This article was originally published on NTI’s Risky Business blog.
In February, the ELN and NTI issued a statement on the eve of the 2025 Munich Security Conference (MSC) on steps to reverse the slide to nuclear war.
Big thing at Munich: Statement by the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group (EASLG) during the Munich Security Conference, “Three Essential Steps for Reversing the Slide to Nuclear War.”
Sixty-four former officials, military leaders, and experts call on nuclear-armed states in every region to take steps to reduce the risk of nuclear use.
The big picture: In January 2022, the leaders of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States together affirmed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” and that strategic risk reduction is among their foremost responsibilities. The reality of, and potential for, wars by nuclear-armed nations has created a more urgent context for the January 2022 statement.
Why it matters: Without practical steps to reduce nuclear risks, a conventional conflict leading into a nuclear catastrophe—whether by design or by blunder—becomes an ever-greater possibility.
Three steps forward, no steps back: An experienced group of sixty-four signatories representing 21 countries from the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific regions have identified three urgent steps for reducing nuclear risks that leaders of nuclear-armed states can take with the support of their allies and friends:
- Prevent a return to explosive nuclear testing and bolster the existing testing moratoria
- Advance nuclear fail-safe to strengthen safeguards against the unauthorized, inadvertent, or accidental use of nuclear weapons
- Affirm and strengthen the fundamental principles governing the use of outer space.
Case in point: Today, dialogue and formal arms control efforts have become increasingly challenging to execute and the development of cyber-threats and artificial intelligence has compounded the risk of nuclear disaster.
What they’re saying: “When you say major threat, to me, we have one really major threat, and that’s called nuclear weapons. The fact is it’s a tremendous problem, and we are closer to World War III today than we’ve ever been,” said President Donald Trump, at a Town Hall event in Flint, Michigan in September 2024.
Zoom out: As of February 2026, when the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expires, there will no longer be a U.S.-Russian bilateral treaty limiting the arsenals of the world’s two biggest nuclear superpowers.
The bottom line: Reducing nuclear risks is a global challenge that requires a global solution; therefore, dialogue on nuclear risk reduction must be global, integrating unilateral, bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral solutions that include nuclear and non–nuclear-armed states.
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.
