September 2025
By Xiaodon Liang

President Donald Trump signaled that the United States is preparing to resume discussions on nuclear arms control with Russia and said that the topic was raised during an Aug. 15 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We have restrictions [on nuclear weapons] and they have restrictions. That’s not an agreement you want expiring,” Trump said July 25 in response to questions from the Russian newswire TASS regarding the February 2026 expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

“We are starting to work on that,” he said.

En route to Anchorage, Alaska, for the summit, Trump told Fox News that, “we have nuclear treaties to discuss. We have a lot of things to discuss that normally would be something that would come naturally. But it’s not so natural now because of Ukraine.”

He elaborated slightly Aug. 25, telling reporters at the White House that he wants a nuclear deal that includes China as well as Russia and “talked about that also” with Putin in Alaska. But such negotiations can be put off until the Russian war on Ukraine is “over with,” Trump said according to Reuters.

Speaking at the Kremlin Aug. 14, Putin likewise said Russia aimed “to establish long-term conditions for peace not only between [the United States and Russia] but also in Europe and indeed globally—especially if we proceed to subsequent stages involving agreements on strategic offensive arms control.”

Trump had invited Putin to Alaska for a bilateral meeting to advance negotiations on a ceasefire in Ukraine. The summit ended without an agreement, but the sides indicated a willingness to continue talks based on tentative understandings reached during a meeting between the heads of state and two senior advisors on each side. A scheduled lunch between larger delegations was canceled.

The meeting was dominated by continuing disagreements over how to end the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Although Putin said at a joint press conference following the talks that the two presidents had reached an “understanding” and that the dialogue had yielded “emerging progress,” Trump was quick to deny that any agreement was close.

According to reporting by The New York Times, citing unnamed European security officials, Putin had pressed Trump to advocate for a peace deal whereby Ukraine would acknowledge the cession of two regions to Russia—Donetsk and Luhansk—and withdraw from territories within those regions it still controlled.

Putin was successful in at least convincing Trump to drop an approach, previously agreed with European allies days before the summit, to negotiate for a ceasefire first before seeking a full peace agreement. In an Aug. 16 social media post, Trump indicated that he would prefer, “to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do[es] not hold up.”

But Trump did indicate for the first time, in an Aug. 16 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the U.S. willingness to provide Ukraine with security guarantees as part of a postwar settlement.

Zelenskyy and a group of European allies discussed the exact form of those guarantees, as well as the peace negotiations in general, with Trump during an Aug. 18 meeting in Washington. According to a press release the next day from the office of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European military officials will meet with U.S. counterparts to formulate a plan to “deliver robust security guarantees and prepare for the deployment of a reassurance force” after the war ends. Ukraine will also purchase $90 billion in U.S. arms as part of efforts to provide for its own security, Zelenskyy said at a briefing in Washington.

Although Trump was quick to rule out the deployment of U.S. troops in Ukraine in an Aug. 19 interview with Fox News, he suggested instead that the United States might provide air support as part of its guarantees.

But even as supporters of Ukraine come closer to defining a viable security guarantee, Russia has reiterated its opposition to any external military presence in Ukraine. In an Aug. 18 statement, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Russia “unequivocally reject[s] any scenarios involving the deployment of NATO military contingents in Ukraine.” 

September 2025
By Xiaodon Liang

The Pentagon’s Golden Dome office expects to develop within 60 days an “objective architecture” to flesh out its concept of the missile defense shield, a signature strategic initiative of U.S. President Donald Trump, a top official said.

Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, the direct reporting program manager for Golden Dome, said he was responsible for completing the study by late September 2025, after which it will be briefed to the deputy secretary of the Air Force.

Guetlein, who made the comments at a Space Foundation event July 22, was confirmed July 17 to his new position by the U.S. Senate. According to Guetlein, his position—informally known as the Golden Dome “czar”—comes with a “whole list of authorities” delegated by the secretary of defense.

Speaking on a controversial component of the Golden Dome program, a proposed space-based interceptor constellation, Guetlein claimed, “that technology exists. I believe we have proven every element of the physics that we can make it work.”

“What we have not proven is: first, can I do it economically; and then second, can I do it at scale? Can I build enough satellites to get after the threat? Can I expand the industrial base fast enough to build those satellites?” he asked.

Guetlein’s acknowledgement of the economic challenges confronting a space-based interceptor constellation mirrors the concerns expressed in a Congressional Budget Office study of potential costs published May 5. The study estimated that a constellation sized to defend against a small number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) fired by North Korea would cost between $161 billion and $542 billion over 20 years. (See ACT, June 2025.)

The Golden Dome, in contrast, is supposed to be able to defend the United States against peer attacks, meaning China and Russia, Trump specified in his January executive order initiating the program.

Although Guetlein’s office has been tasked with detailing the specific architecture for the Golden Dome, the president already approved a conceptual plan in May. According to leaked presentations from an industry conference in early August, the plan envisions four integrated layers of missile interceptors, one in space and three on land.

The existing Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, originally designed to defend the homeland against limited rogue-state ICBM attacks, should be expanded to include a new silo field in the Midwestern continental United States, Reuters reported, citing the newswire’s analysis of the leaked presentation. The existing GMD system, currently based in Alaska and California, is set to be upgraded with a Next Generation Interceptor beginning in 2030, a year and a half behind schedule, according to contractor Lockheed Martin’s latest timeline estimates.

Congress voted earlier this year in its annual defense policy bill to require the Pentagon to deploy a third GMD site with the upgraded interceptor on the East Coast by 2031.

The conference presentation also indicated a role for a land-based variant of the Aegis ship-based ballistic missile defense system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, and the localized short-range Patriot air and missile defense system.

Networking these interceptors, as well as new and existing sensors, will be a critical challenge for the program. “Our first near term focus is going to be on integration of command and control of the various assets that have been built across all those stovepipes” between services and programs, Guetlein said.

The general also addressed concerns regarding oversight of spending on Golden Dome. The Senate Armed Services Committee is proposing, in its draft of this year’s defense authorization act, that Congress require annual briefings by the secretary of defense on the Golden Dome’s progress and costs.

Because key components of the program—including space-based interceptors—will be paid for by a special multiyear reconciliation appropriation passed by Congress earlier this summer, the Defense Department has not provided budget justification documents for those programs akin to those provided to Congress for regular annual requests.

“With that comes an enormous amount of responsibility by the [department] to execute those funds with discipline, but also with transparency,” Guetlein said.

September 2025
By Kelsey Davenport

South Korea’s new president outlined a three-step process for achieving the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula that would start with a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, but Pyongyang does not appear interested in engaging with Seoul.

In an interview with Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun published Aug. 21, President Lee Jae-myung said that “simply clamoring” about denuclearization will not achieve that objective and that it is time to “actively engage” North Korea in dialogue.

To achieve denuclearization, Lee outlined a three-step process. He described a freeze in the North Korean nuclear and missile programs as the first step toward denuclearization. The second step would be to “scale” down North Korea’s current arsenal, he said, followed by the third step, which would be “complete denuclearization.” He also said that North and South Korea could mutually prosper if the two countries “recognize and respect” each other. He suggested that South Korea, Japan, and the United States should all be involved in diplomacy with North Korea.

Lee, who was elected in June, called during his campaign for de-escalating tensions with North Korea and restoring a 2018 military cooperation agreement that his predecessor abandoned as part of a more confrontational approach to North Korean provocations. Soon after taking office, Lee ordered South Korea to remove loudspeakers from the border that the previous administration used to broadcast criticisms of the North Korean regime.

Lee also appeared to acknowledge that South Korea’s approach to North Korea would account for Pyongyang’s decision to no longer seek reunification of the Korean peninsula as a long-term policy objective.

In an Aug. 15 speech, he said that South Korea must respect North Korea’s political system and said that Seoul does not seek “unification by absorption.”

Thus far, North Korea has rejected Lee’s call for rebuilding trust and engaging in dialogue.

In an Aug. 20 commentary in the state-run Korean Central News Agency, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, said that Lee continues to “tediously talk about peace and improved relations, being well aware that it is impossible to realize them.”

She said that Seoul “cannot be a diplomatic partner” for North Korea because it is “not serious, weighty, or honest” and belittled Lee.

Although Kim’s comments rejected dialogue with South Korea, she appeared to keep open the option for negotiations with the United States under the right conditions.

In July 28 remarks, Kim said that relations between U.S. President Donald Trump and her brother are “not bad” but that there will be no talks between the two countries if the U.S. goal is the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. North Korea’s nuclear status is “irreversible,” she said, and the United States must recognize this status as a “prerequisite” for any future engagement.

Kim Jong Un also reiterated the country’s nuclear status during a July 29 session of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly.

He said that “as long as nuclear weapons exist,” North Korea’s steps toward “strengthening nuclear power won’t stop.” North Korea will never declare its intention to denuclearize to “meet the other side’s conditions” for engagement, he said.

He made a similar comment Aug. 20 in response to U.S.-South Korean combined, joint military exercises. The exercises, which began Aug. 18, are focused on “strengthening the alliance’s response capabilities,” according to an Aug. 8 U.S. Army press release.

Kim said the military drills are a clear indication that the two countries are pursuing a “hostile and confrontational” approach to North Korea. He said that North Korea must “rapidly expand” its nuclear weapons program in response.

Although the Trump administration has said little about the details of its North Korea policy, U.S. officials have reiterated that Washington is focused on denuclearization. The White House told Fox News July 31 that Trump is open to meeting Kim again, but his objective remains the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, a point Trump and Kim agreed to during their June 2018 summit meeting. (See ACT, July/August 2018.)

After U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun Aug. 14, the two officials reaffirmed the goal of “complete denuclearization” of North Korea and the importance of enforcing sanctions on the country.

Cho said that Trump’s leadership is “essential” to creating new opportunities with North Korea and that he expects “something to come out of President Trump’s leadership.”

But he acknowledged that the conflicting positions on denuclearization will require “a lot of back and forth” before there is a breakthrough.

 

September 2025
By Xiaodon Liang

Russia will cease abiding by its unilateral moratorium on the deployment of ground-launched intermediate-range missiles, six years after its president, Vladimir Putin, first announced the measure and invited the United States to reciprocate following U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019.

The United States and its NATO allies almost immediately rejected the offer on the grounds that Russia already had deployed missiles barred by the INF Treaty in violation of its own moratorium. But in a later exchange of proposals in December 2021 and January 2022, Washington indicated its willingness to begin new discussions with Russia on restrictions on the deployment of ground-launched intermediate and medium-range missiles. (See ACT, March 2022.)

As originally formulated by Putin in 2019, the unilateral moratorium bound Russia not to deploy previously barred INF-range missiles in “any given region until U.S.-made intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles are deployed there.” The variant offered by Russia as a proposed agreement in December 2021 instead suggested that the United States and Russia not deploy the missiles “either outside their national territories or inside their national territories from which the missiles can strike the national territory of the other party.”

Russia’s recent abandonment of its moratorium was announced Aug. 4 by the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry in a statement observing that the United States had “made significant progress in the practical implementation [of ] … openly declared plans to deploy U.S. ground-launched INF-range missiles in various regions.”

In April, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said deployment of U.S. missiles in Europe and Asia would trigger a withdrawal of the moratorium offer. At the time, the U.S. Army was deploying its “Typhon” Mid-Range Capability ground-launched missile system to the Philippines for exercises. (See ACT, May 2024.)

The Aug. 4 statement notes the Philippine deployment, as well as the recent participation by Typhon-equipped troops in multinational exercises in Australia in July.

The Typhon integrates a variant of the Mk-41 vertical launch system (VLS)—a standardized launcher aboard many U.S. and allied naval vessels that is capable of supporting numerous types of missiles—with supporting ground equipment. The Russian statement also noted a second derivative of the Mk-41 VLS, the Mk-70 Mod 1 Payload Delivery System.

The Mk-70, a containerized variant of the Mk-41 VLS launcher, was deployed by the U.S. Navy in a September 2023 exercise to the Danish island of Bornholm. In December 2024, the Navy announced that many littoral combat ships would be equipped with Mk-70 containers.

By design, both the Typhon and the Mk-70 are capable of launching the Tomahawk medium-range cruise missile. In a ground-launched configuration, this missile would have been banned by the now-defunct INF Treaty, which eliminated all Russian and U.S. ground-launched missiles with medium and intermediate ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced July 14 that Berlin had informed Washington of its interest in purchasing Typhon missile launchers for the German armed forces. He said that Washington is reviewing a U.S.-German agreement announced last year, whereby the United States would deploy its own Typhon-equipped forces in Germany along with the new Long-range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), Reuters reported. The LRHW made its first foreign deployment, to Australia in July.

The U.S. military has not yet test-launched a Tomahawk missile from a Mk-70, although the containerized launcher’s commonality with the Mk-41 strongly suggests it would be capable of supporting the cruise missile. Manufacturer Lockheed Martin describes the containerized launcher as providing “mid-range precision fires capabilities.”

The U.S. Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, which led the development of the Typhon system, issued a solicitation for a third mobile Tomahawk-launcher design. In a June 27 contracting notice, the office described its interest in acquiring four prototypes of a Common Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher, Heavy for the medium-range cruise missile. The Marine Corps is also pursuing integration of Tomahawk launchers with ground vehicles.

The Russian statement also highlighted concerns with the U.S. Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), which was tested to a range beyond its original design maximum of 499 kilometers in October 2021. The PrSM is a replacement for the Army Tactical Missile System and is designed to be fired from the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launcher.

The Russian statement observed that, under the terms of the now-defunct INF treaty, the use of HIMARS to test PrSM means that all HIMARS launchers would fall under the treaty’s prohibitions.

Russia has been expanding its own arsenal of intermediate-range weapons, beyond the 9M729 cruise missile which originally triggered U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty. (See ACT, January/February 2019.) The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that the United States had informed allies that four battalions of the 9M729 missile had been deployed, and open-source analysis by the Federation of American Scientists indicate it is possible that since then, Russia has constituted a fifth battalion.

In October 2020, Putin suggested an exchange of inspections accompanying the moratorium to verify that the 9M729 missile was not deployed in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. In return, he requested inspections of Aegis Ashore missile defense launchers in Romania and Poland to confirm that they are incapable of firing offensive missiles. (See ACT, November 2020.) Before withdrawing from strategic stability talks with Russia in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States said it was willing to discuss transparency measures.

Speaking Aug. 1 on a visit to Belarus, Putin said serial production of the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, first used in combat against Ukraine in November, had begun. His Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, said preparations for deployment of the new missile in Belarus would be completed this year, with deployments in 2026.

Belarus and Russia will conduct joint exercises in September to plan for the use of Oreshnik, Belarussian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said Aug. 13, according to Reuters. The two military forces also will conduct exercises on planning the use of nuclear weapons, the minister said.

September 2025
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

Japanese officials marked the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing by reiterating their country’s long-standing commitment to a nuclear-weapon-free world, despite a growing domestic willingness to reconsider this policy.

Speaking Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, when the United States in 1945 attacked Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba reiterated Japan’s commitment to uphold the “three non-nuclear principles” and to “lead the efforts of the international community to bring about a world without nuclear war” and “a world without nuclear weapons.”

The two bombs, wielding a fraction of the power of today’s weapons, are roughly estimated to have killed around 215,000 people by the end of 1945.

“The widening of the division within the international community over approaches to nuclear disarmament has made the current security environment even more challenging. But that is exactly why we must make all-out efforts” toward disarmament, Ishiba added.

Under the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, the United States committed to provide an extended deterrence to Japan by guaranteeing the use of U.S. military capabilities, including nuclear forces, to counter enemy threats.

Over the years, Japan and the United States have upgraded their alliance consultation and communications procedures related to extended deterrence. (See ACT, September 2024 and ACT, December 2024.)

More recently, the two countries have discussed scenarios involving the use of U.S. nuclear weapons in simulated contingencies involving Taiwan, Kyodo news agency reported July 26 and 27.

According to the reports, during their tabletop exercises, officials of Japan’s Self-Defense Force “repeatedly urged the U.S. force to make a nuclear threat” to counter a scenario in which China’s implied the use of nuclear weapons.

Recent polls suggest a slight shift among the Japanese population on the nuclear weapons issue. After a new 125-member Japanese lower house was elected July 20, a survey by Mainichi Shimbun showed that eight members support Japan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Although the number reflects a minority, it shows a shift from zero or one nuclear weapon supporter, which was a number recorded in the last survey in 2022, the newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, a member of the Japanese ruling party’s upper house and former deputy defense minister, Rui Matsukawa, in an interview with Reuters Aug. 20, “rais[ed] the possibility of Japan reducing its reliance on American security guarantees” and suggested that “Plan B is maybe [to] go independent, and then go [to] nukes.”

Reuters also reported that although “Support in Japan for developing its own indigenous atomic weapons is smaller [than South Korea] … interviews with a dozen Japanese lawmakers, government officials and former senior military figures reveal there is a growing willingness to loosen Japan’s decades-old pledge, formulated in 1967, not to produce, possess or host nuclear weapons in its territory—what is knowns as the three non-nuclear principles.”

Amid growing cynicism and some interests in exploring nuclear sharing and possession among the Japanese public, Hiroshima Governor Hidehiko Yuzaki warned in an Aug. 6 speech that “nuclear deterrence has not been safely sustained over the past 80 years, but has, at times, been on the brink of collapse.”

“Should nuclear deterrence fail someday, as suggested by historical evidence, and should nuclear war occur, it would be impossible to save the human race and the Earth from unrecoverable devastation,” Yuzaki said.

“What is the meaning of national security if it protects only the concept of a nation but has the possibility to lead unrecoverable end for its land and people?” he asked.

At the Aug. 9 ceremony, Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki called for “the government of Japan, the only nation to have suffered wartime atomic bombings… to firmly uphold the three non-nuclear principles.”

He also appealed to the leaders gathered in Nagasaki “to go back to the keystone values of the Charter of the United Nations, and restore multilateralism and the rule of law.”

He also noted that this year marks the 80th anniversary of the creation of the UN under the resolution to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”

September 2025
By Lipi Shetty

The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs approved six bills July 22 aimed at loosening controls on arms exports through amendments to the Arms Export Control Act or the process by which it is implemented in the interagency export control process.

On a party-line vote of 27 to 23, the committee approved H.R. 3613, the Streamlining Foreign Military Sales Act of 2025, which increases the dollar thresholds that foreign arms sales must reach before they trigger congressional notification requirements.

The bill doubles the threshold for non-NATO, non-Five Eyes countries from $14 million to $30 million, and nearly quadruples the thresholds for NATO and Five Eyes countries from $25 million to $105 million. The Five Eyes countries—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—have a special commitment to share the most sensitive intelligence.

The bill goes beyond the change requested by the Trump administration in an Apr. 7 letter to Congress. Signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the letter asked Congress to raise the current $25 million threshold for NATO allies to $55 million or more, Politico reported. The letter and bill follow Trump’s Apr. 9 executive order that eliminated certain agency regulations to expedite foreign arms sales. (See ACT, April 2025.)

“This bill represents one of the largest rollbacks of congressional oversight on arms sales in the last 50 years,” said Colby Goodman, a senior researcher with Transparency International U.S.

Goodman said the bill would not accelerate arms sales because “bureaucratic holdups [in the arms sales process] stem largely from within the Executive Branch, not from Congress.”

Also on a party-line vote, the committee cleared H.R. 3068, a bill to promote the AUKUS defense agreement among Australia, the UK and the United States. The bill, which passed 26 to 24, was sponsored by Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) and co-sponsored by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), a co-chair of the Congressional Friends of Australia Caucus.

The bill modifies provisions of the Arms Export Control Act to permit the government to exempt rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles with a range of over 300 kilometers and capable of carrying over 500 kilograms of payload from licensing requirements through binding bilateral agreements.

The AUKUS agreement envisions the joint development of hypersonic missiles under “Pillar 2” of the trilateral defense partnership.

“By modernizing the Missile Technology Control Regime to meet the security challenges of today, we can strengthen our defense capabilities and increase our cooperation with our allies, especially Australia and the United Kingdom,” said Huizenga. H.R. 3068 “can act as a force multiplier that allows the United States and our closest allies to address the security challenges we face today and in the future.”

Three other bills about the arms trade passed the committee on a largely bipartisan basis. These included measures to modify previous legislation creating an expedited review process for AUKUS-related export licenses, to direct a review of the foreign military sales list, and to direct a prioritization of customers for direct commercial sales. A final bill, accelerating arms sales to countries in the Middle East and North Africa that recognize Israel and oppose Iran, passed the committee with a mix of Republican and Democratic votes.

September 2025
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

The United Kingdom is rapidly bolstering its nuclear deterrent by strengthening its capabilities and ties with allies, including expanding nuclear cooperation with France, reintroducing the U.S. gravity nuclear bomb on its territory, and acquiring U.S.-made nuclear-capable aircraft.

On July 18, open-source researchers on social media, including OSINTDefender, identified flight activity strongly suggesting that the U.S. Air Force delivered a batch of U.S. B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs to a newly upgraded storage facility at the UK Royal Air Force base at Lakenheath for the first time since at least 2005.

The return of U.S. nuclear gravity bombs has been anticipated since at least April 2022, when the Federation of American Scientists released a report flagging future upgrades to a nuclear weapons storage site at Lakenheath in U.S. defense budget documents. In February 2024, the BBC reported upgrades to the Lakenheath facility.

“The U.S. Air Force used to store nuclear gravity bombs at Lakenheath, which in the 1990s was equipped with 33 underground storage vaults. By the early 2000s, there were a total of 110 B61 gravity bombs in the vaults for delivery by F-15E aircraft of the 48th Fighter Wing,” Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists wrote in 2022.

If return of B61-12 bombs to the UK “were to happen, it would break with decades of policy and planning and reverse the southern focus of the European nuclear deployment that emerged after the end of the Cold War,” Eliana Johns and Hans Kristensen wrote in February 2025.

“Even without weapons present, the addition of a large nuclear air base in northern Europe is a significant new development that would haven inconceivable just a decade-and-a-half ago,” they wrote.

This development follows the recent announcement of the UK-French nuclear coordination as well as the UK announcement about joining NATO’s air-based nuclear mission by purchasing U.S. F-35A nuclear-capable fighter jets, to be based at Royal Air Force base at Marham. (See ACT, July/August 2025.)

French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a joint statement on nuclear policy and coordination July 10 following a three-day state visit by Macron to the UK. Referred to as the Northwood Declaration, the text states an intention to deepen coordination on French and UK nuclear responses to “extreme threats” to the European continent. Although the countries will maintain ultimate control over their own nuclear arsenals, they noted that their “nuclear forces are independent, but can be coordinated.”

The declaration also establishes an oversight committee to facilitate alignment, called Nuclear Supervisory Group, which is responsible for coordinating on “policies, capabilities, and operations,” according to the July 10 report by Le Monde.

The renewed cooperation agreement between the only two European nations in possession of nuclear arsenals since the 1995 Chequers Declaration demonstrates a noteworthy bolstering of Europe’s independent nuclear capabilities. “This will not affect in any way the core elements of their respective national nuclear doctrines,” Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the French Foundation for Strategic Research, wrote July 10 on X. “But I believe it’s the optimal step [France and the UK] could take in the current context.”

September 2025
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

After six years of secrecy, the Scottish government confirmed that the Royal Navy released radioactive water into Loch Long near Glasgow, due to its repeated failure to maintain a network of 1,500 water pipes at the Coulport armaments depot, the home base for the United Kingdom’s nuclear warheads.

According to the report co-published Aug. 9 by The Ferret and The Guardian, The Ferret obtained internal documents from the Scottish Government’s environmental watchdog, Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), in August, which “disclose that radioactive water drained into the loch, which is popular with swimmers, divers, kayakers and fishers, after a major flood in 2019.”

Thiry-three documents published by SEPA Aug. 5 disclosed for the first time the problems that the Royal Navy had been having with pipes bursting and flooding parts of the “Trident Special Area” at Coulport, “one of the most secretive, sensitive and secure areas in the UK.” The files indicate that one pipe burst at Coulport in 2010, two burst in 2019, and two more burst in 2021.

The UK navy base Clyde at Faslane and the armaments depot at Coulport serve as the Royal Navy’s main presence in Scotland, where it is responsible for storing, processing, and maintaining key elements of the UK nuclear warheads for Trident submarines, a weapons processing facility, and missile bunkers. In 2019, 2023, and 2024, The Ferret “first made a freedom of information request for files on radioactive problems at Coulport and Faslane.”

The two newspapers reported that SEPA and the UK Defense Ministry sought to keep the documents secret for national security reasons, despite repeated inquiries by reporters since 2019. The government finally released the files on the orders of David Hamilton, the Scottish information commissioner, who polices Scotland’s freedom of information laws.

Speaking to The Guardian Aug. 9, the Scottish Green Party’s co-leader, Patrick Harvie, said that there “are few sites as dangerous and where an accident or shoddy maintenance could have such potentially catastrophic consequences.” He called for more transparency from the defense ministry.

The Ferret indicated Aug. 9 that the UK Defense Ministry “has clamped down on releasing information about the UK nuclear weapons programme, citing national security,” including censoring annual nuclear safety assessments reported in 2017. The Guardian reported in 2009 that “there had been leaks of radioactive coolant into the neighboring area, the Firth of Clyde from nuclear submarines in 2004, 2007, and 2008.”

According to the Aug. 9 report by The Ferret, both SEPA and the UK Defense Ministry claimed that there “have been no unsafe releases of radioactive material into the environment at any stage,” and that “the risk to the environment from effluent discharges is of no regulatory concern,” based on SEPA’s annual assessments.

September 2025
By Lipi Shetty

The U.S. Department of Energy will not clean up a nearly 12-acre radioactive waste site at Los Alamos National Laboratory, or LANL, until active operations at the site cease, the department told a state environmental agency June 18.

The New Mexico Environmental Department said in response that it “will utilize to the fullest extent all statutory and legal authority necessary to … ensure that New Mexicans receive effective cleanup of legacy contamination at LANL in a timely manner.”

The June 18 letter referred to Material Disposal Area C waste site at LANL, which contains radioactive and chemically contaminated waste in six disposal pits, a chemical pit, and 108 shafts. The site, one of several similar locations in the LANL area, was active from 1948 to 1974.

According to the letter, Material Disposal Area C “is associated with active Facility operations and will be deferred from further corrective action [until it] is no longer associated with active Facility operations.” LANL’s plutonium pit production facility, known as PF-4, is located near the site.

In September 2023, New Mexican authorities proposed that the U.S. Department of Energy excavate and remove hazardous waste at the site at a cost of roughly $800 million, as estimated by the Energy Department. The department had preferred a cleanup plan that involved paving over the site’s current interim soil cover with a layer resistant to erosion, wildlife, and vegetation, which it said would cost 
$12 million.

Los Alamos is one of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two proposed sites for restarting plutonium pit production. To meet congressional requirements to produce 80 pits per year, NNSA intends for LANL to produce 30 pits per year and for the under-construction Savannah River Plutonium Production Facility to produce an additional 50 pits per year.

September 2025
By Daryl G. Kimball

Even before the start of his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump talked about how he could bring an end Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine. The issue dominated the hastily organized, poorly executed summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August. So far, Trump’s improvisational, personalized diplomacy has failed to bring about a ceasefire and done little to bridge the gulf between Ukraine and Russia on terms for a durable and just peace.

At the same time, Trump has said repeatedly that he wants talks with Putin on the denuclearization of the massive Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals. Putin has expressed interest in talks on nuclear arms control without insisting, as he did beginning in 2023, on a complete halt to U.S. military aid to Ukraine as a precondition.

Trump told reporters Aug. 25 that nuclear weapons were on the agenda in Alaska. “We would like to denuclearize. It’s too much power, and we talked about that.... but we have to get the war over with,” he said. For his part, Putin said the discussions were aimed at creating the “long-term conditions of peace between our countries,” including “agreements in the field of strategic offensive arms control.”

It is not enough, however, that Putin and Trump seem to understand the importance of maintaining common sense limits on their nuclear arsenals. They need to translate their words into pragmatic action, and soon, and not wait until there is a resolution to the war on Ukraine.

In less than six months, on Feb. 5, 2026, the last remaining treaty limiting the two largest nuclear arsenals—the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START)—will expire. The treaty limits each side to no more than 1,550 deployed warheads on no more than 700 long-range missiles and bombers and has provided greater predictability in the dangerous Russian-U.S. deterrence relationship.

As Trump said July 25 in response to a question about expiration of the treaty, “We are starting to work on that. That is a big problem for the world, when you take off nuclear restrictions.”

Unless the two leaders reach an interim deal to maintain existing limits, each side could quickly increase the size of its deployed nuclear arsenal for the first time in more than 35 years by uploading additional warheads on existing long-range missiles.

More nuclear weapons will not make anyone safer. The United States already has a devastating, survivable nuclear force that is more than sufficient to deter nuclear attack by China, Russia and any other nuclear-armed states. Any Russian and U.S. buildup would further destabilize the mutual balance of nuclear terror; strain the already costly, behind-schedule U.S. nuclear modernization program; and prompt China to accelerate its ongoing nuclear buildup.

Negotiating nuclear arms control with Russia is never easy. Near the end of his first term, in 2020, Trump failed to make headway with Russia on a new nuclear arms control agreement, in part because his national security team convinced him to try to include China in a three-way negotiation. China, which has a smaller arsenal, is concerned about its vulnerability to a first strike and values opacity, rebuffed the proposal. Russia responded by insisting that France and the United Kingdom also be involved.

This time, Trump’s team will need to craft a more practical and effective approach. First—because negotiating a comprehensive post-New START framework deal with Russia would require sustained talks over months, if not years—Putin and Trump should seek a simple, informal deal to maintain the existing caps after the treaty expires, as long as the other side does so. They could resume data exchanges and inspections, or simply monitor compliance through national technical means of intelligence. Unlike ending the war on Ukraine, such a deal could be secured in one meeting.

By agreeing not to exceed the current strategic nuclear limits, they could reduce tensions, forestall a costly arms race that no one can win, create diplomatic leverage to curb the buildup of China’s arsenal, and buy time for talks on a broader, more durable, treaty.

Second, Putin and Trump should immediately direct their teams to begin negotiations on a new more comprehensive agreement or agreements that address difficult issues with which the two sides have long struggled. These include: deeper verifiable strategic nuclear reductions; restrictions on intermediate-range forces and sub-strategic nuclear weapons; and limits on strategic missile defense, space-based weapons, and long-range conventional strike weapons.

To broaden the disarmament effort, Putin and Trump could call on China, France, and the UK to report on their total nuclear weapons holdings and freeze their nuclear stockpiles provided Russia and the United States pursue deeper verifiable reductions in their far larger arsenals.

If Putin and Trump maintain current strategic nuclear limits after New START expires, separate nuclear arms control from the complex challenge of ending Putin’s war on Ukraine, and launch talks on more ambitious nuclear disarmament measures, they can reduce the most immediate existential security threat facing the world.