May 2025
By Xiaodon Liang

U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said he “would not advise testing” nuclear weapons above the criticality threshold.

But the nominee to be administrator, Brandon Williams, testifying at his April 8 Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, also noted that a decision to resume explosive nuclear testing would be “above [his] pay grade.”

Williams’ comments came in response to questioning by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who expressed concern that resuming explosive nuclear testing could create “severe economic and environmental impacts.” The Nevada National Security Site, where NNSA conducts subcritical nuclear experiments, almost certainly would host any potential underground explosive test.

Rosen said China and Russia would probably resume explosive nuclear testing if the United States were to test first, and those countries “have more to gain from testing than we do, given our superior scientific and computer-modeling capabilities.”

Williams, a former Navy ballistic-missile submariner and Republican congressman, agreed that explosive testing during the Cold War had provided data to underpin the “scientific basis for confirming the stockpile since the moratorium in 1992.”

Scott Pappano, a Navy vice-admiral nominated to be Williams’ principal deputy at NNSA, also told the same Senate committee April 29 that he “would not advocate for nuclear testing based on the amount of data we have.”

Concerns about a resumption of testing have grown since Robert O’Brien, a national security advisor in Trump’s first term in office, wrote in Foreign Affairs in June that “Washington must test new nuclear weapons for reliability and safety in the real world for the first time since 1992—not just by using computer models.”

During O’Brien’s government tenure, a group of U.S. officials discussed testing in May 2020, according to a report in the Washington Post. (See ACT, June 2020.)

The technical need for testing has been dismissed by officials involved in the U.S. stockpile stewardship program. Marvin Adams, the deputy administrator for defense programs at NNSA under the Biden administration, told reporters on a tour of the Nevada National Security Site Dec. 13 that “based on purely technical considerations, we are confident that we can get the information we need [through] subcritical” experiments and other elements of the stockpile stewardship program.

The 2020 debate considered not only technical arguments, however, but also policy justifications such as intimidating nuclear peers during arms control talks.

A report by the Trump-aligned Heritage Foundation in July called for reducing the time needed to prepare an underground explosive nuclear test to six months. Under a requirement last reaffirmed in 2022 by the Biden administration, the NNSA is required to be ready to conduct a test with limited diagnostics within 36 months.

In September, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told news agencies that Russia “will not conduct [supercritical nuclear tests] if the United States refrains from such steps.”

May 2025
By Kelsey Davenport

U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States is communicating with North Korea but did not provide any details regarding his administration’s approach to addressing the nuclear threat posed by Pyongyang. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to justify expanding its nuclear arsenal as a necessary counter to the threat posed by the United States.

In a March 31 remark to a reporter at the White House, Trump described North Korea as a “big nuclear nation” and emphasized his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump said he will “probably do something with him at some point.”

Trump and Kim met three times during Trump’s first term as president. At their first meeting in Singapore, Trump and Kim signed a declaration that included a commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and to establishing a new relationship between the United States and North Korea. (See ACT, July/August 2018.)

The declaration produced few tangible results, and since then, Kim has expanded North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and broadened the circumstances under which Pyongyang would consider using nuclear weapons.

Although the Trump administration has reaffirmed its commitment to denuclearization, North Korea now rejects that goal, and it is unclear if Pyongyang would be willing to engage Washington if denuclearization remains the goal.

In an April 9 statement to the state-run Korean Central News Agency, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, said that denuclearization is an “anachronistic” goal and U.S. insistence on it only gives “unlimited justness and justification” for North Korea “building the strongest nuclear force for self-defense.”

North Korea’s nuclear weapon status can “never be reversed by any physical strength or sly artifice,” she said.

Although Trump’s remarks suggested that his administration is not currently prioritizing North Korea, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “North Korea’s long-range missile and nuclear programs pose an immediate security challenge” to the United States.

Caine, in his confirmation testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee April 1, warned that North Korea’s relationship with Russia will likely enable further military advances, “increasing the threat to regional stability and U.S. interests.”

Although there does not appear to be an immediate opening for diplomacy with North Korea, the upcoming presidential election in South Korea could lower tensions on the Korean peninsula. Because the South Korean Supreme Court upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol over his declaration of martial law last year, the country must hold elections by June 3.

When Yoon took office in 2022, he pledged to build up South Korea’s military and take a harder line on North Korea than his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, who facilitated the first meeting between Trump and Kim in 2018. The next government may pursue a less adversarial approach toward North Korea to ease tensions. It may also distance itself from calls for South Korea to develop nuclear weapons, which senior officials discussed more prominently during the Yoon administration, prompting backlash in the United States. (See ACT, March 2023.)

In March, the U.S. Department of Energy designated South Korea as a “sensitive” country, which will subject foreign nationals to more stringent review and to an approval process on cooperative projects. Concern about nuclear proliferation is one of the reasons a given country is designated sensitive.

Other countries on the “sensitive” list include China, Iran, Israel, Russia, and Taiwan.

South Korean officials downplayed the designation, which went into effect April 15, and suggested it has nothing to do with concerns that Seoul might pursue nuclear weapons. They emphasized that the country does not face any new restrictions on access to cooperative projects.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said March 24 that the United States told South Korea that the decision was part of an effort to strengthen technical security and protect intellectual property.

May 2025
By Daryl G. Kimball

Since Russia and the United States agreed 15 years ago to modest nuclear reductions under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), they also have embarked on extraordinarily expensive campaigns to replace and modernize every component of their respective nuclear arsenals to maintain force levels and provide the option to build up.

At the same time, their leaders have failed to resolve disputes about existing treaties or launch new negotiations to limit or further cut their deadly arsenals below the New START ceiling of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 strategic missiles and bombers each.

In 2018, shortly after he withdrew the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, U.S. President Donald Trump foolishly bragged about the nuclear stockpile that “until people come to their senses, we will build it up. It’s a threat to whoever you want, and it includes China, and it includes Russia, and it includes anybody else that wants to play that game.”

China has responded to U.S. nuclear and conventional military plans by pursuing a buildup of its historically “minimal” nuclear force to ensure that it retains an assured “second strike” capability. Russia has continued to develop new types of intermediate range missiles, as well as some new and exotic strategic systems designed to bypass U.S. missile defense capabilities.

Successive presidential administrations and congresses have failed to seriously consider alternatives that would have reduced costs and still maintained a devastating nuclear force.

Now, the cost of the U.S. nuclear modernization program is skyrocketing even further, siphoning resources from other more pressing human needs and national security priorities.

In April, the Congressional Budget Office issued its latest 10-year cost projection of the departments of Defense and Energy plans to operate, sustain, and modernize existing U.S. nuclear forces and purchase new forces: a total of $946 billion in the 2025-2034 period, or about $95 billion per year.

This new estimate is 25 percent, or $190 billion, greater than the last CBO estimate of $756 billion, which covered the 2023-2032 period. Incredibly, the $946 billion estimate does not include all of the likely cost growth of the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, which the Pentagon acknowledged in July 2024 would cost 81 percent, or $63 billion, more than the program’s baseline estimate of $78 billion, generated in 2020.

A decade ago, Air Force leaders ignored the results of a 2014 RAND study, commissioned by the service itself, which found that “incremental modernization and sustainment of the current Minuteman III force is a cost-effective alternative that should be considered.” In 2021, the Pentagon decided to ignore a request from 20 Democrats in Congress for an in-depth analysis of whether the existing Minuteman III force, which the Sentinel would replace, could be fielded further into the future.

In the wake of the Sentinel program fiasco, the Pentagon is now looking into extending portions of the Minuteman III force for another decade to 2050 while it restructures the Sentinel program, making the full extent of the cost growth unclear.

What is clear: Building up the U.S. nuclear force beyond New START levels—as Trump threatened in his first term and as some nuclear weapons boosters are advising now—would not only be unnecessary to deter a Russian or Chinese nuclear attack, it would be even more costly. It also would further strain the ability of the U.S. nuclear enterprise to maintain the existing force on schedule and on budget.

Yet, absent a new U.S.-Russia deal to maintain current limits on their strategic nuclear arsenals, a dangerous three-way arms race looms. Perhaps this is why Trump has spoken three times since his January inauguration about the massive costs of nuclear weapons, the catastrophic effects of their use, and his interest in talks with China and Russia to “denuclearize.”

But with New START due to expire in less than a year, there are still no talks underway on whether or how to replace the treaty. Although Russian officials say they are ready to engage, Trump has not outlined a strategy for getting the job done.

U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control negotiations always have been difficult. Achieving a new comprehensive framework could require sustained talks over many months, if not longer.

The smartest approach would be for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump to strike a simple, informal deal to maintain the existing caps set by New START as long as the other side also does so. They could agree to resume data exchanges and inspections, or should that not be feasible, monitor compliance through national technical means of intelligence.

Such a deal would reduce tensions, forestall a costly arms race on long-range nuclear missiles that no one can win, and buy time for talks on a broader, more durable, framework deal while also forgoing calls in Congress to throw away billions of dollars more on the already unaffordable and excessive U.S. nuclear arsenal.

May 2025
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

Against a backdrop of rising nuclear proliferation concerns, states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) are holding their last meeting to prepare for the 2026 Review Conference, which aims to strengthen the landmark pact.

The third and final NPT preparatory committee meeting began April 28 in New York and plans to wrap up May 9.

The 191 states-parties to the cornerstone NPT, which enshrines key commitments on nonproliferation, disarmament, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, are supposed to “make every effort to produce a consensus report containing recommendations” to the forthcoming review conference, as the 2000 Review Conference directed.

The meeting is taking place when the international political climate is posing significant challenges to the global disarmament and nonproliferation regime. In addition to long-term issues with the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, there are growing concerns about weakening U.S. commitments to allied defenses, including France, Germany, and Poland, under President Donald Trump. (See ACT, April 2025.)

The 2026 Review Conference dates are not set but the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the last remaining treaty limiting the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals, expires Feb. 5, 2026. In January, Trump signaled interest in addressing denuclearization issues with China and Russia, but no major follow-up has been reported. (See ACT, March 2025.)

“There is a need for high-level political leadership to ensure that the risk is brought down. And [Trump’s] indication of a willingness to be able to engage in that direction is one that I find encouraging,” Harold Agyeman of Ghana, chair of the 2025 preparatory committee meeting, told Arms Control Today in an interview March 19.

“I hope that we can leverage that to engage in discussions, including on the suspension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty by the Russian Federation, and look beyond 2026 in terms of what will be done by these two major nuclear-weapon states,” Agyeman said.

Participants in the NPT review process have long considered the ideal outcome of preparatory committee meetings to be a formal consensus agreement on the draft rules of procedure, a provisional agenda, a formal summary by the meeting chair, and recommendations for the review conference.

Notwithstanding, no meeting since 2002 has adopted a chair’s factual summary by consensus.

Instead, chairs typically have issued factual summaries as working papers on their own authority, to document what states discussed during the meeting and to serve as a blueprint for further discussion.

Because forming a consensus at NPT meetings has been a chronic challenge, divisions among states-parties have deepened. The past two preparatory committee meetings concluded with unprecedented endings. No official chair’s summary was recorded in 2023 due to Iran’s objection, and in 2024, a Russian proposed footnote decreed that the chair’s summary “shall not be considered as a basis for future work within the NPT review process.” (See ACT, September 2024.)

“There are a lot of pressures on the treaty, from outside the treaty’s realm, but also from the inside,” Jarmo Viinanen of Finland, who chaired the 2023 preparatory committee, noted in the Arms Control Today interview March 19.

“At the same time, when we are approaching the review conference next year, we can see that the turmoil that we are facing in today’s world actually makes all the purposes of the treaty even more urgent and important,” Viinanen said.

“It is clear that in this very difficult situation, we need more nuclear disarmament than ever before,” he added.

May 2025
By Mina Rozei

More than 100 chemical weapons sites associated with ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime are believed to remain in Syria, a far higher number than previously estimated, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The new estimate was first reported by The New York Times April 5 and confirmed for Arms Control Today by OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias in an email exchange April 18.

Arias said that the estimated number of sites is based on a combination of the Syrian government’s own declaration when it joined the OPCW in 2013; the work of the OPCW Declaration Assessment Team, which is composed of investigation experts, information from OPCW member states; and information from the interim Syrian government that took office when Assad fled Syria in December.

“It is the correlation and analysis of all this information that allowed the Secretariat to consider that more than 100 locations in Syria need to be visited,” he told Arms Control Today.

Arias said that the “inaccurate and incomplete” nature of Syria’s initial declaration, which detailed more than 40 years of Syrian chemical weapons development and stockpiling, has been a major stumbling block over the last 10 years as the OPCW attempted to address the remaining stockpile.

The current transitional government in Damascus appears to be taking a more open and transparent approach to the issue, even declaring its disapproval of the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. (See ACT, April 2025.)

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani has been working closely with the OPCW at the invitation of Arias, who invited the minister to appoint experts to discuss the Syrian chemical weapons program in full, including parts that had not been declared by the Assad government. “I informed the minister that the [OPCW Technical] Secretariat was ready to deploy and shared a roadmap we had developed to work together to establish an inventory of all that needs to be declared and verified,” Arias said.

Arias met Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and Shaibani in Damascus and characterized the meetings as an opportunity to “exchange points of view and information in detail in a sincere and open manner and in a constructive atmosphere.... During these visits we have found goodwill and active cooperation on the Syrian side.”

He emphasized that with the cooperation of the current transitional Syrian government, there is a renewed push to finally eliminate the Syrian chemical weapons program and close the file. The OPCW and the Syrian government are working in tandem to hold accountable those responsible for past chemical attacks. Arias said that the OPCW is sharing its expertise to support Syria’s capacity building and knowledge in case of future attacks, perhaps alluding to the insecurity of the remaining stockpile.

Arias sees this renewed cooperation as a turning point in the work of the OPCW and stressed that Sharaa “mentioned that he wanted Syria to become a positive example for the region and the world in dealing with chemical weapons and their tragic and lasting footprint in this country.”

“We know that we will have to overcome many obstacles, but we also know that we can and will count on the support of the new authorities,” he said.

May 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump instructed the departments of State and Defense to resume implementation of the Conventional Arms Trade policy developed in his first term in office.

Trump’s April 9 executive order comes shortly after the president repealed the arms transfers policy promulgated in February 2023 by the Biden administration. (See ACT, April 2025.)

The Biden-era policy prohibited arms transfers to foreign states if U.S. officials determined that it is “more likely than not” that they would be used in committing genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law. (See ACT, April and May 2023.)

The older Trump policy from 2018, now once again in force, only prohibits an arms transfer if a U.S. official has “actual knowledge” of a likely misuse.

The April 9 order also instructs the executive branch to evaluate changes to restrictions imposed in compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime, suggest to Congress a change in the threshold above which arms transfers must be notified to legislators under the Arms Export Control Act, and conduct a review of defense items controlled on the U.S. Munitions List.

Although the order adopts a goal of creating a “rapid and transparent” arms sales system, its instructions make clear that transparency is intended to benefit foreign customers. To that end, the departments of State, Defense, and Commerce have been given 90 days to develop a plan for “metrics for accountability” in processing arms sales.

The same departments have also been tasked with creating a plan for introducing “exportability” as a requirement in defense acquisition planning.—XIAODON LIANG

May 2025

Ukraine objected to Russian plans to restart several of the reactor units at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and the suggestion that the United States take control of Ukraine’s nuclear energy sector.

Russia attacked the Zaporizhzhia plant in violation of international law during the early days of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and continues to illegally occupy the facility.

Currently, the six reactor units at the complex are in cold shutdown, reducing the risk of a meltdown and radiation release, but Russia is considering what steps would be necessary to restart the reactors and generate electricity.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, told reporters during a March 20 press conference in Norway that the plant “won’t work unless it is under Ukrainian control.”

In a March 25 statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the transfer of the facility back to Ukraine or to “any other country is impossible.”

Yuriy Chernichuk, the director of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, told Strana Rosatom April 2 that the “most realistic option” would be to restart units 2 and 6 because they are loaded with Russian-made fuel.

Petro Kotin, the head of Ukraine’s nuclear energy company, Energoatom, said in an April 6 interview with The Guardian that there are major challenges to bringing Zaporizhzhia back online and only Ukraine can safely operate the plant.

Chernichuk acknowledged that the work to inspect and repair the units will be “complex.” He did not provide a timeline for restarting the reactor, but suggested that Russia will not move forward until there is an “end of hostilities” around the Zaporizhzhia complex.

During a March 19 phone call with Zelenskyy, Trump raised the prospect of the United States taking over Zaporizhzhia and Ukraine’s other nuclear power plants, likely as part of Trump’s efforts to recoup some of the money that the United States spent supporting the Ukrainian war effort.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said U.S. ownership of Ukraine’s nuclear industry would provide the “best protection” and “support Ukraine’s energy needs.”

Zelenskyy said March 20 in Oslo that the nuclear power plants “belong to the people of Ukraine” but suggested U.S. investment in the Zaporizhzhia complex might be possible.—KELSEY DAVENPORT

May 2025

The U.S. intelligence community views China as the United States’ “most capable strategic competitor,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence March 25.

Gabbard testified on the 2025 annual Worldwide Threat Assessment report. In a shift from prior years, the report puts greater emphasis on the advancing capabilities of the Chinese  military. The report notes such Chinese developments as the launch of a new aircraft carrier, progress on hypersonic glide vehicles, and the ongoing expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal. It also raises concerns about China’s capability to conduct long-range precision strikes against Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska.

Other state actors challenging U.S. interests include Russia, Iran, and North Korea, according to the report. In her opening statement, Gabbard highlighted the threat posed by Russia’s nuclear modernization program and alleged nuclear-armed, anti-satellite weapon. (See ACT, March 2024.) “Russia intends to deter the U.S. by both holding the U.S. homeland at risk and by having the capabilities to threaten nuclear war in a conflict,” Gabbard said.

The report cites Iran and North Korea as continuing threats. It assesses that Iran is not building nuclear weapons, but notes U.S. concerns about the “erosion of a decades-long taboo [in Iran] on discussing nuclear weapons in public” and “emboldened [Iranian] nuclear weapons advocates.” On North Korea, the report highlights the intelligence community’s concerns about expanded strategic and conventional capabilities and the deepening military partnership with Russia.—LIPI SHETTY

May 2025

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted the head of an illicit procurement network that was allegedly exporting sensitive technologies to Pakistan to advance the country’s nuclear and missile programs.

According to a March 28 statement from the department, Mohammad Jawaid Aziz, a Pakistani-Canadian dual citizen, was arrested March 21 when he crossed from Canada into Washington state. On March 28, the department unveiled an indictment charging Aziz with violating U.S. export laws.

The indictment alleges that Aziz operated an illicit procurement network through his company based in Canada from 2003 to 2019. The company, Diversified Technology Services, exported millions of dollars of U.S. materials and technologies to entities in Pakistan involved with developing missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and nuclear weapons. The network deliberately obscured the end recipients by using front companies and shipping materials through third-party countries, the statement says.

Pakistan first tested a nuclear device in 1998 and continues to expand its arsenal. In December, the United States accused Pakistan of developing long-range ballistic missiles and announced new sanctions targeting entities involved in developing those systems. (See ACT, January/February 2025.)—KELSEY DAVENPORT

May 2025

The U.S. Department of Energy granted Holtec International the regulatory clearance to build nuclear reactors in India. On March 26, the department approved Holtec’s plan to share its small modular reactor 300 technology with three Indian entities: Holtec Asia, Larsen & Toubro, and Tata Consulting Engineers.

The clearance was granted under Part 810, Title 10, of the Code of Federal Regulations, which contains a specific authorization requirement for transfers involving “sensitive nuclear technologies.” Part 810 was last changed in 2015, in its most significant update since 1986, to require concurrence from the State Department and consultations with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Commerce Department, and Defense Department.

The Holtec deal comes 18 years after the United States and India adopted a Section 123 agreement on civil nuclear cooperation during the administration of President George W. Bush. These agreements set the terms for U.S. civil nuclear cooperation with other nations, ensuring that transfers of U.S.-origin materials and technology align with nonproliferation policies. The U.S.-India 123 agreement was particularly controversial because of India’s status as a nuclear-armed state that never joined the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The regulatory clearance for Holtec’s reactor transfers follows statements Jan. 6 by former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, in which he stated that the United States would soon remove restrictions on several India nuclear entities to bolster progress on the 2007 deal.

On Jan. 16, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security removed three Indian state-owned entities from its control list. These entities, Indian Rare Earths, Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Center, and Bhabha Atomic Research Center, are all involved with both civilian and military components of India's nuclear programs.—LIPI SHETTY