong crosswinds, NPT states must line up together behind a set of core action steps. These include the immediate start of bilateral or multilateral disarmament negotiations. As an interim step, all nuclear-armed NPT states should agree to freeze the number of their strategic nuclear launchers. They should also reaffirm their commitment to the global moratorium on nuclear test explosions and agree to launch technical talks on new, voluntary confidence-building measures to verify compliance before the CTBT enters into force.

Furthermore, the NPT states should pledge to refrain from threatening the use of nuclear weapons, commence negotiations on legally binding negative security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states in good standing with the NPT, and call upon all nuclear-armed states to promptly ratify the protocols to the South Pacific, African, and Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free-zone treaties. Finally, NPT states should call for universal adoption of the additional protocol to their IAEA safeguards agreements to guard against clandestine nuclear weapons efforts.

Effective leadership from the United States at this conference is, unfortunately, unlikely. For the first time, the U.S. team will not be led by a Senate-confirmed ambassador with prior NPT experience and the diplomatic standing to demonstrate strong presidential commitment to securing a successful review conference outcome.

Other states will need to tip the balance in the right direction. In particular, middle-power countries from all regions will need to band together, as they did in 1995, to push the nuclear-armed powers to respect their solemn NPT commitments and advance the treaty’s objectives. The results of the 2026 NPT Review Conference will likely have profound, long-term effects on our common future.

April 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

U.S. President Donald Trump expressed interest in negotiating a deal with Iran, nearly four weeks after the United States and Israel attacked the country, but it is unclear if Tehran is willing to negotiate or if Israel would agree to a ceasefire.

In March 24 comments to reporters, Trump said that the United States has “won” the war and that Iran wants “to make a deal so badly.”  He said that Iran agreed to “never have a nuclear weapon,” a commitment Iran had already made in the February talks preceding the Israeli and U.S. strikes. Trump also said Iran would agree to forgo uranium enrichment, a key sticking point in the negotiations that preceded the U.S. decision to strike Iran in coordination with Israel, despite presenting no evidence of an imminent threat. (See ACT, March 2026.)

Although several states, including Pakistan, have offered to mediate talks between the United States and Iran, Tehran has denied any engagement with the Trump administration. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, posted March 23 on the social media platform X that “No negotiations have been held” with the United States. He wrote that Trump’s announcement was designed to “manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”

Oil and gas prices have increased significantly since the war started Feb. 28, due in part to an Israeli strike on an Iranian gas field and an Iranian retaliatory strike on a Qatari gas field. Iran is also limiting transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for oil tankers that carry about 25 percent of the world’s oil.

Iranian Foreign Minister spokesman Esmail Baghaei told the state news agency IRNA that Iran has received messages from other countries “regarding the U.S.’s request for negotiations to end the war,” but also said there were no contacts with the United States.

It is unclear if Israel would be willing to stop striking Iran as part of any deal. In a March 23 video statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Trump “believes there is an opportunity to leverage” Israeli and U.S. military accomplishments for a deal. But he noted that Israel will continue to strike Iran and “safeguard our vital interests under all circumstances.”

Days before he said that the United States and Iran were making progress toward ending the war, Trump threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if it did not agree to open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.

On March 23, he announced on his social media site, Truth Social, that the United States would “POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES” on Iran’s energy infrastructure for five days due to “VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST.”

Media outlets later reported that the United States sent a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran via intermediaries. These reports suggest that the 15 points largely echo previous U.S. demands, including dismantlement of the uranium enrichment program, zero enrichment in the future, suspension of ballistic missile activities, and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s state-run Press TV quoted an official March 25 as saying Iran rejected the U.S. terms and said the Iranian government will not allow Trump to end the war on its own timeline.

The Wall Street Journal reported March 24 that Iran has its own demands for any negotiation, including allowing Iran to collect fees from ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, guarantees that strikes against Iran will stop, lifting all sanctions, and allowing Iran to retain its missile program. Iran said it would also seek reparations from the United States and closure of U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf. These demands exceed what Iran had asked for in talks with the United States before the war, suggesting that Iran’s positions have hardened and that the new leadership believes it has leverage.

Despite Trump’s claim that the United States has won the war, several goals that he laid out as justification for the conflict remain unmet. Although Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the strikes, the regime remains intact, with his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader.

Iran also retains nuclear material, including a stockpile of uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels. Trump suggested sending in U.S. troops to retrieve the material at one point, but any such mission would be dangerous and challenging, given that some of the material may be difficult to locate.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified to the House Intelligence Committee March 17 that the intelligence community has high confidence that it knows where Iran’s nuclear materials are located. However, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told CBS News March 22 that Iran could be using decoy cannisters, presumably to make it more challenging to anyone who might try to find and remove Iran’s enriched uranium. He also said that Iran would retain capabilities and knowledge that cannot be destroyed by military strikes.

In the first four weeks of the strikes, there has been little military focus on Iran’s remaining nuclear infrastructure. Neither the United States nor Israel has struck Pickaxe Mountain, a deeply buried site near Natanz that Iran claims is for centrifuge assembly, or attempted to target areas of Esfahan, where Grossi confirmed that Iran is likely storing more than 200 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium-235. The decision not to strike Esfahan could be because the material is stored too deeply underground to destroy.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told members of Congress in June 2025 that the United States focused on collapsing the tunnel entrances at Esfahan rather than destroying the underground areas when it struck nuclear facilities June 21 because the site is too deeply buried. Satellite imagery and statements from the IAEA suggest that the United States and Israel have not attempted to do further damage to those tunnel entrances. Israel, however, does seem to have struck the entrances into the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, possibly to impede access. The IAEA confirmed damage to Natanz March 2.

Israel also struck a site known as Taleghan 2, where Iran was burying a chamber that could have been intended for testing the high explosives necessary for a nuclear weapon.

The 2026 U.S. worldwide threat assessment, released on March 18, however, does not indicate that Iran has taken any steps to weaponize or to resume nuclear activities such as enrichment that were halted to due to damage from the brief U.S.-Israeli war against Iran last June. The assessment noted only that Iran “was intending to try to recover from the devastation of its nuclear infrastructure sustained during the 12-Day War.”

April 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

North Korea is ready for peace or war with the United States, leader Kim Jong Un said, but he emphasized that any bilateral talks would require that the United States recognizes North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

Kim’s Feb. 26 remarks were made on the last day of the week-long Ninth Party Congress, which is held every five years and sets national priorities. His remarks and the proceedings were covered extensively by the state-run Korean Central News Agency and Rodong Sinmun, the official paper of the Workers’ Party. Kim was re-elected as general secretary during the congress.

In his speech, Kim ruled out any negotiations with South Korea. He emphasized that ties with Seoul are “completely eliminated” and “nothing remains” in the relationship. He ordered North Korea to further fortify its border with South Korea.

Kim said North Korea’s relationship with the United States “depends entirely on the attitude of the U.S. side” and that Pyongyang is prepared for “peaceful coexistence or eternal confrontation.”

Although Kim suggested that North Korea is open to diplomacy with the United States, he made clear that any change in the relationship is dependent on a change in U.S. policy, which Washington has suggested it is not ready to make.

Kim said that “there is no reason why we cannot get on well with the U.S.” if Washington “respects the present position of our state specified in the constitution” and “withdraws its hostile policy.” North Korea modified its constitution in 2023 to refer to its nuclear weapons status.

Kim said that North Korea’s position as a nuclear-weapon state is “permanently fixed” and that its “enemies clearly realize that the dismantlement of [North Korea’s] nukes can never happen unless the whole world changes.”

Kim also laid out new priorities to “further expand and strengthen” the country’s nuclear weapons program. He described nuclear weapons as the “backbone” of North Korea’s deterrence and war strategies.

Specifically, he said that North Korea will deploy more advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and suggested the country will launch more advanced satellites. Rodong Shimbun said in a Feb. 26 report that the party congress has a “long-term plan” to strengthen the nuclear program and will concentrate on “increasing the number of nuclear weapons and expanding the means and space for nuclear operation.”

The report said that North Korea will continue to conduct drills “to have confidence in the effectiveness of the operation” of the nuclear arsenal. The report also mentioned that North Korea will activate and do a test run of its integrated nuclear crisis response system.

It said that the “nuclear weaponization of naval surface and underwater forces” will be a main component of North Korea’s plans to upgrade its navy. The emphasis on nuclear-capable systems at sea is a continuation of previous plans for expanding the nuclear weapons program.

During the previous party congress in 2021, Kim set several specific goals for nuclear-capable systems, including development of tactical nuclear weapons, a solid-fueled ICBM, a nuclear-powered submarine, and sea-based ICBMs and strategic weapons. North Korea has made progress on most of those goals, including testing a solid-fueled ICBM and likely deploying tactical nuclear weapons, while others, such as the sea-based strategic systems, were revealed or tested but are unlikely to be deployed. North Korea also revealed what is likely a nuclear-powered submarine under construction.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a March 2 statement to the agency’s Board of Governors that North Korea’s 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, which produces plutonium for nuclear warheads, “likely continues to operate” and that activity at the radiochemical laboratory suggests North Korea reprocessed spent fuel from the reactor’s previous cycle. Grossi also said the IAEA is monitoring a new building at Yongbyon, which is of similar size to a known enrichment facility at Kangson. Grossi said the building is “externally complete and internal fitting is likely underway.”

In its 2026 unclassified worldwide threat assessment, the U.S. intelligence community said North Korea is investing “in nuclear-capable systems to deter the U.S., challenge regional missile defenses, and hold targets in South Korea at risk.” It noted that North Korea is likely to deploy missiles with longer ranges and increased accuracy.

The 2025 report suggested that the United States may not be willing to accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. It noted that Kim “seeks to intimidate the United States and its allies into abandoning opposition to North Korea’s nuclear weapons.” That language was not included in the 2026 report.

The 2026 threat assessment did note that, despite North Korea’s military advances and the knowledge gained from supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “North Korea is likely to remain deterred by U.S. and allied forces.”

The United States held air and missile defense drills in South Korea following the North Korea party congress. The March 11 exercises included responding to incursions that include missiles and drones.

Three days later, North Korea launched a volley of short-range ballistic missiles at an island between the Korean peninsula and Japan. The Korean Central News Agency said the missiles “battered the island target” with “100-percent accuracy.”

April 2026
By Daryl G. Kimball and Libby Flatoff

Representatives from most of the 191 states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) will assemble in New York for a month-long conference to assess implementation of the treaty and seek agreement on a final document that outlines action steps to advance its core principles and objectives.

The April 27-May 22 meeting will be held amid multiple challenges to the treaty, which is the foundation of global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, to further the goals of nuclear disarmament, and to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy under effective international safeguards.

The conference president, Do Hung Viet, who is also Vietnam’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview with Arms Control Today that the treaty “is facing a lot of strain, but it is still extremely important that we work to … rebuild the credibility that the NPT has and the trust that the international community has in the NPT and in a multilateral rules-based framework in general.”

The tensions and divisions among certain NPT members were on full display at last year’s NPT preparatory conference, which set the stage for the review conference. These included disagreements over the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine and its effect on the Ukrainian nuclear energy infrastructure; concern from the United States and some allies about China’s buildup of strategic nuclear forces; criticism of the forward deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and Russia’s decision to deploy some of its nuclear weapons in Belarus; and the failure of the five NPT nuclear-armed states to engage in negotiations on disarmament as required under Article VI of the treaty. (See ACT, June 2025.)

Since then, new problems have emerged, and new crises have erupted. In October, U.S. President Donald Trump threated to resume nuclear testing “on an equal basis” and in February, senior State Department officials accused China of conducting a nuclear test in 2020. In February, the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expired, which could allow the United States and Russia to increase the number and diversity of their strategic nuclear arsenals for the first time in decades. In response to concerns about Russian aggression and U.S. support for European security, France announced that it will increase the size of its nuclear arsenal and work closely with certain European states to increase cooperation on nuclear deterrence. (See ACT, March 2026.)

The U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025 and their full-scale attack on Iran launched Feb. 28 have complicated the task of resuming international inspections of Iran’s sensitive nuclear activities while the widening regional conflict raises new concerns and tensions for NPT states-parties.

Weeks before the 2022 NPT Review Conference, Russia invaded Ukraine. Speaking days before the February Israeli-U.S. attack on Iran, Viet told Arms Control Today that “the NPT and the NPT review conference are not in a vacuum. They are impacted significantly by externalities of what’s going on around the world.”

Despite the growing geopolitical conflicts and tension, Viet and other NPT states-parties continue to prepare for the high-stakes review conference with four regional consultations and other engagements.

On Feb. 17, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Christopher Yeaw declared that “the NPT RevCon is high-priority for this administration.”

Yet, unlike the past several review conferences, the U.S. delegation will not be led by a Senate-confirmed, ambassador-level diplomat. The head of the U.S. delegation will be John Zadrozny, who was recently appointed to be the new chief of staff for Undersecretary of State for International Security and Arms Control Thomas DiNanno.

For their part, the Chinese Foreign Ministry convened a March 23-24 event on “promoting multilateralism and advancing arms control diplomacy” in Beijing involving roughly 20 ambassadors and diplomats from a variety of NPT states-parties. Viet, as well as the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, and the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitzu, also participated.

A week earlier, Grossi, Viet, and Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization attended the semiannual Moscow Nonproliferation Conference, organized by the nongovernmental Center for Energy and Security Studies, which provided opportunities for engagement with senior Russian officials.

Pressure on NPT diplomats to deliver a successful outcome at the review conference is high but expectations are low. The 2010 NPT Review Conference was the last one that successfully adopted a consensus outcome document. In 2015, consensus on the final document was blocked by the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada over language on how to advance a Middle East WMD-Free Zone. (See ACT, June 2015.)

In 2022, states agreed on a final outcome document covering a wide range of difficult issues, only to see Russia block consensus over language relating to nuclear safety issues at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant following Russia’s invasion earlier that year. (See ACT, September 2022.) The dynamics among the NPT’s five nuclear-armed states are a significant variable in every review conference, but any one state or bloc of states can raise concerns that can significantly affect conference.

Viet told Arms Control Today that in order to improve the chances for diplomatic progress, “I intend to … be a bit innovative without being disruptive … so as to allow all delegations, no matter how big or small, to be able to participate in all of the meetings, in all of the discussions.”

He added: “I intend to prepare a draft to be presented to state-parties earlier on, maybe in the middle of the second week of the conference. That will allow the main committees to start discussions surrounding the draft outcome document, and allow, basically, a bit more than two weeks for the negotiations of such outcome document.”

“An outcome document will show to the world, our constituencies, our people, that they can still rely on the NPT for their security, and that they can be confident that governments are still working towards ensuring better security for all through these dialogues and discussions and sticking to the commitments that they have,” Viet said. Without such an outcome, “We may lose the credibility of the NPT itself, and the review process.”

April 2026
By Daryl G. Kimball

The Syrian government, with technical support from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and financial support from seven partner states, has launched an initiative to assess and demilitarize residual elements of the chemical weapons program developed by the deposed government of Bashar al-Assad.

Syria’s UN ambassador, Ibrahim Olabi, announced the effort following a March 10 UN Security Council meeting on the Syrian political and humanitarian situation.

Assad was overthrown in December 2024 after nearly 15 years of civil war. The new government led by Ahmad al-Sharaa has begun to allow international inspectors access to key sites and documents to help eradicate the remainder of Syria’s once-formidable chemical arsenal. Since 2025, the new Syrian government has facilitated access to additional suspected chemical weapons sites and provided more than 10,0000 documents on the former chemical weapons program for OPCW review.

In 2013, following a sarin gas attack by Assad’s military against anti-regime forces and civilians outside Damascus that killed more than 1,400 people, a U.S.-and-Russia-brokered plan was imposed by the UN Security Council that required Syria to join the Chemical Weapons Convention, provide a full declaration of its stockpile, and allow for the demilitarization its chemical weapons stockpile.

This led to a complex, international effort to remove and safely dispose of the vast majority of the chemical arsenal, including 1,308 metric tons of chemical agents, as well as associated production equipment. Subsequent OPCW and UN investigations revealed, however, that the Assad regime still retained and used the nerve agent sarin, chlorine, and sulfur mustard gas through the course of the civil war and failed to reveal the full extent of its clandestine program.

Adedeji Ebo, director and deputy to the UN high representative for disarmament affairs, told the Security Council March 10 that the OPCW Technical Secretariat reports that in addition to 26 newly revealed former chemical weapons-related sites in Syria, “information made available to the OPCW suggests that there are more than 100 other sites that may have been involved in the previous government’s chemical-weapons-related activities.”

Ebo said the OPCW also has conducted interviews with former chemical weapons experts, collected 19 samples, and more than 6,000 documents from the visited locations. He added that “the new Syrian government handed over 34 sealed cardboard boxes containing documents to the OPCW Technical Secretariat, which have been documented and scanned, and will be processed for translation and analysis.”

The OPCW Technical Secretariat continues to conduct interviews and review documents, and it plans to visit all these locations when the security situation in the region improves, he added.

Tammy Bruce, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the UN, said in a statement to the Security Council that, “Finding, securing, declaring, and verifiably destroying any remnants of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program is no easy task and is therefore costly.” The United States “echoes the calls by the OPCW director-general and the Technical Secretariat for voluntary monetary and in-kind contributions to its Syria mission,” she added.

Bruce said: “The United States is proud to be working alongside Syria, and six other partner nations, in the Syria-led Destruction Planning Group. This group was established to support Syria’s chemical weapons destruction effort, strengthen Syrian national capacities, and mobilize technical and operational support for this mission.” The six other states are Canada, France, Germany, Turkey, Qatar, and the United Kingdom.

April 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

Los Alamos National Laboratories will produce 60 plutonium pits per year by the end of 2028 if the site can meet new objectives set out by a leading official at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in a Feb. 11 memo.

The lab’s plutonium facility also should have the capability to "enable production of 100 pits" by the end of 2028, according to the objective-setting document, which was obtained and published by the Los Alamos Study Group, a locally-based advocacy organization.

The memo, authored by David Beck, the NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs, sets ambitious targets for increasing nuclear weapons production across the agency. The “transformation objectives” represent what Beck’s office “believes are achievable by the end of calendar year 2028.”

The memo instructs the NNSA to also deliver the W80-4 warhead for the Long-Range Standoff Weapon, the new Air Force nuclear cruise missile, “ahead of [Defense Department] required need dates,” accelerate development and delivery of the warhead for the sea-launched cruise missile, and “Demonstrate and transition to Stockpile Management at least two novel Rapid Capability nuclear weapons systems.”

Since 2018, the NNSA has planned to produce 30 plutonium pits per year at Los Alamos, New Mexico, with another 50 to be produced annually at the under-construction Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in South Carolina. The Savannah River facility is now expected to be completed by September 2035, at a cost of over $22 billion, according to a Feb. 26 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO also noted that work to install pit production equipment at Los Alamos to meet the existing 30-pits-per-year target had suffered delays attributable to “prioritizing resources to achieve the first production unit for [the] W87-1 [warhead] through late 2024,” as well as difficulties procuring gloveboxes for handling radioactive items.

The NNSA is shifting its strategy for procuring and installing equipment at Los Alamos through a reprioritization of items and programs. According to the GAO, new estimates for the cost and schedule of the Los Alamos effort will be available in early 2026.

The agency published Mar. 25 its final site-wide environmental impact statement studying alternatives for the future of nuclear weapons work and other activities at the Los Alamos site over the next 15 years. The statement was accompanied by the agency’s decision to choose the most expansive option among the three considered, implying the construction of new facilities for capabilities that currently do not exist at the lab.

The New Mexico Environment Department issued an administrative compliance order Feb. 11 to the U.S. Department of Energy, the NNSA, and the contractors that operate Los Alamos instructing them to take steps to clean up toxic waste at Material Disposal Area C, a legacy unlined dump on laboratory grounds. (See ACT, September 2025.)

The GAO report, based on a review of the Energy Department’s project assessment database through June 2025, indicates that other major NNSA projects are experiencing schedule delays.

Two projects associated with the Uranium Processing Facility being built at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, will see extended delays. The main process building is roughly six years behind schedule and will cost $7.45 billion dollars, compared with an earlier estimate of $4.73 billion.

The new Lithium Processing Facility at Y-12 will also be completed late by about six years, at a cost of $6 billion. Previous estimates put the cost of the facility at between $871 million and $1.5 billion, the GAO reported.

The Feb. 11 NNSA memo also directs staff to “Execute the President’s directive with respect to the testing of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.” President Donald Trump announced last October that the United States would resume testing on an “equal basis” with nuclear peers. (See ACT, November 2025.)

The administration has yet to elaborate how this order will be implemented by the NNSA, and the memo indicates that next-step activities related to testing remain “TBD”—yet to be decided.

Correction: In the April 2026 issue of Arms Control Today, the story "NNSA Charts Buildup as Delays Mount" on p. 28 misinterpreted a line in a document by David Beck, deputy administrator for defense programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration. The document called for Los Alamos to have the capability to "enable production of 100 pits" by the end of 2028.

April 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

The U.S. Department of Defense is conducting a “nuclear strategy review” to assess strategic force requirements and potential additional theater nuclear weapons programs in lieu of a full nuclear posture review, a top department official said March 17 at a congressional hearing.

The review will be conducted by the office of the undersecretary of defense for policy and U.S. Strategic Command, according to Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary of defense for nuclear deterrence, chemical, and biological defense, policy and programs.

Kadlec, speaking before the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said the review would assess “very specific issues as it relates to the two-peer problem”—as U.S. experts regularly describe China and Russia—and “the pace of modernization and sufficiency of what we have already in the programs of record.”

“People have asked about numbers,” Kadlec said, “and I think this is the first opportunity to really evaluate the threat in a way that is real and tangible.”

In a November 2024 report on the nuclear employment strategy, the Defense Department indicated that it had received guidance from the Biden administration to “continuously evaluate whether adjustments should be made” to the U.S. nuclear force.

Kadlec said that ongoing work to assess additional theater nuclear weapons options would focus on “using the existing stockpile and existing platforms,” in response to a question from the subcommittee chair, Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), about “tailored supplemental capabilities” to the existing nuclear force.

Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, previously told the Senate Armed Services Committee March 3 that the Trump administration would not be conducting a formal nuclear posture review. “I think the declaratory policy and so forth from the first Trump term was very good,” Colby said.

The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review produced by the first Trump administration differed from its predecessor, the 2010 review conducted by the Obama administration, in declaring that the “extreme circumstances” under which the United States might contemplate nuclear use could include “significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.” (See ACT, March 2018.)

The Biden administration did not fully reject this change but indicated that this set of contingencies consisted of a “narrow range of other high consequence, strategic-level attacks.”

The Biden review also noted that “a near-simultaneous conflict with two nuclear-armed states would constitute an extreme circumstance.”

In his prepared statement for the March 17 hearing, Kadlec wrote that U.S. nuclear forces must be “robust enough to deter both peers simultaneously, even if we were to be engaged in a major conventional conflict with one.”

“The role of our nuclear arsenal in this context is not to fight and win a nuclear war, but to deter China from escalating to the nuclear level in the first place, or from believing it can use its nuclear arsenal to coerce us into accepting a fait accompli,” Kadlec wrote.

Testifying alongside Kadlec, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, Adm. Richard Correll, expressed concern about the potential vulnerabilities exposed by Ukraine’s successful drone strike against Russian strategic forces last June. Correll indicated in his prepared statement that a Pentagon council had endorsed his command’s new requirements for addressing this threat. (See ACT, July/August 2025.)

Drones controlled by unidentified remote operators were sighted intruding into the airspace of Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, between March 9 and 15, ABC News reported March 20, citing a confidential internal briefing document on the incidents.

Barksdale is home to three squadrons of B-52H strategic bombers. A nuclear weapons storage site is under construction at the base, according to satellite imagery analysis by the Federation of American Scientists.

Multiple waves of drones flew over sensitive portions of the base for more than a week. The aircraft displayed “non-commercial signal characteristics, long-range control links and resistance to jamming,” according to the document cited by ABC News.

Correll also said that, as part of the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense program, his command was “assessing strategic missile threats and prioritizing locations for defense against attacks by nuclear-armed adversaries.”

The admiral’s statement included an estimate of total Russian nuclear forces that counted 2,600 strategic warheads and up to 2,000 warheads for theater nuclear weapons.

This marks the first disclosure by Strategic Command of an internal estimate of the size of Russia’s nuclear force, according to Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, in a social media post.

April 2026

The U.S. intelligence community assesses that China does not plan to invade Taiwan in 2027 and has no “fixed timeline for achieving unification” with the self-governing island, according to the Director of National Intelligence’s Annual Threat Assessment report. “Chinese officials recognize that an amphibious invasion of Taiwan would be extremely challenging and carry a high risk of failure,” the March 18 report said.

The latest assessment of Chinese intentions contradicts a widespread interpretation of former CIA Director William Burns’s February 2023 statement that Chinese President Xi Jinping had instructed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.

Nonetheless, “Beijing views nuclear modernization as critical for strategic competition” with the United States and intends to continue diversifying and expanding its nuclear forces, the worldwide assessment said.

It also suggested “Chinese officials probably fear that the Golden Dome for America [missile defense program] will reduce Washington’s threshold for initiating military action against Beijing in a crisis” and this likely explains China’s interest in arms control initiatives in outer space.

The annual report also confirmed that Russia did not exceed the central limits of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) despite suspending implementation of the treaty in February 2023. This is consistent with the State Department’s January 2025 assessment, in its New START implementation report, that Russia “did not engage in any large-scale activity above the Treaty limits in 2024.”

The largest threat posed by Russian nuclear forces stem from “an escalatory spiral in an ongoing conflict such as Ukraine or a new conflict,” the worldwide threat assessment said.

Pakistan continues to develop missile technology that could provide it with longer-range systems to strike targets beyond South Asia, and “if these trends continue, [intercontinental ballistic missiles] that would threaten” the United States. (See ACT, January/February 2025.)

The report also expressed concerns about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, driven by regional insecurity, a deterioration of norms, doubts about security agreements, and declining fear of credible consequences.—XIAODON LIANG 

April 2026

The United States has used, for the first time in combat, a new short-range ballistic missile that would have violated the defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Open-source imagery analysts identified a missile featured in a March 1 Pentagon social media post as the new Precision Strike Missile (PrSM).

Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed in a March 13 press conference that the missile had been employed in combat against Iranian targets.

It was originally designed with a range under 500 kilometers. Following the first Trump administration’s withdrawal from INF Treaty in August 2019, the missile was subsequently tested in October 2021 to a range beyond the original design target.

The INF Treaty banned the United States and Russia from possessing, producing, or flight-testing ground-launched missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. In July 2014, the United States accused Russia of violating the treaty by developing the 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile.

The PrSM system is a successor to the 300-kilometer range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and shares launch platforms with its predecessor.

In an Aug. 4 statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that under the rules of the now-defunct INF Treaty, the use of these older platforms to launch the missile would have meant inclusion of those same platforms under the prohibitions of the treaty. (See ACT, September 2025).

The Army is developing anti-ship and extended-range variants of the missile. Army soldiers fired two of the missiles in an anti-ship mode during a June 2024 exercise in Palau, sinking a decommissioned Navy ship.—XIAODON LIANG