Editorial

There is no point in sugar-coating it: the international security situation has further deteriorated dramatically over the past year. However, this by no means implies that we should stop thinking about arms control. Quite the contrary: now more than ever is it essential to strengthen the existing regimes – such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention – and to prepare for a better future for arms control.

We are delighted to present this third issue of the CNTR Monitor, which focuses on verification. Verification provides a technical basis for collective compliance assessments and renders arms control regimes more credible and more effective. In a broader understanding, we see verification as the production of reliable and internationally available knowledge on activities that could destabilize peace and security regionally or globally. In applying this definition, we do not reject the traditional understanding of verification but rather expand it to include significant developments such as the increasing engagement of civil society in knowledge production.

The Monitor shows how verification efforts must be carefully calibrated. Insufficient verification lowers the hurdles for breaches of an agreement, whilst verification that is too extensive can be overly intrusive and threaten national interests. When planning and compiling the 2026 CNTR Monitor, we aimed to present new verification methods that may alleviate some problems current and future verification faces. Some contributions are explorative technological outlines, e.g. how to make broad use of AI, whilst others present concrete techniques, e.g. new detection capabilities for nuclear verification. Some proposals can significantly improve the accuracy of verification, whereas others make verification more cost-effective.

Beyond the verification focus, as in previous years, the 2026 Monitor also contains chapters on other current technological trends. These include updates on how drones continue to change the battlefield, or broader impacts of AI on international security, such as dual-use risks in chemistry and biology, AI-based disinformation, or the importance of semiconductor supply chains.

We hope you will find this an engaging and informative read.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Sara Al-Sayed, Jürgen Altmann, Oliver Crook, Stefan Frey, Zoe Gastelum, Michal Krelina, Ralf Trapp and József Zsigrai for their comprehensive review and valuable feedback on earlier versions of the CNTR Monitor chapters.

We thank the Federal Foreign Office for their continued funding and support. Yan-Jie Schnellbach and the nuSENTRY junior research group at TU Darmstadt would like the thank the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space for their funding and support.