PARIS, Dec 22: The fragile global legal framework for nuclear weapons control faces further setbacks in 2026, eroding guardrails to avoid a nuclear crisis. "In terms of the current state and near future prospects of nuclear arms control architecture, things are bleak," she added. - 'Crumbling' safeguards -From US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites to Russia's test of the new Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile and US President Donald Trump's remarks about possibly resuming nuclear tests -- the international nuclear landscape darkened in 2025. At the same time, "the arms control architecture is crumbling", Emmanuelle Maitre of France's Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) told AFP. Nuclear control had been built over decades around a Moscow-Washington axis, but China's growing power and rapid technological advances have shifted the international playing field, which is simultaneously increasingly strained.

Source: International New York Times December 22, 2025 05:09 UTC