Statement of policy

The following is the policy of the United States: (1) The United States should build upon its decades long, bipartisan efforts to reduce the number and salience of nuclear weapons by leading international negotiations on specific arms-reduction measures as part of a 21st century global nuclear freeze movement. (2) Building on the 2021 extension of the New START Treaty, the United States should engage with all other countries that possess nuclear weapons to seek to negotiate and conclude future multilateral arms control, disarmament, and risk reduction agreements, which should contain some or all of the following provisions: (A) An agreement by the United States and the Russian Federation on a resumption of on-site inspections and verification measures per the New START Treaty and a follow-on treaty or agreement to the New START Treaty that may lower the central limits of the Treaty and cover new kinds of strategic delivery vehicles or non-strategic nuclear weapons. (B) An agreement on a verifiable freeze on the testing, production, and further deployment of all nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles for such weapons. (C) An agreement that establishes a verifiable numerical ceiling on the deployed shorter-range and intermediate-range and strategic delivery systems (as defined by the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles signed at Washington December 8, 1987, and entered into force June 1, 1988 (commonly referred to as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty), and the New START Treaty, respectively) and the nuclear warheads associated with such systems belonging to the P5, and to the extent possible, all countries that possess nuclear weapons, at August 2, 2019, levels. (D) An agreement by each country to adopt a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons or provide transparency into its nuclear declaratory policy. (E) An agreement on a proactive United Nations Security Council resolution that expands access by the International Atomic Energy Agency to any country found by the Board of Governors of that Agency to be noncompliant with its obligations under the NPT. (F) An agreement to refrain from configuring nuclear forces in a launch on warning or launch under warning nuclear posture, which may prompt a nuclear armed country to launch a ballistic missile attack in response to detection by an early-warning satellite or sensor of a suspected incoming ballistic missile. (G) An agreement not to target or interfere in the nuclear command, control, and communications (commonly referred to as NC3) infrastructure of another country through a kinetic attack or a cyberattack. (H) An agreement on transparency measures or verifiable limits, or both, on hypersonic cruise missiles and glide vehicles that are fired from sea-based, ground, and air platforms. (I) An agreement to provide a baseline and continuous exchanges detailing the aggregate number of active nuclear weapons and associated systems possessed by each country. (3) The United States should rejuvenate efforts in the United Nations Conference on Disarmament toward the negotiation of a verifiable Fissile Material Treaty or Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, or move negotiations to another international body or fora, such as a meeting of the P5. Successful conclusion of such a treaty would verifiably prevent any country’s production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. (4) The United States should convene a series of head-of-state level summits on nuclear disarmament modeled on the Nuclear Security Summits process, which saw the elimination of the equivalent of 3,000 nuclear weapons. (5) The President should seek ratification by the Senate of the CTBT and mobilize all countries covered by Annex 2 of the CTBT to pursue similar action to hasten entry into force of the CTBT. The entry into force of the CTBT, for which ratification by the United States will provide critical momentum, will activate the CTBT’s onsite inspection provision to investigate allegations that any country that is a party to the CTBT has conducted a nuclear test of any yield. (6) The United States should— (A) refrain from developing any new designs for nuclear warheads or bombs, but especially designs that could add a level of technical uncertainty into the United States stockpile and thus renew calls to resume nuclear explosive testing in order to test that new design; and (B) seek reciprocal commitments from other countries that possess nuclear weapons.