About the Brookings Arms Control Initiative

The Brookings Arms Control Initiative brings the Institution’s multidisciplinary strengths to bear on the critical challenges of arms control and non-proliferation. Housed in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in the Brookings Foreign Policy program, the initiative addresses global arms control and proliferation challenges as well as the central negotiations between the United States and Russia.

Few problems pose greater challenges to U.S. national security than controlling, reducing and countering the proliferation of nuclear arms. President Barack Obama has made nuclear arms reduction and non-proliferation a central plank of his foreign policy. After a long lag, serious U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear arms reductions began again in 2009. The Obama administration seeks ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and wants to position itself to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime at the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference. The U.S. government also continues to grapple with the threats posed by nuclear rogue states such as North Korea and Iran.

Research by Brookings experts in the Arms Control Initiative focuses on five clusters:

• nuclear arms reductions, including U.S.-Russian nuclear arms reductions; reductions of third-country nuclear forces; and the challenges of moving to a non-nuclear world;
• U.S. nuclear deterrence policy in the 21st century;
• nuclear non-proliferation challenges, including CTBT ratification and entry into force; a fissile materials cut-off treaty (FMCT); the April 2010 nuclear security summit; and strengthening the NPT;
• nuclear outliers (India, Israel and Pakistan) and rogue states (North Korea and Iran); and
• integrating arms control/non-proliferation policy with policies to meet other global challenges such as climate change, energy security and economic development.

The initiative will produce research and policy recommendations in these areas, including a Brookings Arms Control Papers series. The initiative will also organize public events and roundtables to bring together U.S. policymakers, officials and diplomats from other countries, non-governmental experts, the media and others to discuss the critical arms control and non-proliferation questions of the day.

Brookings Senior Fellow Steven Pifer directs the Arms Control Initiative. Brookings President Strobe Talbott is actively involved in the initiative, which also draws on the expertise of a number other Brookings experts.