Imagining a New Nuclear Arms Control Regime

On May 8, 2019, the American Academy and Pugwash convened a roundtable discussion on “Imagining a New Nuclear Arms Control Regime.” The roundtable produced the following for shaping the discussion on future arms control:

• “Saving Arms Control” is an unhelpful framing: non-governmental organizations should not be fueling the threat that arms control will be destroyed if New START is not renewed. Nonetheless, efforts must be directed toward urging legislators and politicians in the US and Russia to renew New START before the 2021 deadline.
• The model of a sustained working group on a future arms control architecture has proven useful in the past, with an emphasis on long-term thinking about strategic stability, arms racing and instability, and accounting for emerging/new technologies.
• There appears great scope for pursuing twin dialogues (US-RU and US-CN), leading toward a potential trialogue. In the short term, these would identify what would give people a sense of urgency and shared perception of risk, and also clarify some agreement on common problems and areas for exploration.