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Nuclear and weapons policy reversals

The collapse of nuclear arms control and reversal of weapons prohibitions, including New START expiration, nuclear testing orders, and procurement of banned weapons.

5 records · Last updated March 26, 2026

These records trace the dismantlement of decades of arms control and weapons restraint, from treaty expiration to landmine and cluster munition policy reversals.

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Updated March 26, 2026 Foreign Policy & War
Serious Rights Violation Ongoing Reported record

Pentagon Signs $210M+ Deal to Purchase Cluster Munitions From Israel

The US contracted with an Israeli state-owned arms manufacturer for banned cluster munitions at industrial scale, reversing decades of declining reliance on these weapons and funding an Israeli weapons program while cluster munitions continue to kill and maim civilians worldwide.

  • On September 30, 2025, the Pentagon awarded an indefinite delivery/quantity contract with a ceiling value of $829.1 million to Tomer, an Israeli state-owned company, for the manufacture and production of the 155mm XM1208 cluster munition shell. The initial order was valued at $210 million.
  • The contract was awarded without public competition under a 'public interest' exception to federal contracting law, bypassing normal procurement safeguards.
  • This represents the largest known US arms purchase from Israel in at least 18 years of available federal records.
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cluster munitionsIsraelTomerarms procurement
Updated March 26, 2026 Foreign Policy & War
Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern Ongoing Reported record

New START Treaty Expires: First Time Since 1970s With No Nuclear Arms Control

The expiration of the last US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty ends over five decades of binding limits on the world's two largest nuclear arsenals. No replacement is under negotiation. The loss of verification mechanisms, data exchange, and warhead caps risks an unconstrained nuclear arms race at a time of peak geopolitical tension.

  • New START expired on February 5, 2026, ending the last legally binding limits on US and Russian nuclear arsenals — 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 700 deployed delivery systems, and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers per side.
  • This marks the first time since the early 1970s that there are no binding nuclear arms control agreements between the two nations that together possess approximately 90% of the world's nuclear weapons.
  • The treaty's verification regime — including on-site inspections, data exchanges, and a bilateral consultative commission — has been lost, removing critical transparency mechanisms that prevent miscalculation.
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New STARTnuclear arms controlnuclear weaponsarms race
Updated March 26, 2026 Foreign Policy & War
Serious Rights Violation Ongoing Reported record

Hegseth Reverses US Landmine Ban, Rescinds $5B+ Humanitarian Demining Program

The Trump administration reversed decades of bipartisan progress toward eliminating antipersonnel landmines by authorizing their global use and simultaneously dismantling the US humanitarian demining program that had been the world's largest mine-clearing effort.

  • Defense Secretary Hegseth signed a memo on December 2, 2025, reversing the Biden-era policy that prohibited US use of antipersonnel landmines outside the Korean Peninsula, allowing combatant commanders to deploy landmines anywhere without geographic restriction.
  • The same memo rescinded the US Humanitarian Mine Program, a decades-long government initiative that had provided over $5 billion in assistance to more than 125 countries to find and destroy unexploded landmines since 1993.
  • The US was the world's largest global donor to mine-clearing actions in 2024. The rescission immediately halted funding to mine-clearing nonprofits, which were ordered to cease operations 'effective immediately.'
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landminesantipersonnel minesOttawa TreatyMine Ban Treaty
Updated March 26, 2026 Foreign Policy & War
Serious Rights Violation Ongoing Reported record

Trump Orders Pentagon to Resume Nuclear Weapons Testing, Breaking 33-Year Moratorium

Trump directed the Pentagon to match other nations' nuclear testing programs, breaking a moratorium that has held since 1992 and threatening to collapse the global norm against nuclear testing that has been maintained for over three decades.

  • On October 30, 2025, Trump publicly directed the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing, stating the US should match 'other countries' nuclear testing programs' — apparently referencing Russia's publicized test of a nuclear delivery system.
  • The US has not conducted a live nuclear weapons test since 1992, when President George H.W. Bush imposed a unilateral testing moratorium. No country besides North Korea has tested nuclear weapons since the 1990s.
  • The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), signed by the US in 1996 but never ratified, prohibits all nuclear explosions. Resuming testing would violate the treaty's object and purpose under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
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nuclear testingmoratoriumCTBTnuclear weapons
Updated March 25, 2026 Foreign Policy & War
Serious Rights Violation Ongoing Official executive action

Dismantlement of Pentagon Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Program

The Pentagon's civilian casualty prevention infrastructure was gutted in early 2025, removing safeguards that existed specifically to prevent the kinds of civilian harm documented in the administration's subsequent military operations.

  • The CHMR program and its Civilian Protection Center of Excellence were tagged for elimination by February 2025.
  • Approximately 200 personnel assigned to civilian harm mitigation were affected.
  • The dismantlement occurred months before the administration launched military operations in the Caribbean, Venezuela, and Iran.
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civilian casualtiesCHMRPentagoninternational humanitarian law