This commentary is part of a series exploring P5 perspectives on the forthcoming 2026 NPT Review Conference (RevCon). It will continue over the coming weeks and months, ahead of the RevCon, which takes place from 27 April – 22 May at the United Nations HQ in New York. These publications are part of the ELN’s project on Protecting the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The success of the 2010 Review Conference (RevCon) of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) gave positive momentum to the newly established P5 process, in which the five recognized nuclear-weapon states consulted with each other on their respective nuclear policies, with the goal of advancing implementation of the Treaty. In its first few years, its results were notable, if not spectacular. In recent years, however, its consultations have been infrequent, lower-level, and less substantive, with virtually no visible accomplishments.
Today, there is little reason for optimism that the P5 process will do anything in the coming weeks that will materially contribute to a successful conclusion of the RevCon in May.
One year ago, I wrote a more positive proposal for what the process could accomplish. Neither the last chair, China, nor the current chair, the United Kingdom, have shown the level of ambition necessary to overcome the deterioration of substantive dialogue, on all issues, between Russia and the US/UK/France, and between China and the US. China, in particular, continues to claim that its participation in the P5 process is an adequate substitute for direct China-US discussion of security issues, which it continues to resist. At a time when none of the five are meeting their Article VI obligation to pursue disarmament, few non-nuclear-weapon states give credence to the claim that the P5 process is a meaningful step toward disarmament.
Another discouraging factor is the absence of any clear action from the US administration on nuclear risk reduction or arms control. After allowing the New START Treaty to expire, without agreement to continue to respect its central limits, Washington appears intent on increasing the size and diversity of its arsenal. While Donald Trump has stated that he wants a “new era” of multilateral arms control (including, at least, China), there is no indication that his administration – more than a year into its mandate – has made any specific proposal for the structure of such negotiations. When pressed in a Congressional hearing on March 25 whether it had sought direct talks with Russia or China, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno could only say that the US planned to engage through the P5 process.
In addition, the US administration’s ideological approach to, well, almost everything portends new battles at the RevCon over topics that have previously been considered settled, and even non-controversial. The carefully negotiated language between Egypt and the US on a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone, which prevented this issue from dominating the 2022 RevCon, may now be unacceptable to Trump’s appointees, given their deference to Israeli positions. Even topics such as re-commitment to previous RevCon decisions, references to the Sustainable Development Goals, or compromise language on the role of gender may be re-opened by the US.
The P5 dialogue process is, in principle, the appropriate venue for discussing how to structure a multilateral arms control negotiation. China, France, and the UK have all expressed reluctance to join such negotiations until Russia and the US make further reductions. The US has made no detailed proposal on structure or goals, so there is little reason to believe that the P5 will produce something of substance before the RevCon. It is, however, positive that the US has publicly restated that each of the five are obligated to work toward their Article VI disarmament commitments; perhaps it could use the P5 process to press for a meaningful joint re-affirmation of this obligation.
The aborted US-Iran negotiations in February exemplified this administration’s preference for rhetoric and ideology and its disdain for real technical expertise on nuclear issues. Although Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Yeaw declared on February 17 that the NPT RevCon is a “high priority for the administration”, the delegation the US will send to New York appears set to be the lowest-ranking and least experienced in the history of the NPT. No one involved has publicly outlined how the delegation will help achieve the common goal of a successful RevCon.
In the absence of any meaningful step toward a new arms control agreement, the P5 should attempt to say something substantive and meaningful about risk reduction – steps that make accidental or intentional nuclear use less likely. Thomas Countryman
What could the P5 do constructively prior to the RevCon, if all five participants showed equal levels of ambition and seriousness? At a minimum, they could agree to support language that sidesteps the issues that blocked consensus at the last two RevCons. They could agree to reconfirm the importance of the Middle East zone and support reassigning this issue to the process created by the UN General Assembly. To prevent a repetition of Russia blocking consensus, they could agree on language affirming the importance of avoiding attacks on nuclear facilities during conflict, without specifically mentioning Russia, Ukraine, or Zaporizhiya.
The five should also discuss the US accusation that China and Russia have conducted nuclear explosive tests in violation of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), and President Trump’s threat to resume US testing “on an equal basis”. They could jointly reaffirm, as they did in a 2016 UN Security Council resolution, their commitment to respect the moratorium on positive-yield nuclear tests.
Even a simple statement restating the formula “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” would be welcomed by other NPT States Parties and would help set a more positive tone for the conference. From my own experience in 2021, however, I suspect that even such a simple statement is unattainable among the P5 – each of the participants will likely insist on explanatory text that would dilute the power of the original brief sentence.
In the absence of any meaningful step toward a new arms control agreement, the P5 should attempt to say something substantive and meaningful about risk reduction – steps that make accidental or intentional nuclear use less likely. This has been the primary topic of the mid-level P5 discussions in recent years. A joint P5 statement on continued dedication to risk reduction would be welcome, but without tangible, jointly agreed actions, it is unlikely to be persuasive.
As the nuclear powers ramp up a new, more dangerous arms race, there is little reason to expect that the US – which played a leading role in shaping the P5 agenda from 2009 onward – is prepared to take the initiative and restore the P5 process as a valuable instrument of arms control and non-proliferation. Can another state – France, the UK, or China – step up to this responsibility?
The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
