NTI Vice Chairman Des Browne covered a range of nuclear policy issues in the keynote address to the annual meeting of the Washington-based Arms Control Association. The former UK Defense Secretary called for the nuclear weapon states to participate in and shape the agenda for the third conference on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons coming up in Austria this December. "This needs to be a cooperative effort. If you want to have nuclear weapons, you have to live with the responsibility and the consequences of them and explain to others how you will deal with that challenge," Browne said. "We have a responsibility, if we depend for our strategic security on these weapons, to engage with this challenge. … We need to be there."
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New START, the last remaining arms control treaty capping U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, expires on February 5. This marks the beginning of a dangerous new era. For the first time in several decades, there will be no limits on nuclear weapons, less visibility into Russian nuclear weapons activities, and fewer tools to manage a crisis between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
NTI encourages the United States and the Russian Federation to continue to abide by New START’s limits on intercontinental-range nuclear weapons past its scheduled expiration on February 5, 2026.
Participants examined how NWFZs can be productive geopolitical tools amid mounting challenges, including great power competition, disruptive technologies, and a weakening global nonproliferation and disarmament architecture.
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