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By Tariq Rauf
CIPS Policy Brief, November 2026

This policy brief is adapted from remarks delivered to Panel 2 of the conference “Canada and the Middle Power Challenge,” presented by the Canadian Pugwash Group (CPG) and the Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS), Ottawa, 2 October 2026. The views expressed are the author’s own.

At a glance…

• With New START expired, warhead numbers rising and nuclear threats normalized, the arms control architecture built over five decades has collapsed. It cannot be restored to what it was.
• The diplomatic machinery has stalled, but the technical infrastructure beneath it—IAEA safeguards and the CTBTO’s monitoring network—still functions. That gap is where progress is possible.
• Practical gains lie in habits rather than architecture: behaviour-based restraint, binding commitments to keep humans in control of nuclear decisions, closing the CTBT low-yield verification gap, and a moratorium on weapons in space.
• Canada should abandon “going along to get along,” join the TPNW, question allies on the legitimacy of extended and forward deterrence, and lead issue-based coalitions in the spirit of Prime Minister Carney’s “variable geometry.”

Tariq Rauf is the former Head of Verification and Security Policy, Office reporting to the Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He is associated with the Canadian Pugwash Group and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.