2026

We live in an era of extraordinarily rapid technological change which impacts virtually all aspects of social life, including international security. On the one hand, some technological advances, such as drones, AI-assisted systems, significantly enhanced sensors, and new materials, are finding their way into military...

This chapter examines whether the often-cited “black box” character of AI constitutes a fundamental obstacle to its use in arms control verification or whether—and under what conditions—AI can become a credible verification tool. It argues that verification has always involved balancing transparency against the protection...

Quantum sensors may eventually strengthen selected verification tasks, but the current evidence is uneven. A cold-atom gravity gradiometer has been tested above a known utility tunnel; navigation components have reached aircraft and ship trials; and nonlinear-interferometer spectroscopy has detected benign vapors in laboratory and open-path...

Satellites are important tools for both intelligence gathering and verification. While advances in optical, infrared, and radar technology have improved satellite resolution, further gains are subject to diminishing returns and disproportionally increasing costs. That said, recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and data fusion will...

In the context of the global resurgence of nuclear energy, innovation and expansion pose a challenge to the implementation of current safeguards. Research and academic institutions are therefore exploring new nuclear verification techniques, with non-destructive assay (NDA) approaches based on novel particle probes proving particularly...

This chapter examines whether genetic engineering attribution (GEA) can meaningfully contribute to biosecurity and verification. It asks what current methods can actually infer from engineered biological material, how far results from curated datasets (e.g., plasmid repositories) can be applied to real-world incidents, and what this...

Autonomy in satellite navigation and rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) presents new opportunities for orbital verification, constellation resilience, and protection against disruptions to ground segments. At the same time, autonomy also reduces the number of decision points that can be directly attributed to intentional human...

Mechanisms from chemical weapons disarmament could inform future regulation of cyberspace. Despite growing cyber threats and the increasing military use of cyber operations, international regulation remains fragmented and largely nonbinding. Drawing on interdisciplinary expert interviews, this chapter identifies key challenges for cyberspace regulation, including dual-use...

Systems for implementation review (SIRs) are international or regional institutions and mechanisms through which parties to a multilateral agreement share information on implementation, compare their implementation activities, review one another’s performance, learn from implementation experience, address noncompliance or poor compliance, and, where useful, adjust their...

Against the backdrop of the erosion of formal verification environments and the decline in treaty-based options, societal verification has attracted renewed interest. Societal verification—a concept that assigns non-state actors, including NGOs, think tanks, and researchers, a role in arms control and non-proliferation monitoring using open-source...

Semiconductors are no longer merely an economic concern; they have increasingly become a matter of national and international security. Competition over artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities is closely tied to control over semiconductor supply chains, critical raw materials, and the infrastructures required to support advanced computing....

This chapter examines where meaningful control can be exercised as artificial intelligence (AI) and the life sciences converge more closely. It examines how the policy debate has shifted beyond general concern about biological design tools toward more specific questions about access to sensitive data, screening...

Although the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in chemistry is advancing rapidly, its practical implementation and governance in the context of chemical weapons control remain at an early stage. Rather than consolidating existing tools, many AI papers introduce new models, creating a fragmented and largely...

Disinformation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and facilitated by agent-based large language model (LLM) systems is becoming more scalable, cheaper, and harder to detect. Disinformation campaigns exploit the social media environment, where disinformation has several advantages over fact-based information. This might erode trust in institutions...

Over the last two years, we have reported on the rapid development of drones in the war in Ukraine. This trend still holds true and has even gathered more momentum. Major developments include the rising importance of counter-drones that hunt other drones, the significant increase...

The discussion of mirror life in last year’s CNTR Monitor focused on the basic science of chirality, the technical difficulty of building a self-replicating mirror organism, and the warning issued by scientists in late 2024. As of 2026, no self-replicating mirror organism is known to...

The nature of warfare is continuously evolving – and it is doing so at an unprecedented pace. This chapter explores military technologies that may come to dominate future battlefields. By analyzing the military technology strategy papers of six countries, the study shows that the development...