We have made great strides in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the past few decades. There are still a lot, but there are far less than during the Cold War. In fact, there has been an 80 percent reduction since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) Treaty was enacted in 1970, and of the over fifty states that could have worked toward a nuclear option, only nine have them today.

 

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) Treaty was followed by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 to eliminate intermediate- and shorter-range missiles (or those with ranges between 300 to 3,400 miles); the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, signed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev; and the New START Treaty, signed in 2010, again by the presidents of Russia and the United States, Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev (on January 26, 2021, Presidents Biden and Putin agreed to extend the New START Treaty through February 4, 2026).

 

​After such a good run, we're sorry to report that this extraordinary international progress hit a major speed bump during the first Trump administration, when the United States formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in August 2019. Then, in February 2023, Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New START Treaty.

 

This all could not have come at a worse time. The 2023 Annual Threat Assessment from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence warned that “the expansion of nuclear weapons stockpiles and their delivery systems, coupled with increasing regional conflict involving nuclear weapons states, pose a significant challenge to global efforts to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons. Arms control efforts through 2035 probably will change in scope and complexity as the number of strategic technologies and the countries that have them grow.​ China and Russia are seeking to ensure strategic stability with the United States through the growth and development of a range of weapons capabilities, including nontraditional weapons intended to defeat or evade U.S. missile defenses. Consequently, these new technologies probably will challenge the way states think about arms control, and we expect it will be difficult to achieve agreement on new weapon definitions or verification measures, particularly at the multilateral level.” 

 

The 2024 Assessment added North Korea to the mix: “North Korea continues to threaten to conduct a seventh nuclear test and the potential for heightened tension between Pakistan and India could increase the risk of nuclear escalation.”

 

Seventh nuclear test, huh? Seems like the June 12, 2018 “summit” (read: photo op) between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump didn’t go quite as planned. You know the one, where an American president met with a brutal dictator and relentlessly praised him as being just another “very, very talented leader” who “wants to do the right thing” while being “very open, very honorable,” and very “worthy.” Donald even complimented the “respect” Little Rocket Man receives from his people: “His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor.” < You better believe they show fervor. You don’t show fervor in North Korea you get your head chopped off. What is it with this man’s fascination with tyrants? >

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After the June 2018 spectacle, a second summit in February 2019 ended early with no deal on nukes and, four months later, Donald Trump swung by North Korea on his way home from the Group of 20 summit in Japan and stepped across the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to step foot in North Korea… yet another visit that ended in no deal.

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However, it looks like Trump didn’t get the memo that the visits with his new buddy were a total bust because on his way home, he tweeted: “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” …which was a completely delusional thing to say. Right after Trump’s love fest, North Korea repeatedly fired short-range ballistic missiles and rockets, conducted two ground tests at one of its nuclear test sites, and increased production of long-range missiles and the fissile material used in nuclear weapons.

 

One year after the summit, The Wall Street Journal was reporting that “Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University nuclear scientist who has visited North Korea’s nuclear facilities, has estimated that North Korea might be capable of producing six or seven nuclear bombs a year. In total, Pyongyang could currently possess between 20 and 60 nuclear bombs, according to estimates by various security analysts.”

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In May 2020, Kim Jong-un made it clear he was evoking “new policies for further increasing” North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. In October, he threw a huge military parade to introduce North Korea’s new humongous intercontinental ballistic missile… a missile that military experts say, if truly operational, is one of the largest road-mobile ICBMs in the entire world.

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Fast-forward to January 2021, when he made clear where North Korea stands with the United States: “Our external political activities must focus on controlling and subjugating the United States, our archenemy and the biggest stumbling block to the development of our revolution.”  – then launched another ballistic missile, this time off its east coast.

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… and then there is Iran, who now has enough highly enriched uranium for six nuclear weapons.

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Without a doubt, pulling out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – a landmark deal between Iran and Britain, China, the European Union, France, Germany, Russia and the United States that placed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program – in May 2018 was one of the most irresponsible things Donald Trump did during his first time in office. < Note: China, Russia, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom all remained in the JCPOA. >

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For one, leaving the deal made the United States look completely unreliable and put us at odds, yet again, with our European allies. In truth, we looked like total amateurs. But, far worse, it made the entire world much more unstable and vulnerable.

 

President Trump had a huge problem with the deal from the jump, saying things like (this is a direct quote hence the discombobulated wording), “We gave them $150 billion and $1.8 billion and we got nothing... look at what they did to John Kerry and to President Obama.  Look what happened, where they’re bringing planeloads of cash, planeloads, big planes, 757s, Boeing 757s coming in loaded up with cash. What kind of a deal is that?”

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This is a total distortion of what happened. When the JCPOA was signed, Iran regained access to its own assets that have been frozen. It’s true that around $1.8 billion was paid to Iran from the U.S. Treasury – and did arrive in Tehran on a cargo plane, in cash – but that was money that the United States already owed Iran (Iran had paid us for military equipment that never was delivered). Still, even if you disagree with the way the Obama administration handled this, it had already happened. The money had already been paid, so why in the world would you blow everything up after the most controversial, hard-to-swallow part of the deal was already in our rearview?

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The JCPOA was far from perfect, but the agreement achieved a huge goal: The Iranian government agreed to cut its stockpile to no more than 300kg of low-enriched uranium; promised that it would not enrich any uranium beyond 4 percent and that it would have only one enrichment facility; and, most importantly, Iran agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency access to its nuclear facilities to verify its compliance.

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…and despite what the Trump administration claimed, Iran WAS complying with the deal. In May 2018, the very month we pulled out, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that “Iran was subject to the world’s most robust nuclear verification regime under the JCPOA, which is a significant verification gain. As of today, the IAEA can confirm that the nuclear-related commitments are being implemented by Iran.”

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Surprising nobody but Donald Trump, not long after our exit what had become a relatively stable situation devolved into a complete mess. The U.S. imposed “maximum pressure” sanctions against Iran. Both Iran and the U.S. seized oil tankers. The United States shot down Iranian drones and sent additional troops to Saudi Arabia. The Strait of Hormuz, the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world, got increasingly confrontational.

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But the worst part was that Iran immediately got back into the nuclear bomb-making business with gusto. Right away, they started digging a massive tunnel network south of their Natanz nuclear production site, an indication they were again constructing very deep nuclear facilities designed to survive foreign attacks, including bombs and cyberattacks.

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At the same time, Iran quickly increased 1) the number of its centrifuges enriching uranium, and 2) its stockpile of low-enriched uranium.  < Note: Although low-enriched uranium is used in nuclear power plants, it can also be processed into highly enriched uranium which is used for nuclear weapons. > Not long after, Iran breached the limit on uranium enrichment agreed to under the JCPOA. These actions helped Iran significantly reduce its breakout time, or the time it takes for them to have a nuclear weapon.

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This all escalated even further with the U.S. drone assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a senior official of the Islamic Republic of Iran who was close to its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Suleimani was also the commander of the Quds Force, an agency that is part of Iran’s formal military structure and responsible for Iran’s covert military operations. After the attack on Suleimani, Iran immediately said that it was suspending its remaining commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal. They also vowed to abandon the “final restrictions” on uranium enrichment period. Then came the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which Iran responded to with a new law that ramped up its enrichment of uranium to a level much closer to weapons-grade fuel. The new law also required that international nuclear inspectors be expelled if U.S. sanctions were not lifted.

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The whole thing just turned into total chaos, a Trump specialty. Essentially, the Trump administration’s irrational and irresponsible behavior backed President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei into a corner and that is not where this needed to go.

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Now operating completely alone, the Trump administration tried to unilaterally impose “maximum pressure” against Iran, a strategy that included crippling economic sanctions against the country, individuals, companies, and financial institutions that do business with Iran. The U.S. also designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and seized even more cargo from tankers carrying Iranian petroleum.​ 

 

While the U.S. sanctions had a devastating effect on Iran, they did not deliver the knockout blow Donald Trump envisioned. At least fourteen banks continued to do business with Tehran.

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Another thing the Trump administration naïvely envisioned was being able to control issues within the JCPOA without being a part of it. This led to some embarrassing moments, like in August 2020 when the United States notified the United Nations Security Council that it would invoke a “snapback,” whereby the United Nations sanctions on Iran that were suspended with the signing of the JCPOA would be reinstated.​ However, the United Kingdom, France and Germany refused to join the Trump administration in reinstating these sanctions, adding that the United States had no standing to invoke this rule because it was no longer in the JCPOA, a position shared by China and Russia. Earlier that same month, the United Nations Security Council had already rejected an American proposal to extend a five-year ban on the sale of conventional weapons to Iran, highlighting once again how isolated the United States has become on the topic of Iran.

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Cut to today. On March 7, 2025, President Trump said he sent a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei offering to reopen negotiations over Iran’s now booming (pun intended) nuclear program – to which Ayatollah Khamenei replied, “Some bullying governments insist on negotiations not to resolve issues but to impose. Negotiation is a path for them to make new demands, it’s not just nuclear issues to speak about the nuclear topic, they are making new demands which will definitely not be accepted by Iran.” Great job, Donald.

 

This is super scary stuff, but this is where true leadership and skilled negotiation must come into play. The world’s tricky nuclear position requires we remain calm and make smart decisions about how to move forward, not hyperventilate and just arbitrarily start pulling the United States out of proven treaties that have taken decades to cultivate – an approach that is amateurish and reeks of fear.

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Committing to international nuclear agreements is a no-brainer. Not only do they make us safer, but they can also save us a ton of money by helping us replace the “my bomb is bigger than your bomb” lunacy with “intellect and decent purpose.” Strong global alliances can help us prevent the threat of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon attacks by proliferation, rogue nations, and terrorist organizations. We can lead a united coalition that penalizes proliferators and ensures multilateral enforcement of those penalties. In fact, preventing this very real threat should be priority one in our dealings with the United Nations and other international bodies.