By Sophie Kretzschmar. There is a strange concurrence of fundamentally different developments in the world today regarding nuclear disarmament: On the one hand, nuclear disarmament seems to have taken several steps backwards – nuclear weapon states are increasing and modernizing their nuclear arsenals, and debates about new nuclear arrangements, however unreasonable these discussions are, have entered the discourse. On the other hand, nuclear disarmament seems to have taken a step forward – a treaty banning nuclear weapons, supported by 139 of the world’s 197 states, is in force since 2021, and active work is on the way to implement the treaty. Across these divides, Germany’s stated goal is to build bridges: Nuclear disarmament is postponed, “taking into account the current security environment”, but the “commitment to strive towards a safe world free of nuclear weapons” remains. For the disarmament research community, this confirms the mission: to use this time to develop and prepare tools to support nuclear disarmament.

By Andreas Dürholt and Lukas Rademacher. On December 13 and 14, the VeSPoTec-Team welcomed nine technical experts from six different countries for a tabletop exercise on nuclear safeguards in Aachen. The exercise focused on the role that different types of safeguards-relevant information play for evaluating a State in the context of their safeguards obligations through a series of role-played discussions.