Washington, D.C. – A new report from the Arms Control Association senior policy team describes the dizzying array of nuclear weapons policy challenges that await the incoming administration of Joe Biden and outlines key steps that would make the United States and the world safer from the threats posed by nuclear weapons.

“The situation has been complicated by the neglect and poor policy choices of President Donald Trump and his administration,” write report authors nonproliferation policy director Kelsey Davenport, executive director Daryl Kimball, and disarmament and threat reduction policy director Kingston Reif. “Over the past four years the Trump administration made nearly every nuclear policy challenge facing the United States worse,” they write.

The report analyzes the five most important sets of nuclear weapons policy challenges and decisions that the new Biden administration will need to address in its first 100 days and beyond, along with recommendations for effectively dealing with each of these policy challenges:

  1. Extending the only remaining nuclear arms control agreement and advancing the nuclear disarmament enterprise;
  2. Reducing the skyrocketing cost of the excessive U.S. nuclear modernization program;
  3. Stabilizing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and containing Iran’s nuclear capacity;
  4. Jump-starting moribund denuclearization and peace diplomacy with North Korea;
  5. Restoring effective U.S. leadership on key multilateral nonproliferation and disarmament agreements, including the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

“If pursued, the actions and decisions described in our report would make the United States and the world safer from the threats posed by nuclear weapons,” Kimball said. “These initials steps would also put the administration in a better position to pursue more lasting and far-reaching nuclear risk reduction and elimination initiatives over the next four years,” he added.

The full report, Nuclear Challenges for the New U.S. Presidential Administration: The First 100 Days and Beyond, is available online.

The Arms Control Association is an independent, membership-based organization dedicated to providing authoritative information and practical policy solutions to address the threats posed by the world’s most dangerous weapons.