March 2026
By Libby Flatoff

In a major shift in policy, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a new nuclear strategy that would allow for temporary deployment of nuclear air forces outside of France and ordered an increase in France’s nuclear arsenal.

“I have ordered an increase in the number of nuclear warheads in our arsenal,” Macron stated March 2. “We will no longer communicate on the figures of our nuclear arsenal, unlike what may have been the case in the past.”

Macron stressed that, “My responsibility is to ensure that our deterrence maintains — and will maintain in the future — its assured destructive power.” He said called the approach “dissuasion avancée,” or advanced deterrence, noting that this new French approach creates opportunities for European allies.

France and Germany also announced Mar. 2 their intention to create “a ‌joint steering group to coordinate strategic doctrine and exercises,” in a move to increase cooperation on nuclear deterrence.

Comments from other European leaders in recent weeks provided hints of greater European defense and nuclear coordination. In a Jan. 29 speech, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said European states were “discussing the development of a joint nuclear umbrella with European allies,” although he insisted “Germany will not possess nuclear weapons.”

The shift in German government thinking is particularly significant. Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of France’s Strategic Research Foundation, noted that, “Germany’s mention of nuclear capabilities would have been unimaginable just five years ago.”

Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Estonian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, suggested that the “most logical, fastest, and most cost-effective option would be to use France’s nuclear capability as the foundation for an independent European nuclear deterrent,” according to Politico Feb. 5.

Meanwhile, in response to a question about hosting nuclear weapons on Swedish soil, Defense Minister Pål Jonsson stated Feb. 27 on Swedish radio SR, “If there were to be war, we would naturally consider any option that could secure Sweden’s survival and Swedish security.”

The shift in French and European policy is a response to growing NATO concerns that they can no longer rely on U.S. defense commitments in the event of an attack by Russia, including the potential employment of U.S. nuclear weapons,  such as the 100 plus forward-deployed U.S. nuclear gravity bombs that are stationed at bases in five countries in Europe.

Last July, France and the United Kingdom, which both possess nuclear weapons, issued a statement called the Northwood Declaration that commits them to coordinate nuclear policy and notes that their “nuclear forces are independent, but can be coordinated.” (See ACT, September 2025.) The declaration also established a nuclear steering group, co-chaired by French and UK officials, which held its first meeting in Paris Dec. 10.

European concerns deepened following U.S. President Donald Trump's statements threatening acquisition of Greenland and the new U.S. National Defense Strategy document, released in January. Despite the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine and its asymmetric intrusions on European infrastructure, the strategy document describes Russia as a “manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members” and calls on Europe to take “primary responsibility for its own defense.”

At the February 2025 NATO defense ministers meeting, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, responding to a reporter’s question, reinforced European concerns. Hegseth said that, “without burden sharing, without creating the right set of incentives for European countries to invest, then [the United States] would be forced to attempt to be everywhere for everybody all the time, which in a world of fiscal restraints is, again ... just not reality.”

At the World Economic Forum, Jan. 21 in Davos, Switzerland, Trump reiterated that he was “not sure [if NATO] would be there for us” if there were an attack against the United States. That has become a frequent Trump complaint despite the fact that NATO invoked Article 5 for the only time in its history after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States in 2001.

France has about 290 nuclear weapons and the UK has 225, according to independent estimates by the Federation of American Scientists. Neither country currently deploys its weapons within the borders of other nations.

March 2026
By Xiaodon Liang and Libby Flatoff

U.S. discretionary spending on national defense, including atomic energy activities, will rise by more than 17 percent in fiscal year 2026 to $1.05 trillion after Congress passed appropriations acts funding most of the government.

That total, reached after a cycle of tumultuous and disorderly budget processes, includes $893 billion approved through normal appropriations, as well as money provided last summer by a budget reconciliation act, which included $152.3 billion for the Pentagon and $3.9 billion for Department of Energy nuclear weapons activities. (See ACT June, July/August 2025.)

In May, the Department of Defense indicated it would spend $119.3 billion of the multiyear reconciliation money in fiscal 2026. But on Feb. 23 the department reversed course and said it would spend all of its multiyear allocation by the end of fiscal 2026, contradicting prior plans.

The Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program—originally set to receive $4.3 billion in research and development and construction funding this year, according to the president’s budget request—now has an increased budget of $5.3 billion. Last fiscal year, the Trump administration reallocated $1.2 billion of the Sentinel’s enacted $3.2 billion budget to other defense programs.

The program continues to undergo a major restructuring following a 2024 review required by the cost control provisions of the Nunn-McCurdy Act. (See ACT, September 2024.) The Air Force announced Feb. 17 that it anticipates completing the restructuring effort and attaining a Milestone B decision by the end of 2026.

The service also said the Sentinel missile would reach initial operational capability in “the early 2030s.”

Although the Air Force now believes it will conduct a first flight test—from a pad, not a silo—of the Sentinel missile in 2027, the Government Accountability Office noted in a brief Feb. 18 report that its analysis of Pentagon information suggests a March 2028 date instead.

The B-21 bomber program will receive $10.1 billion this year, a significant increase from last year’s $5.3 billion enacted budget. Some $4.5 billion of that total will go toward expanding bomber production rates. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink announced Feb. 23 that lead contractor Northrop Grumman and the Pentagon had reached an agreement to increase production capacity by 25 percent.

Although President Donald Trump said Feb. 2 on a podcast that the United States had ordered 25 more bombers, the Air Force has not confirmed an increase in the total B-21 production order despite previous discussion. (See ACT, May 2025.)

The Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program will be funded at $9.6 billion through regular appropriations, with an additional $1.4 billion of reconciliation monies allocated to associated industrial base investments, according to congressional funding tables. The program received $9.8 billion last year.

The Feb. 23 documents provided by the Pentagon describing how it plans to use the full $152.3 billion in reconciliation funds by the end of fiscal 2026 confirm that the Navy will attempt to spend $2 billion in one year on the nuclear-capable, sea-launched cruise missile, a figure drastically increased from $150 million last year.

The breakdown in the justification documents of spending on the new nuclear weapon do not add up to the $2 billion total, and the scope of work described suggests multiple years of effort.

Last fall, the Pentagon forwarded to Congress an initial tranche of planned reconciliation commitments totaling around $90 billion, shy of the $119.3 billion envisioned in the president’s budget request.

In that fall document, the sea-launched cruise missile would have received only $458 million in funding, which matches what the newly released reconciliation spending justification documents describe as funding for transitioning from “early program planning into system architecture maturation, risk reduction, and engineer development.”

The Missile Defense Agency’s hypersonic defense efforts, including development of the Glide Phase Interceptor, were funded by Congress through normal appropriations at $185 million, but reconciliation funds will provide another $2.2 billion in classified spending.

Congress has similarly provided $1.7 billion for the Space Force missile warning and tracking constellation in low-earth orbit, while the reconciliation documents suggest a further $7.2 billion for space-based sensors is “pending approval.”

The constellation received a rebuke from the Government Accountability Office in a Jan. 28 report that criticized the program as having “yet to demonstrate the development of timely, actionable, and accurate two-dimensional tracks on orbit and three-dimensional tracks on the ground needed to counter hypersonic and other evolving threats.”

Appropriators also modestly reduced base funding for several missile defense programs, citing budget execution problems and funding requests that were ahead of actual program need.

The reconciliation documents indicate that details on Pentagon plans for spending $5.6 billion on “space-based and boost phase interceptor capabilities” have been classified.

This year’s appropriations bills also convey congressional concern about several key nuclear policy issues not tackled in the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law in December.

In the act funding the Pentagon, defense appropriators expressed concern that the Defense Department “lacks a clear plan to meet strategic [nuclear command, control, and communications] requirements after the current legacy Space-Based Infrared systems age out,” despite an enacted $1.4 billion budget for the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared satellite program intended for geosynchronous and polar orbits.

In a joint explanatory statement, appropriators noted that although they support efforts to create a proliferated missile warning system in low-earth orbit, this constellation is “not designed to meet the strategic indications and warning requirements.” Energy and water appropriators also called for the prompt release of a pit production study by the JASON advisory group within 60 days of the report’s completion.

March 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

Congress authorized $57 million this year for a prototype of a new nuclear weapon delivery system that the U.S. Air Force is considering acquiring to destroy hard and deeply buried targets, according to budget documents.

This is the second fiscal year in which the service has asked for and received funding for its work on the program after Congress provided an initial $39 million last year. The Biden administration’s last budget request estimated that the Air Force’s portion of the program would cost $353 million over its lifetime.

In parallel, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—the agency responsible for designing and producing U.S. nuclear weapons—is conducting a multi-year Phase 1 concept assessment of options to defeat hard and deeply buried targets. (See ACT, July/August 2025.)

The new weapon, provisionally called the air-delivered nuclear delivery system, would address the requirement for “an enduring capability for improved defeat of [hard and deeply buried] targets” identified in the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, according to Air Force budget justification documents.

The documents note that the program also responds to the findings of a Pentagon study of options for hard and deeply buried targets mandated by the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

In the course of designing the new weapon, the Air Force Research Laboratory is initially planning for integration with F-15E strike aircraft and B-2 bombers.

According to the budget documents, in fiscal year 2026, the Air Force intends to continue modeling and simulation analysis of design options, designing and procuring components for building prototypes, and conducting ground tests of prototypes, among other activities.

When the Biden administration unveiled in October 2023 a higher-yield variant of the B61-12 life-extended gravity bomb, the B61-13, it said that weapon would provide an additional option for “harder and large-area military targets.” This would pave the way for retirement of the older megaton-yield B83-1. (See ACT, December 2023.)

At the same time, the administration did not decide to retire the B61-11, a dedicated earth-penetrating variant of the B61 bomb. Although several older variants of the B61 have been consolidated through a recently completed life-extension program into the B61-12 design, the B61-11 was not.

The budget documents are unlikely to refer to the B61-13. That weapon is already in production and will only be delivered by strategic bombers, not fighter jets such as the F-15E, NNSA said in a May 19 press release.

“The B61-13 represents an intermediate answer” to the problem of destroying hard and deeply buried targets, wrote David Hoagland, the NNSA’s acting deputy administrator for defense programs, May 20 in War on the Rocks.

The George W. Bush administration also pursued a nuclear bunker-buster under the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator program. Congressional opposition led to cancellation of the program by 2005.

Unlike the proposed air-delivered nuclear delivery system, the Bush-era program did not advance as far as prototyping work within the Air Force before it was canceled, even though the NNSA bomb design work had proceeded beyond concept studies to the next stage, known as a Phase 6.2/6.2A feasibility and design, definition, and cost study.

March 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors held an extraordinary meeting in January to discuss nuclear security and safety risks in Ukraine after repeated Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The Netherlands requested the Jan. 30 meeting. In a statement to the IAEA’s 35-member board, Dutch Ambassador Peter Potman expressed “grave concerns” about Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian electrical substations, noting that the strikes bring the “prospect of a nuclear accident to the very precipice of becoming a reality.”

Potman said that attacking Ukraine’s electric grid is a direct violation of IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi’s seven indispensable pillars for ensuring nuclear safety. Grossi announced the seven pillars in 2022, shortly after Russia’s illegal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine and occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Pillar 4 says “there must be a secure off-site power supply from the grid for all nuclear sites.”

The Netherlands, along with 11 other board members, requested that Grossi share a written assessment of the “increased nuclear safety risks in Ukraine” ahead of the board’s quarterly meeting in March. The assessment will help members “assess the extent to which a nuclear accident is imminent,” Potman said.

Grossi told the board Jan. 30 that nuclear power plants cannot operate safely without off-site power and noted a clear deterioration in Ukraine’s energy grid since the agency began monitoring it in 2024. He said IAEA teams will continue to visit substations in Ukraine to assess impacts on nuclear safety and security.

Russia’s ambassador to the IAEA, Mikhail Ulyanov, objected to the extraordinary meeting, saying the topic falls outside of the board’s purview. He accused members of using the meeting to “try to put pressure on Russia.” In a Jan. 30 statement, he said that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure are a direct response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry, in a statement the same day, said that the “deliberate and systemic” Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure create “direct nuclear risks.” Ukraine said it would propose an amendment to the IAEA statute “aimed at limiting the rights of the aggressor state within Agency bodies.”

Howard Solomon, the interim chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Vienna, called for all strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to cease. He said the current situation is “unacceptable and extremely dangerous.”

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure continued after the meeting despite Grossi’s warnings.

In a subsequent Feb. 6 statement, Grossi said attacks on electrical infrastructure caused a reactor unit at an unspecified, operating nuclear power plant in Ukraine to automatically disconnect from the grid and shut down.

He said the “latest grid event is a stark reminder of the ever-present risks to nuclear safety and security arising from deteriorating grid conditions,” and called for restraint from further attacks. Attacks continued despite Grossi’s warnings.

March 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

France took over the presidency of a multilateral initiative combating weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation and plans to increase the visibility of the group’s work in 2026.

The Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction was founded in 2002 by the Group of Eight industrialized countries (now the Group of Seven). Composed of 31 members, the Global Partnership uses a matchmaking process to pair donor expertise and funding with projects aimed at reducing WMD threats and proliferation. The chair of the G-7 serves as president of the Global Partnership and sets priorities for its work agenda.

In a January statement, France highlighted how the “evolving security landscape and the rapid advancement of technologies are reshaping the nature” of proliferation risks and pledged to adapt the initiative’s work to meet these challenges. Specifically, the French presidency will focus on three strategic objectives. First, France will focus on ensuring that the Global Partnership’s “governance and strategies are … robust and effective.” Second, France will look to “actively engage new countries and organizations” and potentially expand the initiative’s membership. Third, France will focus on enhancing communication and awareness, to highlight the initiative’s work and foster “deeper understanding” of WMD threats and solutions.

Canada, the president for 2025, highlighted the Global Partnership’s accomplishments over the past year in an outgoing message. The January statement said that the 31-member body launched a new strategy for addressing WMD-relevant technologies, such as artificial intelligence and gene editing, to identify how the partnership can use these tools for “deterrence, detection, and response.” Canada also noted that partnership members endorsed new biosecurity deliverables and a revised chemical security strategic vision.

Under Canada’s presidency, the Global Partnership implemented 344 projects in 158 countries. Nearly half of the projects focused on enhancing nuclear and radiological security. Ukraine continued to be a priority for nuclear security work, as member states funded projects designed to enhance the protection of nuclear facilities and train law enforcement in counter-nuclear smuggling efforts. Partners also funded new nuclear security projects to identify and address cyber vulnerabilities in emerging technologies, such as small modular reactors, according to the annex.

More than 100 projects sought to mitigate biological threats, including continued efforts to build biosecurity capacity in Africa and Asia. Partner states also supported projects designed to enhance bio-detection capabilities.

Fifty-six projects focused on chemical security, including support for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’s work in identifying undeclared chemical weapons in Syria and mitigating the threats posed by Russia’s use of toxic chemicals against Ukraine.

March 2026 (published online Feb. 26)
By Daryl G. Kimball

Eight years after abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal that was effectively blocking Iran’s path to a bomb, and less than a year after Israeli and U.S. forces struck key Iranian nuclear facilities, U.S. President Donald Trump has dispatched his envoys to try to persuade Iran to permanently give up the option to enrich uranium or face another, possibly much larger, U.S. attack.

Renewed U.S. military strikes on Iran would be counterproductive, reckless, and unjustified on nonproliferation grounds. Such a war of choice against Iran, without congressional approval, would violate the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Act. It also would violate Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force in international relations.

The June 2025 U.S attacks severely damaged Iran’s major uranium enrichment facilities, but not its resolve to retain a nuclear program or its nuclear know-how. Nor did the operation remove or help account for 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent U-235 that Iran already had stockpiled.

Instead, the military operation derailed diplomatic talks and Iranian cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). As a result, the IAEA has not been able to access any of the bombed sites or to account for the nuclear material, which is a violation of Iran’s safeguards obligations.

Nevertheless, it is clear that it would take Iran years to fully rebuild its enrichment plants and months to enrich small amounts of uranium to bomb-grade and to process it into metal for a weapon. There is no imminent threat; Iran is not close to “weaponizing” its nuclear material so as to justify another U.S. attack.

Trump has not yet explained his case for war. He may believe the threat of strikes or “limited” attacks can force Iranian leaders to capitulate. That is highly unlikely. He has reportedly told advisers that if diplomacy or a targeted attack does not lead Iran to give in to his demands, he will consider a much bigger attack that is intended to drive the state’s leaders from power.

The reality is that even an ostensibly limited U.S. military strike runs a serious risk of unleashing an Iranian counterattack and prolonged regional conflict. Meanwhile, the leaders of nuclear-armed Israel are lobbying Trump to take an even more aggressive position and threatening to strike Iran’s ballistic missile sites themselves even if there is a new U.S.-Iran agreement to constrain the nuclear program.

Another wave of U.S. or Israeli attacks on Iran likely would drive Iranian leaders away from negotiations and strengthen the argument inside Iran that only possessing nuclear weapons can protect the state from external attack. Other nations in the Middle East and beyond likely will draw a similar conclusion, increasing the odds of expanded nuclear proliferation in the years ahead.

Instead, the United States and Iran should continue to work without delay to arrive at pragmatic solutions that address international concerns about Iran’s residual nuclear capabilities and materials stockpiles and remove the threat of a wider war.

Tragically, Trump’s negotiators are trying to address problems that had been addressed by the nuclear deal that Trump unilaterally abandoned in 2018, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That agreement imposed clear limits, prohibitions and intrusive IAEA inspection requirements on Iran that were to last for 10 or 15 years, with some being permanent. For example, the JCPOA barred any production of any highly enriched uranium by Iran through 2030.

Iran insists a new agreement to address concerns about its nuclear program is within reach. If each side refrains from insisting on maximalist positions, that may be possible.

At a minimum, Iran must finally allow a resumption of more intrusive IAEA inspections, and fully account for its nuclear material and centrifuge manufacturing sites. Given that Iran’s major enrichment plants and uranium conversion facilities are damaged or appear idle, Tehran should also agree to temporarily and voluntarily suspend uranium enrichment for a period of several years, which is not necessary for Iran’s current domestic nuclear energy needs. Iran reportedly made an offer that is closer to this formula on Feb. 26.

For his part, Trump should not insist on broad limits on Iran’s ballistic missiles, which leaders in Tehran see as essential to deter external attacks. Washington can and should extend targeted sanctions relief, recognize Iran’s right to pursue the peaceful use of nuclear energy as outlined in Article IV of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and agree that in the future Iran can engage in limited centrifuge manufacturing and low-level uranium enrichment as part of a new regional nuclear fuel consortium with other Gulf states.

Trump should also extend guarantees that there will be no further U.S. attacks and, given the threat of unilateral Israeli aggression, pledge that he will not provide U.S. support for Israeli attacks on any Iranian nuclear or military facilities so long as Iran and its regional proxies refrain from attacking Israel, the IAEA is allowed to do its work, and Iran meets its safeguards obligations.

The resumption of U.S.-Iranian nuclear talks is a critical opportunity to reduce proliferation risks and avert what would be an illegal, deadly, and counterproductive regional war.

March 2026
By Jeff Abramson and Michael T. Klare

U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order aimed at advancing U.S. military industrial capacity and faster arms deliveries. Titled the “America First Arms Transfer Strategy,” the order made no mention of human rights and referenced few of the many dangers that could be associated with the misuse of U.S.-supplied weapons.

As explained in a fact sheet accompanying the Feb. 6 order, the first priority for arms transfers will be to “build production capacity for weapons that are more operationally relevant” to the U.S. National Security Strategy. The strategy will “prioritize partners that have invested in their own self-defense and have a critical role or geography” and directs the secretaries of defense, state, and commerce to develop an arms sales catalog and continue an earlier directive to improve the speed of sales.

The mention of partners’ own self-defense is an unspecified reference to NATO and the administration’s push for allied countries to build their own defense capacities, as well as take on a greater burden in Ukraine. In 2025, NATO countries agreed to spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense-related spending by 2035, a significant increase from their pre-existing 2-percent pledge.

Efforts to put that promise into effect have called into question whether NATO allies and other partners would continue to buy U.S. weapons or instead build their own.

Spain’s 2025 decision to cancel purchase of U.S. F-35 jet fighters, Switzerland’s possible scaling back in the face of cost increases, and Canada’s ongoing review of its participation in the program have added uncertainty to the size of future purchases of U.S. weapons.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to indirectly address this issue in a Feb. 16 USA Today editorial. In it, they explained the new U.S. approach would build “exportability into our systems” so that partners could buy not only “exquisite” systems but also those “good enough systems that are inexpensive and more rapidly produced.”

The strategy calls for establishing an end use monitoring coordinating group, which appears to be primarily tasked with reducing the risk of diverting arms deliveries, not assessing whether weapons are used to commit human rights or other abuses. It also requires quarterly reports on foreign military sales, nominally to improve transparency, but functionally also to address claims that the process moves too slowly.

The new strategy was not unanticipated. In April, Trump rescinded President Joe Biden’s conventional arms transfer policy and reinstated the first Trump administration policy, which placed greater importance on business and included much less fulsome human rights considerations. (See ACT, May 2023.)

Certain members of Congress have been pushing for measures that would speed arms sales, in part by changing the dollar thresholds at which lawmakers would be notified of pending sales. Two of those members, House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) and the committee’s foreign arms sales taskforce chair Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) applauded Trump’s executive order in a Feb. 9 press release.

Not all members of Congress have been happy with Trump’s actions in relation to arms sales oversight. In January, the administration formally notified Congress of $6 billion in arms sales to Israel, disregarding a common and longstanding process that gives the chair and ranking members of House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the ability to place holds on proposed sales before formal notification.

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, senior Democrat on the House committee, said Jan. 30 that “President Trump has again made abundantly clear his disregard for Congress as a coequal branch of government and for the American people we represent.”

Meanwhile, on Dec. 17, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency informed Congress of its intent to supply Taiwan with eight arms packages worth a total of $11 billion. The Trump administration indicated that the sales are intended to enhance Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities and, by extension, to deter a Chinese invasion of the island. Trump has been pressing Taiwan and other U.S. allies to spend more on defense, and these sales—the largest combined arms package ever offered Taiwan—reflect that outlook.

However, the huge size and price tag of the package have provoked strenuous opposition from China at a time when the White House reportedly seeks less contentious relations with Beijing and there exists reinforced opposition in Taiwan’s parliament to increased military spending and arms imports.