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"The Arms Control Association’s work is an important resource to legislators and policymakers when contemplating a new policy direction or decision."

– General John Shalikashvili
former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Shizuka Kuramitsu

UN Security Council Holds Rare Disarmament Debate


April 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu and Daryl G. Kimball

Japan chaired a rare, high-level UN Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation on March 18. Although the meeting underscored the urgency of addressing the growing threats posed by nuclear weapons, it also highlighted the chronic divisions among key states on disarmament and nonproliferation issues.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa (C) chairs a UN Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament in New York on March 18. She has warned that “the world now stands on the cusp of reversing decades of declines in nuclear stockpiles.” (Photo by Japanese Foreign Ministry)Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa described the meeting as “an opportunity for UN member states to share concrete ideas and proposals to accelerate the realization of a world without nuclear weapons” in an op-ed published by PassBlue on March 17.

“The world now stands on the cusp of reversing decades of declines in nuclear stockpiles. We will not stop moving ahead to promote realistic and practical efforts to create a world without nuclear weapons. Japan cannot accept Russia’s threats to break the world’s 78-year record of the nonuse of nuclear weapons,” she added.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres; Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization; and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, director of the nonproliferation program at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, were invited to brief the meeting.

All Security Council members were represented, including the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Many stressed the urgency of addressing growing nuclear weapons threats. But the exchange also underscored the extent to which rising geopolitical tensions and long-standing divisions among leading states impede tangible progress on disarmament and nonproliferation issues.

In his opening remarks, Guterres warned that “[h]umanity cannot survive a sequel to [the movie] Oppenheimer. Voice after voice, alarm after alarm, survivor after survivor are calling the world back from the brink.”

“And what is the response?” he asked. “States possessing nuclear weapons are absent from the table of dialogue. Investments in the tools of war are outstripping investments in the tools of peace. Arms budgets are growing, while diplomacy and development budgets are shrinking.”

Guterres said the nuclear-armed states in particular “must reengage” to prevent any use of a nuclear weapon, including by securing a no-first-use agreement, stopping nuclear saber-rattling, and reaffirming moratoriums on nuclear testing.

He urged them to take action on prior disarmament commitments under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), including reductions in the number of nuclear weapons “led by the holders of the largest nuclear arsenals, the United States and the Russian Federation, who must find a way back to the negotiating table to fully implement the [New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] and agree on its successor.”

To catalyze action, he reiterated his call for “reforms to disarmament bodies, including the Conference on Disarmament [CD]…that could lead to a long-overdue fourth special session of the General Assembly devoted to disarmament.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield criticized Russia’s “irresponsible…nuclear rhetoric” and said that “China has rapidly and opaquely built up and diversified” its nuclear arsenal.

In addition, “Russia and China have remained unwilling to engage in substantive discussions around arms control and risk reduction,” she said.

Thomas-Greenfield reiterated the U.S. offer to “engage in bilateral arms control discussions with Russia and China, right now, without preconditions.”

Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, said that his country shares “the noble goal” of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Nevertheless, he described the possession of nuclear weapons as “an important factor in maintaining the strategic balance.”

Polyanskiy countered criticism of Russian nuclear threats by charging that it is the “clearly Russophobic line of the United States and its allies [that] creates risks of escalation that threaten to trigger a direct military confrontation among nuclear powers.” He said the current situation is largely the result of the “years-long policy of the United States and its allies aimed at undermining the international architecture of arms control, disarmament, and [weapons of mass destruction] nonproliferation.”

Polyanskiy added, “As for the issues of strategic dialogue between Russia and the United States with a view to new agreements on nuclear arms control, they cannot be isolated from the general military-political context. We see no basis for such work in the context of Western countries’ attempts to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia and their refusal to respect our vital interests.”

Maltese Ambassador Vanessa Frazier called on the nuclear-weapon states to fulfill their disarmament obligations under the NPT. “Current tensions cannot be an excuse for the delay…. Rather they should be a reason to accelerate the implementation,” she said.

Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun acknowledged that “the risk of a nuclear arms race and a nuclear conflict is rising” and “[t]he road to nuclear disarmament remains long and arduous.”

He reiterated Beijing’s long-standing position that “nuclear weapons states should explore feasible measures to reduce strategic risks, negotiate and conclude a treaty on no first use of nuclear weapons against each other” and “provide legally binding negative security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon states.”

Apparently in response to U.S. criticism of a Chinese nuclear buildup and refusal to engage in substantive arms control and risk reduction talks, Zhang said these “allegations against China do not hold any water.”

“Demanding that countries with vastly different nuclear policies and number of nuclear weapons should assume the same level of nuclear disarmament and nuclear transparency obligations is not consistent with the logic of history and reality, nor is it in line with international consensus, and as such will only lead international nuclear disarmament to a dead end,” the Chinese envoy said.

Some states proposed new initiatives. In response to U.S. concerns that Russia may be pursuing an orbiting anti-satellite system involving a nuclear explosive device, Japan and the United States announced they will “put forward a Security Council resolution, reaffirming the fundamental obligations that parties have under this [Outer Space] Treaty,” which prohibits the deployment of weapons in space. (See ACT, March 2024.)

Japan also announced the establishment of a cross-regional group called Friends of FMCT “with the aim to maintain and enhance political attention” and to expand support for negotiating a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) banning the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.

For decades, the 65-nation CD has failed to agree on a path to begin FMCT talks. Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Nigeria, the Philippines, the UK, and the United States will join the FMCT group, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

High-level Security Council debates focused on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation have been infrequent in the post-Cold War era, and few of them result in consensus statements or resolutions.

In 2009, the council held a summit-level meeting chaired by U.S. President Barack Obama on nuclear nonproliferation
and disarmament.

It adopted Resolution 1887, which reaffirmed a “commitment to the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons” and outlined a framework of measures for reducing global nuclear dangers.

In September 2016, the council adopted Resolution 2310, which reaffirmed support for the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It called on states to refrain from resuming nuclear testing and called on states that have not signed or ratified the treaty to do so without further delay.

More recently, the council has held briefings on nuclear disarmament issues but without tangible outcomes.

The last such meetings were in March 2023, when Mozambique chaired a discussion on threats to international peace and security, including nuclear dangers, and in August 2022, when China organized a meeting on promoting common security through dialogue in the context of escalating tensions among major nuclear powers.

Following the March 18 meeting, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said the session “provided an opportunity to accelerate substantive discussion between nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states” ahead of the NPT review conference in 2026.

 

Although the meeting underscored the urgency of addressing the nuclear weapons threat, it also highlighted chronic divisions among key states on disarmament and nonproliferation issues.

Indian Missile Capable of Firing Multiple Warheads


April 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

India announced what it called a successful test of the country’s first domestically produced missile carrying multiple warheads with independent targeting capability, thus signaling progress in advancing a nuclear deterrent against China.

India’s first test of the Agni-5 missile capable of carrying multiple warheads with independent targeting capability has fanned further fears of an emerging nuclear arms race. (Photo by Government of India)In a social media post on March 11, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi commended efforts by the national Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). “Proud of our DRDO scientists for Mission Divyastra the first flight test of indigenously developed Agni-5 missile with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology,” Modi wrote.

The organization released a press release on the same day stating that the test was carried out from Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Island in Odisha and that “[v]arious [t]elemetry radar stations tracked and monitored multiple re-entry vehicles.” The agency added that “[t]he mission accomplished the designed parameters.”

With the test on March 11, months before Modi faces a national election that could give him a rare consecutive third term in office, India joined a short list of states that are confirmed to possess operational missiles with MIRV capability: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“While the Indian government may rejoice in its technical achievement, the proliferation of MIRV capability is a sign of a larger worrisome trend in worldwide nuclear arsenals that is already showing signs of an emerging nuclear arms race with more destabilizing MIRVed missiles,” Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists wrote on their organization’s website on March 12.

“The capability to deploy multiple warheads on each missile is one of the most dangerous developments of the nuclear era because it is one of the quickest ways for nuclear-armed states to significantly increase their number of deployed warheads and develop the capability to rapidly destroy large numbers of targets,” they said.

One day later, in an interview with Fortune India, Kristensen added that “[a]lthough there are still technical challenges before MIRV [capability] becomes fully operational in India, Pakistan, and North Korea, the trend is that the MIRV club has doubled in the past decade.”

Developed in the early 1960s and operationalized in the 1970s by the United States and the Soviet Union, MIRV technology impacted the strategic calculus of deterrence by enabling a single missile to carry multiple warheads that each can hit separate targets.

This capability increases the effectiveness of an attack, making it more difficult for adversaries to defend against multiple warheads or decoys. From an adversary’s perspective, land-based missiles equipped with MIRV technology would be a prime target before their launch because they offer a chance to destroy multiple warheads at once.

Although the development and deployment of MIRV technology increases the proficiency of a first strike, it also can destabilize deterrence calculations and raise concerns about an accelerating arms race and the potential for rapid nuclear escalation.

Because Indian missiles already can reach all of Pakistan, analysts generally agree that India’s focus on expanding its MIRV capability, developing longer-range missiles and hypersonic weapons, launching an integrated rocket force, and advancing missile defense systems on land and sea is intended to deter China. (See ACT, December 2021.)

The Agni-5 missile has an expected delivery range of more than 5,000 kilometers and can strike most of China, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies Missile Defense Project. In recent years, a significant weight reduction enabled the missile to travel distances beyond 7,000 kilometers, Indian defense officials told India Today TV on Dec. 17, 2022.

India has invested in MIRV capability for more than a decade. (See ACT, October 2018.)

Pakistan also has been developing MIRV technology “to increase stability and deterrence by increasing the chances of penetrating of India’s emergent ballistic missile defenses,” according to an article published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in November, but the result of its latest missile test, in October, was described as unclear.

Reflecting on the latest Indian test, the U.S. State Department on March 12 told the Indian news outlet ANI that “[t]he United States and India share a vision for an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, secure, and prosperous. We continue to work as partners with India and with other countries in the region to achieve this vision.”

Meanwhile, in a statement delivered at the Conference on Disarmament on March 14, Anupam Ray, the Indian ambassador to the conference, reaffirmed India’s doctrine of minimum credible deterrence and, as part of it, no first use of nuclear weapons. “India has espoused the policy of no first use against nuclear-weapon states and nonuse against non-nuclear-weapon states. We are prepared to convert these undertakings into multilateral legal arrangements,” he said.

The test of India’s first domestically produced missile carrying multiple warheads with independent targeting capability signals progress in advancing a nuclear deterrent against China.

Hiroshima A-Bomb Watch Auction: Seeing Under the Clouds

Authored by Shizuka Kuramitsu on March 5, 2024
A high school teacher in my hometown Hiroshima once shared with me a quote from David Krieger, “Some view Hiroshima from above mushroom clouds, whereas some are under the clouds.” On the evening of Feb. 22, an auction titled “Hiroshima Atomic Bombing: Melted Wristwatch with Detonation Time of 8:15 AM” was concluded with a $31,113 winning bid. Some, including sellers and bidders, perceived this auction as an opportunity to collect a rare historic treasure that symbolizes the dawn of the nuclear era. For other people, this watch is an artifact of a tragic memory. They felt disrespected,...

China, U.S. Restore Military Communications


March 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

China and the United States resumed military-to-military contacts with a series of recent meetings, delivering on a decision by their leaders at a November 2023 summit.

Michael S. Chase (C, L), U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, hosts Chinese delegation led by Maj. Gen. Song Yanchao (C, R), deputy director of the Chinese Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation for meetings at the Pentagon on Jan. 9. (U.S. Department of Defense photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)Two days of meetings, called the China-U.S. defense policy coordination talks, took place Jan. 8-9 at the Pentagon. It was the first formal in-person encounter between the two militaries since January 2020.

The meetings were co-chaired by Michael Chase, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and Maj. Gen. Song Yanchao, Chinese deputy director of the Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation.

The two sides discussed Chinese-U.S. defense relations and regional and global security issues, including Ukraine, North Korea, and the South China Sea, according to the U.S. Defense Department, which added that it “will continue to engage in active discussions with [Chinese] counterparts about future engagements between defense and military officials at multiple levels.”

In a Jan. 10 news release, the Chinese Defense Ministry said that its delegation expressed a willingness at the meeting “to develop a sound and stable military-to-military relationship with the U.S. side on the basis of equality and respect and work together.”

Meanwhile, on Dec. 21, two weeks before the Pentagon meeting, China and the United States conducted a video teleconference involving teams led by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Chinese Gen. Liu Zhenli, the chief of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Joint Staff Department.

The two sides discussed a number of global regional security issues, the U.S. Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said afterward. It also reported that the U.S. delegation reiterated “the importance of working together to responsibly manage competition, avoid miscalculations, and maintain open and direct lines of communication” and “the importance of the [PLA] engaging in substantive dialogue to reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings.”

The Chinese delegation also shared a similar viewpoint, that “the two sides exchanged candid and in-depth views on implementing the important military-related consensus reached between the two heads of state in San Francisco and on other issues of common interest,” Senior Col. Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Chinese Defense Ministry, told a press conference on Dec. 28.

“The video call yielded positive and constructive outcomes,” Wu said. “Going forward, we expect the U.S. side to work with us in the same direction and take concrete actions on the basis of equality and respect to promote the sound and steady development of [the] China-U.S. military-to-military relationship.”

Bilateral military-to-military contacts broke down after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022. Many analysts increasingly have been concerned that Beijing’s and Washington’s inability to communicate directly courts danger if a crisis erupts over Taiwan or some other major flashpoint.

But even after the recent meetings, tensions and differences between China and the United States remain evident. For example, Wu complained that the United States “has been intensifying its military deployment in the Asia-Pacific, which is full of Cold War mentality.”

“We urge the [United States] to abandon the outdated security vision and zero-sum Cold War mentality, view China and China’s military development in an objective and rational light, instead of being obsessed with the pursuit for hegemony,” Wu said.

Similarly, a Chinese Defense Ministry news release on Jan. 10 urged the U.S. side “to take seriously China’s concerns and do more things that contribute to the growth of the mil-mil relationship.”

Both sides seem determined to maintain the restored lines of communication. On Jan. 25, Wu confirmed that, “[w]ith the concerted efforts of the two sides, mil-to-mil dialogues and consultations have been steadily resumed on the basis of equality and respect. Currently, the Chinese military and the U.S. military are maintaining communication and coordination on exchange programs.”

Following the November summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden and the two sets of military-to-military meetings in December and January, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Bangkok on Jan. 26-27.

Given that 2024 marks the 45th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations, China said that the two countries “should work together toward mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation, finding the way for China and the United States to get along with each other,” according to the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing reported that, in his meeting with Wang, Sullivan “stressed that although the United States and China are in competition, both countries need to prevent it from veering into conflict or confrontation.”

Both sides also “recognized recent progress in resuming military-to-military communication…noted the importance of maintaining these channels...[and] discussed next steps on a range of areas of cooperation [including on] holding a U.S.-China dialogue on [artificial intelligence] in the spring,” the embassy said.

It added that the “two sides held candid, substantive and constructive discussions on global and regional issues, including those related to Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Middle East, [North Korea], the South China Sea, and Burma” and that Sullivan “underscored the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

Further, the U.S. embassy said that the two sides “committed to maintain this strategic channel of communication and to pursue additional high-level diplomacy and consultations in key areas.”

China and the United States also held long-awaited talks on nuclear arms control on Nov. 6 in Washington D.C., the first such meeting in nearly five years.

Speaking to the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group on Feb. 8, Mallory Stewart, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control, deterrence, and stability who led the U.S. delegation to the arms control talks, admitted that “we didn’t see much substantive progress from this first engagement” with China’s representative Sun Xiaobo.

“But the idea that we would make the substantive conversation from the very first engagement that we have not had for many years on our arms control, strategic stability and risk reduction is not realistic,” she said. (See ACT, December 2023.)

“I think the key is to encourage them to appreciate why we need to share our questions and they need to share their questions, and we work together to get to a place where we address each other’s specific understandings,” added Stewart.

Meetings at the Pentagon were the first formal in-person talks since 2020.

Chinese Military Purge Said to Show Corruption, Weakness


March 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

China has purged nine generals from its national legislative body in a sweeping move that analysts say exposes corruption in the senior army ranks and could slow President Xi Jinping’s campaign to modernize the military.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s national legislative body, meets in Beijing on Feb. 26, two months after it dismissed nine senior military officials of the People’s Liberation Army. (Photo by Liu Weibing/Xinhua via Getty Images)The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s national legislative body, announced on Dec. 29 the dismissal of nine senior military officials of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Some of those affected were senior members of the PLA Rocket Force, which is responsible for overseeing the country’s conventional and nuclear land-based missiles.

Beijing did not explain the move, but on Jan. 6, Bloomberg attributed the purge to “widespread corruption [that] undermined [Xi’s] efforts to modernize the armed forces and raised questions about China’s ability to fight a war.”

Citing an unidentified U.S. intelligence source, Bloomberg reported that the corruption scandal involved nuclear missiles that were filled with water instead of fuel and lids for missile silos that do not function properly, thus undermining the effective launch of missiles.

“The corruption inside China’s Rocket Force and throughout the nation’s defense industrial base is so extensive that U.S. officials now believe [that] Xi is less likely to contemplate major military action in the coming years than would otherwise have been the case,” the source told Bloomberg.

On Jan. 15, in its first bulletin of 2024, the Standing Committee explained that the reason for the purge is due to “suspected serious violations of law and discipline,” a commonly used phrase to refer to corruption. Further, the bulletin reported that the ousting of four members, including the former chief of the Equipment Development Department and former commanders of the Rocket Forces, took place Sept. 26 and Dec. 5.

This purge is part of a trend under Xi’s regime. Not even two years after a big reshuffle of high-ranking officials in 2022, China has dismissed even more of them in 2023, including PLA Rocket Force head Li Yuchao in June, Foreign Minister Qin Gang in July, and Defense Minister Li Shangfu in September.

The most recent target is Li Guangchang, a former nuclear fuel director at China National Nuclear Corp., the country’s sole supplier of nuclear fuel. Li is under investigation due to “suspected serious violations of law and discipline,” The South China Morning Post reported on Feb. 4. It said that the Chinese “[C]ommunist Party’s top corruption watchdog says he is undergoing disciplinary inspection and supervision,” but no details have been provided.

In October, the U.S. Defense Department said in its annual China military power report that China had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads in May 2023, compared to 400 warheads in 2022. The department projected that China will possess in excess of 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 and will accelerate development of its intercontinental-range ballistic missiles. (See ACT, November 2023.)

If there are flaws with Chinese nuclear missiles as described in the Bloomberg report, “these flaws would compromise missile operations, calling into question China’s nuclear force readiness and overall capabilities,” Jon Wolfsthal, director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote in an open letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Jan. 10. Wolfsthal asked if the department was aware of this allegation and whether it would affect the department’s projections.

The department report serves as a basis for U.S. nuclear policies. Because “[t]he growth and reported capabilities of China’s nuclear arsenal are being used increasingly to justify current and potentially additional increases in U.S. nuclear capabilities and spending…the accuracy of [department] documents with regard to China’s nuclear capabilities are central to informing these debates in Congress as well as among security experts and the broader public, and thus, ensuring they are accurate and complete is essential,” Wolfsthal wrote.

But Heather Williams, director of the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued that “the recent news questioning the reliability of China’s missiles should not change anything about current U.S. policy.”

In an essay on Jan. 25, she wrote that “the intent of the silos was always unclear, and if anything, Xi has indicated a clear intent to move forward with making them operational and expanding China’s arsenal.”

At the Chinese Communist Party Congress in October 2022, Xi emphasized his determination to build a world-class military with strategic deterrence capability. But “it will take some time for China to clean up the mess and restore confidence in the Rocket Force’s competence and trustworthiness,” Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, told Reuters on Dec. 31.

Analysts also say the purge could slow Beijing’s military modernization drive.

 

The Case for Senate Action on the Protocol to the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone

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Volume 16, Issue 2
Feb. 9, 2024

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. signature on the protocol to the Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia (CANWFZ), also known as the Semipalatinsk Treaty. The CANWFZ treaty commits its five states-parties in Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—from manufacturing, stockpiling, testing, developing, and possessing nuclear weapons. The CANWFZ is designed to reinforce the global nuclear nonproliferation system and safeguard the security of five key central Asian states that were once part of the Soviet Union and that now lie in the shadows of nuclear-armed Russia and China.

On May 6, 2014, the five nuclear-armed members of the UN Security Council signed protocols to the CANWFZ treaty. However, the United States remains the only one of the five nuclear weapon states that has not yet ratified the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty, which commits them to provide legally binding assurances that will not be used against the states in the zone.

Given the severe challenges facing the global nonproliferation and disarmament “architecture,” the United States can and should move expeditiously to ratify the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty to solidify legally binding negative security assurances against nuclear threats or attacks for key partners in Central Asia and to strengthen the global nuclear nonproliferation system.

As Yerzhan Ashikbayev, Kazakhstan's Ambassador to the United States said in a statement provided to the Arms Control Association, U.S. ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty "will become a clear demonstration of the United States' willingness to engage Central Asian States in the common objective to maintain peace, stability, and security in our part of the world." He noted that U.S. ratification of the protocol "will finalize the institutionalization of the Treaty" and "formalize the structure and legal status of the Zone" in which nuclear weapons are prohibited.

U.S. ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty would solidify its partnership with these states, which are home to some 78 million people, are located in a strategic region, and are leaders on nuclear nonproliferation. Kazakhstan, in particular, after securing independence in 1991, inherited the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal but worked with the United States in the 1990s to dismantle it and protect nuclear material left on its soil from the Soviet era from terrorists.

To this day, and especially in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin's threats of nuclear use, Kazakhstan, along with the other central Asian states, values strong ties with the United States. In 2023, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Kazakhstan appreciates the “continuous and firm support of the United States for [its] independence, territorial integrity, and sovereignty.”

The growing tensions between nuclear-armed states, the breakdown of key nonproliferation and arms control agreements, including Russia’s 2023 de-ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), and the absence of meaningful nuclear risk reduction dialogue between the major nuclear-armed states have put increasing stress on the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Article VI of the NPT obligates them to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control." Article VII of the NPT acknowledges the value of establishing regional nuclear-weapon-free zones.

In these challenging times, the U.S. Senate should pursue all feasible and effective measures to reinforce the NPT and bolster the legal and political norms against the spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear testing, and threats of nuclear weapons use.

One such way is to begin the overdue process of reviewing and providing advice and to consent for the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty. This is not only achievable but also carries a significant benefit to both the U.S. national interests and international peace and security agenda by strengthening a norm that nuclear-weapon states should never use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states.

The Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty

Among the five existing nuclear-weapon-free zones in the world—the Latin American Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, the South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon-Free- Zone, the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, and the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone—the CANWFZ is the newest. The CANWFZ treaty opened for signature Sept. 8, 2006, and entered into force March 21, 2009. The impetus for this nuclear-weapon-free zone, however, goes back even further to an international conference in 1997 “Central Asia- a Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons,” which took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in the aftermath of the extension of the NPT in 1995.

In order to keep the designated region under the treaty free from nuclear weapons, such nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties include protocols involving commitments by the five nuclear weapon states recognized in the NPT. The protocols to nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties are crucial to their success because they establish legally binding negative security assurances that five nuclear-weapons states under the NPT will respect the status of the treaty and will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices against the treaty parties.

Shortly after five nuclear-weapon states signed the protocol May 6, 2014, four of the five had completed their ratification processes by the end of 2015. The United States remains the only of the five nuclear weapon states that has not ratified the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty.

Apr. 27, 2015, then-President Barack Obama transmitted the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty to the U.S. Senate for advice and consent to ratification along with the U.S. State Department’s article-by-article detailed analysis of the protocol to the treaty.

For nearly a decade, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has failed to act, and neither the Obama, the Trump, nor the Biden administration have made its ratification a priority. Now is the right time to do so.

 

Ratification Would Strengthen Partners in Central Asia

There are several reasons why this issue requires urgent attention. U.S. partners in Central Asia, located in a strategic region sharing borders with Russia and China, are in need of legally binding negative security assurance as soon as possible. Given President Putin's attempts to use nuclear coercive rhetoric in the context of Russia's war on Ukraine, the importance of the CANWFZ treaty and its protocol is more important than ever. When and if it does, the five major nuclear-weapon states, including Russia, will be legally prohibited from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against the five non-nuclear-weapon states in the CANWFZ. The United States can thereby help to push back against Putin’s territorial ambitions and unacceptable nuclear threats.

States-parties to the CANWFZ treaty are important U.S. partners, and these partners place high value on this treaty and the protocol. Since the early days of the establishment of the CANWFZ treaty, they have repeatedly endorsed the treaty through multilateral nonproliferation negotiations, such as resolutions at the UN General Assembly First Committee meetings. They called for international support in the initial phase, then later for the ratification of the protocol. At the 2022 NPT Review Conference, their joint statement emphasized “the hope to secure the earliest ratification of the Protocol by the United States so as to finalize the institutionalization of the nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia.” The United States should heed this call to further strengthen partnerships with states-parties.

Particularly with Kazakhstan, “U.S.-Kazakh cooperation in security and nuclear-nonproliferation is a cornerstone of the relationship,” according to the State Department. That cooperation includes participation in the Nuclear Security Summit, bilateral cooperation for the removal of the former Soviet nuclear program, and the Highly Enriched Uranium minimization initiative.

Coincidentally, this year, Kazakhstan will play a crucial role in multilateral nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation negotiations. In 2024, Kazakhstan will preside over the second preparatory committee for the 2026 NPT review cycle and will convene a joint meeting of representatives from states-parties to all of the world's nuclear-weapon-free zones.

In 2025, Kazakhstan will also serve as a president for the third meeting of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The United States' ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty would help Kazakhstan build momentum for the nuclear-weapon-free zones, strengthen the NPT, and more broadly, solidify legally binding negative security assurances against nuclear attack or threats of attack against non-nuclear weapon states.

“The establishment of CANWFZ will provide legally-binding security assurances…thus strengthening the global nonproliferation and disarmament regime, especially in the current turbulent geopolitical environment. It will also result in positive externalities by fostering the intra-regional engagement among Central Asian states,” Kazakhstan’s ambassador Yerzhan Ashikbayev said in a Feb. 8 statement.

U.S. Ratification Would Guard Against Russian Attempts to Undermine the Treaty

Not only has Russia threatened the potential use of nuclear weapons in the context of its war on Ukraine, but it has walked back its commitments to important nonproliferation agreements, including the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). In November 2023, Putin decided to rescind Russia's ratification of the (CTBT), in part, to highlight the fact that the United States has not yet ratified the CTBT.

Although Russia says it will not resume nuclear explosive testing as long as the United States does not resume nuclear testing and, as a signatory to the CTBT Russia remains legally obligated not to test and to support the treaty's International Monitoring System, Russia's de-ratification of the CTBT is nonetheless a clear setback to long-running efforts to achieve entry into force of the treaty.

In light of Russia's cynical tactics on the CTBT, it is important that the United States denies Russia the same option with respect to the CANWFZ by ratifying the protocol to the treaty. It is conceivable that Russia might, in the near term, withdraw its ratification from the CANWFZ, which would weaken its commitments under the treaty not to threaten neighboring Central Asian states with nuclear weapons. As it took only a month for Russia to de-ratify the CTBT, it is imperative for the United States to ratify the CANWFZ protocol as soon as possible.

The Ratification Enhances Security for All at No Cost

The ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty is “in the best interests of the United States,” President Obama wrote to the Senate Apr. 27, 2015. “[E]ntry into force of the Protocol for the United States would require no changes in U.S. law, policy, or practice,” he wrote in his transmittal letter on CANWFZ protocol to the Senate.

On the day that the United States signed the protocol, May 6, 2014, the State Department released a media note that “the Administration is satisfied that the CANWFZ Treaty is consistent with U.S. and international criteria for such zones. The United States believes that such zones, when fully and rigorously implemented, contribute to our nonproliferation goals and to international peace and security. The United States has concluded that the CANWFZ Treaty and its Protocol will not disturb existing U.S. security arrangements or military operations, installations, or activities.”

The ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty is consistent with the U.S. security policy causing no negative impact. Rather, it will “promote regional cooperation, security, and stability and provide a vehicle for the extension of legally binding negative security assurances, consistent with the strengthened negative security assurance announced in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review,” the State Department assessed. Subsequent NPR updates have also reaffirmed these negative security assurances.

At the time of heightened nuclear danger --the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock stands at only 90 seconds to midnight--it is more important than ever that the United States does what it can to strengthen the barriers against nuclear proliferation, nuclear use, and nuclear coercion. Senators across the political spectrum should be able to agree that U.S. ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty is not only possible, but also beneficial, and it is overdue.—SHIZUKA KURAMITSU, research assistant

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The CANWFZ is designed to reinforce the global nuclear nonproliferation system and safeguard the security of five key central Asian states that were once part of the Soviet Union and that now lie in the shadows of nuclear-armed Russia and China.

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New START to Expire in Two Years as Russia Refuses Talks

Authored by Libby Flatoff and Shizuka Kuramitsu on February 5, 2024
With less than two years to go before the expiration of the last remaining treaty limiting the world's two largest arsenals, Russian leaders continue to reject U.S. offers to discuss a new nuclear arms control framework. In late December, Russia sent a diplomatic paper rejecting the United States’ proposal to resume arms control talks, according to U.S. officials , and Russia's foreign minister announced Jan. 18 that Russia was interested in talks on a new arms control framework to supersede the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which expires Feb. 5, 2026. In a speech Jan. 17,...

The Nuclear Ban Treaty Is Taking a Step Forward

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Volume 16, Issue 1
Jan. 17, 2024

On the afternoon of the first day of December 2023, the UN conference room in New York was filled with long and powerful applause, when the state parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), known informally as the “nuclear ban treaty,” concluded the second meeting on implementation since it entered into force in January 2021.

It has been just five years since the treaty was concluded in 2017, but the TPNW is already helping to bolster the international nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament architecture by reinforcing the norms against nuclear weapons use and providing a path for non-nuclear weapon states and communities and populations adversely affected by nuclear weapons to engage in efforts to advance disarmament and address the damage done by past nuclear weapons testing and use.

Since the TPNW opened for signature, the number of states parties has grown to 70. Significantly, the number of non-signatory observer states that have joined the TPNW meetings to learn more about the treaty has also grown. Their participation underscores that states inside and outside the TPNW can advance progress toward their shared goals: preventing nuclear war and moving closer to the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

Given the treaty is steadily becoming a part of international nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament architecture, it is imperative for the United States, nuclear-armed states and states under the U.S. nuclear extended deterrence "umbrella" to consider how they can also productively engage with the treaty and its states parties, including by participating as observers in the third meeting of TPNW states parties, which will be held in March 2025.

Impact of the TPNW Since Its Entry Into Force

When it entered into force in January 2021, the TPNW became the first international legally binding agreement to comprehensively prohibit all activities related to nuclear weapons, including possession, use, threats of use, nuclear explosive testing, production, and transfer. This treaty created a space for nonnuclear-armed states along with civil society to collectively act for nuclear disarmament, which is in line with the obligation set forth in Article VI of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."

The first meeting of states parties was held in Vienna in June 2022 with participation from 49 states parties, 34 observer states, and 85 NGOs. Coincidentally, the meeting was convened just a few short weeks after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its associated nuclear rhetoric.

TPNW states parties provided leadership by issuing a strong political statement condemning unequivocally nuclear weapons threats of any kind under any circumstances. The strong political declaration adopted in the first TPNW meeting accelerated the growing international effort to condemn and push back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s implied threats of nuclear weapons use in the context of the ongoing Ukraine war.

Borrowing from the terminology of the TPNW states, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated Sep. 27, 2022, that “any use of nuclear weapons is absolutely unacceptable.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared Oct. 8, “We need to give a clear answer to nuclear threats. They’re dangerous for the world, and the use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable.” On Nov. 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the international community should “jointly oppose the use of, or threats to use, nuclear weapons.” The powerful Group of 20 agreed Nov. 16 at their summit in Indonesia that threats and use of nuclear weapons are “inadmissible.”

Just as importantly, the first meeting drew up a 50-point action plan for treaty implementation, which includes, inter alia, the establishment of a Scientific Advisory Group and three informal working groups in relation to the topic of verification, victim assistance/environmental remediation, and universalization. This also led to the appointment of a focal point for implementing gender provisions of the treaty as well as facilitators to promote the TPNW’s complementarity with other treaties.

Humanitarian Perspective Remains in the Core of the Second TPNW Meeting

At the second TPNW meeting held from Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, 2023, a total of 59 states parties, 35 observer states, and representatives from 122 civil society organizations, including the Arms Control Association, participated in the week-long meeting to evaluate progress and to reaffirm their commitment to the realization of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Since the first meeting of states parties, seven more states had signed the treaty, bringing the total number to 93 states, and five more states have ratified it, bringing the total to 70.

Like the first meeting of states parties in 2022, the second meeting produced a political statement that underscores that the TPNW is compatible with the other key elements of the nuclear nonproliferation system, including the NPT, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and nuclear weapons-free zone treaties. The 2023 statement also sought to further reinforce the unacceptability of nuclear weapons threats, as well as question the morality and sustainability of nuclear deterrence as instruments of foreign and military policy. The states parties also took tangible steps to fulfill the key parts of their 2022 action plan, specifically, their obligations under the TPNW to assist populations affected by nuclear weapons testing and use.

Mexico’s Ambassador Juan Ramón de la Fuente, who served as the president of the second meeting, allocated significant time for a thematic debate on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. In 2022, Austria chose to organize a Conference on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons on the eve of the first meeting of TPNW states parties. This was the fourth such conference since 2014. Mexico chose to focus formal meeting time on the humanitarian impacts issue by inviting scientists from the Scientific Advisory Group, a speaker from the International Committee of Red Cross, and various representatives from NGOs and affected communities, including Australia, Kiribati, and Japan to share their perspectives and findings. This set the scene and reminded all participants of what is at stake and why progress on nuclear disarmament is so vital. The states decided at the meeting to regularize the practice by empowering “Presidents of future Meetings of States Parties shall have the option to convene thematic debates.”

Victim Assistance and Environmental Remediation Discussion Underway

As was the case with the first meeting, there was significant and tangible support from both state parties, observer states, and civil society on actions to provide assistance to victims of nuclear weapons use and testing and for associated environmental remediation, as mandated by Articles VI and VII of the treaty. In order to fulfill these so-called positive obligations of the TPNW, states agreed to continue intersessional discussions on a voluntary reporting system as well as the objectives for developing proposals to establish the international trust fund to support future assistance and remediation work. This effort is reflected in the decision adopted at the meeting, as two out of five decisions are devoted to this topic.

There remain many questions still to be answered about how this process will play out, some of which are outlined in the intersessional working group’s report. These include but are not limited to who is contributing to the trust fund; who can receive such funds; what administrative structures are necessary. Kazakhstan and Kiribati, co-chairs of an informal working group on this topic are exploring how those decisions can be made.

Kazakhstan and Kiribati successfully passed a relevant resolution at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in the fall of 2023 with 171 votes in favor, six in opposition, and four in abstention. This UNGA resolution, which was later adopted at the end of 2023, calls for further international cooperation and discussion on victim assistance and environmental remediation through multiple international frameworks and support for affected populations while recognizing the responsibility of nuclear use and testing. This voting result demonstrates the possibility that this implementation framework can be creative by extending to outside of the TPNW, and also contribute to the universalization of this key treaty objective.

Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons

The second TPNW conference of state parties, like the first, issued a strong political declaration that underscores that “the continued existence of nuclear weapons and lack of meaningful progress on disarmament undermine the security of all States, aggravate international tensions, heighten the risk of nuclear catastrophe and pose an existential threat to humanity as a whole.”

TPNW states parties also decided to be more explicit regarding their concerns about the dangers of nuclear weapons and military policies based on the theory of nuclear deterrence. At the suggestion of the Austrian delegation, the meeting decided to establish a “consultative process on security concerns of TPNW states,” which aims to reframe the debate of nuclear disarmament as a necessary instrument to accommodate human security and national security for all states parties.

In parallel with the strategy of stigmatizing nuclear weapons by highlighting the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, the states parties decided to “challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence” leveraging scientific research on humanitarian consequences as well as nuclear risks.

The political declaration argues that nuclear weapons do more harm than good to the human beings. “The perpetuation and implementation of nuclear deterrence in military and security concepts, doctrines and policies not only erodes and contradicts non-proliferation, but also obstructs progress towards nuclear disarmament,” the TPNW political declaration states.

The TPNW state parties further noted that “[T]his is not only a security issue. In a world where challenges persist in meeting basic human needs, the investment of substantial financial resources in modernizing and expanding nuclear arsenals is indefensible and counterproductive as it comes at the expense of investment in sustainable development for genuine human wellbeing, as well as disarmament, education, diplomacy, environmental protection, and health.”

The Role of Scientists and Research

Another unique facet of the TPNW is its newly established Scientific Advisory Group. Following the decision taken in the first meeting to establish a group of scientists to advise and “assist States Parties in implementing the treaty and in strengthening the credibility of the implementation process,” the group was formed earlier last year. The group is co-chaired by Dr. Patricia Lewis from Chatham House and Dr. Zia Mian from Princeton University. The TPNW Scientific Advisory Group presented its first report at the meeting and is expected to play an important role in advancing the TPNW, in part because most states parties do not have as significant technical experience and capacity on nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament as do the nuclear-armed states and their allies who play a more active role in other nonproliferation and disarmament treaty regimes, particularly the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Both thematic debate and the Scientific Advisory Group are bringing a “vibrant atmosphere and better collective learning,” according to Elayne Whyte, the 2017 TPNW negotiation conference president and former Costa Rican Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

Additional Observer States

As was the case with the first meeting, states parties welcomed the participation of 35 observer states at the second meeting, 12 of which had not attended the first meeting. Among the observer states were: Australia, Belgium, Egypt, Germany, and Switzerland. By attending the TPNW meeting as observers, these states were able to deepen their understanding of the treaty and engage with states that see nuclear weapons as a liability, not an asset.

Observers can support the TPNW without becoming a member state, by expressing their interests and sharing comments at the meeting. Switzerland and Germany, for instance, have expressed strong support for advancing the TPNW’s provisions on victim assistance and environmental remediation since the first meeting. During the intersessional period between the first meeting and the second meeting, a think tank that has close ties with the German Green Party, in collaboration with civil society, created a project titled “Nuclear Weapons and Their Humanitarian and Ecological Consequences.” Switzerland also said that it “continues to consider the humanitarian consequences as an area of work that can unite all stakeholders.”

Further, observer states can keep TPNW member states accountable for their goals. A meeting of states parties of the TPNW is not only a place to discuss how to advance the treaty, but also serves as an opportunity to ensure that member states and civil society are earnest about their commitments.

Looking Ahead

The states parties elected the next president for the third meeting of states parties, Akan Rakhmetullin, the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Nations, and agreed that the meeting would take place in March 2025. At an event co-hosted by the Kazakh embassy in Washington D.C. and the Arms Control Association Dec. 12, 2023, Kazakhstan highlighted that their presidency will focus on victim assistance and environmental remediation; universalization of the treaty (Kazakhstan will also convene a joint meeting of nuclear-free-zones in Kazakhstan in 2024); and building mutual trust between proponents and opponents of the TPNW.

What the past two meetings of states parties with observer states have proven is that TPNW is not widening the gap between opponents and proponents. The TPNW’s approach to nuclear disarmament is not counterproductive or causing potential repercussions, as often opponents of the treaty have persistently argued, rather, it has demonstrated that states outside of the TPNW can engage in discussions while not being part of the treaty and thus contribute to the common shared goal for all: the prevention of nuclear conflict and the total, verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.

The United States, other nuclear-armed states, and some of their allies may not yet be ready to join the TPNW or engage with states parties, however, it is time for them to recognize that the TPNW is a reality. In the meantime, before the next meeting in March 2025, there are several ways for the United States can move engage with the treaty without harming the United States' or its allies’ national security interests.

First, members of Congress can and should more carefully evaluate the role of the TPNW in reducing nuclear dangers. At the second TPNW meeting, U.S. elected officials Representative Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Massachusetts State Representative Lindsay Sabadosa attended the meeting and parliamentary conference, where 23 parliamentarians from 14 countries including Canada, Japan, Germany, Scotland, Belgium, France, Italy, Australia, Norway, and the United States gathered. Those representatives shared “the collective sentiment that many pressing challenges underscore the urgency and relevance of the mission embodied by the TPNW” and reaffirmed their commitment to activate TPNW discussion in their respective parliaments and engage with their own governments and people, according to the joint statement.

As a result of the growing presence of the TPNW in the international nonproliferation and disarmament structure, the treaty can no longer be dismissed. In early 2023, Rep. McGovern introduced a resolution titled Embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to the House and gained support from over 40 members of Congress.

To move forward, members of Congress should commit to engage more substantively on how to advance nuclear risk reduction options including TPNW, to question the U.S. government on national positions on this matter, and to respond to constituent concerns about how to advance nuclear disarmament diplomacy and avoid nuclear war.

Second, the White House and the State Department need to recognize that the TPNW has become more of an asset than a liability. Despite the skepticism from the governments of the world's nuclear-armed states, the TPNW is developing into a strong new force against dangerous nuclear policies. These efforts to both delegitimize and stigmatize nuclear weapons serve as an important safeguard against rising nuclear tensions between nuclear-armed adversaries and nuclear threats from the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un. The TPNW is also a reminder that the nuclear-armed states need to heed international calls for tangible diplomatic dialogue on nuclear disarmament, which they are obligated to pursue under the NPT.

More productive engagement with the TPNW state parties on the shared goal of advancing nuclear disarmament can also benefit U.S. national interest by building ties with states that share the goal of strengthening the NPT, advancing U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese dialogue on nuclear arms control and disarmament and on reducing the risk of nuclear war. The TPNW originated from the frustration of non-nuclear weapons states and dissatisfaction with the lack of progress by the NPT nuclear-armed states in fulfilling their disarmament obligations under Article VI of the NPT. As the TPNW moves forward, the United States can and should join the conversation through the meetings of TPNW states parties.

The perception gap between states that believe nuclear weapons are essential to their security and the TPNW states parties that do not is both a challenge and an opportunity. Through TPNW meetings, the United States, other nuclear-armed states, and their allies can and should seize the chance to engage with TPNW states parties to better understand the wide range of perspectives and concerns about nuclear weapons. In today’s multi-polar world, this approach can help build bridges with the many states that seek to accelerate progress toward a world without the fear of the catastrophic impacts of nuclear weapons.—SHIZUKA KURAMITSU, research assistant

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It has been just five years since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was concluded in 2017, but the agreement is already helping to bolster the international nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament architecture.

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TPNW States Challenge Nuclear Deterrence Doctrine


January/February 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

States-parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) have begun challenging the long-standing deterrence rationale for nuclear weapons in an effort to inject new momentum into their campaign to rid the world of these armaments.

Mexican Ambassador Juan Ramon de la Fuente (C), president of the second meeting of states-parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Alicia Sanders-Zakre (L) of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and Veronique Christory (R) of the International Committee of the Red Cross brief journalists on the outcome of the meeting on Dec. 1 at the UN. (Photo by ICAN)At their second annual TPNW meeting held Nov. 27 to Dec. 1 in New York, they approved a political outcome document that unveiled the new strategy, declaring that the states-parties “will not stand by as spectators to increasing nuclear risks and the dangerous perpetuation of nuclear deterrence.”

At the suggestion of the Austrian delegation, the states-parties decided to establish a “consultative process on security concerns of TPNW states” that aims to reframe the debate over nuclear disarmament as a necessary instrument to ensure human security and national security.

“This shift at the TPNW conference indicated in Austria’s working paper is important. There are deep flaws in the assumptions that underline the current nuclear paradigm, and deterrence, although [it] works most of the time, is inherently flawed and will fail over the long run,” Ward Hayes Wilson, executive director of RealistRevolt, told Arms Control Today.

Amid a deteriorating international security environment due to the Russian war in Ukraine and other factors, nuclear-armed states recently have reaffirmed the need to possess nuclear weapons on the grounds that such armaments deter adversaries. This nuclear deterrence doctrine has been at the core of NATO’s mutual security guarantee and collective defense since the alliance was created in 1949.

At the meeting, Germany, a TPNW observer state, stressed that, “confronted with an openly aggressive Russia, the importance of nuclear deterrence has increased for many states.”

“Germany, as a NATO member, is fully committed to NATO’s nuclear deterrence, the purpose of which is to preserve peace, deter aggression, and prevent nuclear coercion,” the head of the German delegation said.

Similarly, during a meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized countries in Hiroshima in May, world leaders reaffirmed their view that “our security policies are based on the understanding that nuclear weapons, for as long as they exist, should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war and coercion.”

But in their political document, the TPNW states-parties countered that “[t]he renewed advocacy, [and] insistence on and attempts to justify nuclear deterrence as a legitimate security doctrine [give] false credence to the value of nuclear weapons for national security and dangerously [increase] the risk of horizontal and vertical nuclear proliferation.”

In addition, nuclear threats “only serve to undermine the disarmament and non-proliferation regime and international peace and security,” the declaration stated.

The states-parties named Austria as coordinator for the new consultative process and called for a report to be submitted at the next TPNW meeting with a set of arguments and recommendations.

The process is expected “to better promote and articulate the legitimate security concerns, [and] threat and risk perceptions enshrined in the treaty that result from the existence of nuclear weapons and the concept of nuclear deterrence,” the parties decided.

Further, states-parties in partnership with scientists and civil society decided “to challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence by highlighting and promoting new scientific evidence about the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons and juxtaposing those with risks and assumptions that are inherent to nuclear deterrence.”

Reflecting this move to delegitimize nuclear weapons, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, the Mexican ambassador who served as the TPNW meeting president, told a press conference on Dec. 1 that “there is an incompatibility between nuclear weapons and international security. That is why we are more convinced now than before [that] the only way to really move towards [a] more secure world for all of us is with the prohibition of nuclear weapons.”

At Mexico’s initiative, the meeting reinforced the new strategy by elevating debate on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons use and by including scientists from the newly established TPNW scientific advisory group, a speaker from the International Committee of Red Cross, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations and affected communities, including Australia, Kiribati, and Japan, to share their perspectives and findings.

“This was extremely important because it was the first time that we were addressing at this level [of an official UN conference] the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear detonation,” de la Fuente said.

Setsuko Thurlow, an atomic bomb survivor from Hiroshima, told the press conference that “[n]ow with the humanitarian initiative as a guide, we were able to look at the [nuclear weapons] issue as a human issue, to put human being[s] right in front and a center of discussion.”

Some 59 states-parties, 35 observer states, and 122 nongovernmental organizations, participated in the weeklong TPNW meeting, which elected Akan Rakhmetullin, Kazakhstan’s UN ambassador, as president of the next meeting, to be held in March 2025.

States-parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons challenged the deterrence rationale for
nuclear weapons in an effort to inject new momentum into their campaign to rid the world of these armaments.

U.S. Says Shift to Safer Nuclear Fuel Would Be Costly


January/February 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

The United States is making progress in developing a safer low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel for use in Navy ships, but the project is very costly, and success is not assured, according to a report by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The issue of nuclear fuel for navy ships has drawn increased attention since 2021, when the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L), U.S. President Joe Biden (C) and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak discussed the issue at a press conference in San Diego last March. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)The United States now relies on highly enriched uranium to provide safe, long-lived, and reliable naval propulsion fuel. But nonproliferation experts have been urging a switch to LEU, which is more difficult to convert for use in nuclear weapons.

In a message accompanying the report, NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby said she was “pleased with the progress…made in this technically challenging effort…[because in] fiscal 2021, we reached a critical milestone” with experiments that will produce the first information evaluating novel fuel-fabrication techniques, as well as fuel performance characteristics.

Nevertheless, the report struck a downbeat tone, concluding that “these initial activities are the first steps on a long, costly path to fuel development and success is not assured.”

It predicted a reactor fuel system design effort lasting 20 to 25 years that would cost more than $1 billion and detract from higher-priority nonproliferation and naval propulsion research and development activities.

“Even if successful, the propulsion system would be less capable, only [be] applicable to aircraft carriers and require several billion dollars, in addition to fuel development costs, to deploy the supporting engineering, manufacturing and testing infrastructure,” the report said.

It added that “the analysis showed that the use of LEU would negatively impact reactor endurance, reactor size, ship costs and operational effectiveness.”But the nonproliferation expert who obtained and publicized the report, which was sent to Congress in 2022 and kept secret until now by the government, argued that the expense for the LEU project should not be questioned. “The program’s price tag is a tiny fraction of the cost of the nuclear Navy or a nuclear terrorist attack,” Alan J. Kuperman, an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and coordinator of the university’s Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project, told Reuters.

“These documents clarify three things for the first time: the program is vital to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, is making rapid progress, and will be implemented only if it can preserve the performance of U.S. Navy vessels,” Kuperman said.

The NNSA has been researching LEU fuel use in Navy systems since 2018 with $50 million appropriated by Congress, but the program is now in doubt after a House subcommittee cut the funding, Reuters reported.

The nuclear fuel issue has drawn increased attention since 2021, when the United States and the United Kingdom raised proliferation concerns by agreeing to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, which would become the first non-nuclear-weapon state to field a ship with an HEU-powered reactor.

The United States is making progress in developing a safer low-enriched uranium fuel for use in Navy ships, but the project is very costly, and success is not assured.

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