Statesmen Renew Call for Nuclear Abolition

A bipartisan group of U.S. senior statesmen today renewed their call for the abolition of nuclear weapons, one year after their initial proposal reinvigorated interest in the recently dormant goal (see GSN, Jan. 4, 2007).

“The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear material has brought us to a nuclear tipping point,” wrote former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn in a Wall Street Journal commentary.  “We face a very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands.”

“The steps we are taking now to address these threats are not adequate to the danger.  With nuclear weapons more widely available, deterrence is decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous,” they added.

“In some respects, the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons is like the top of a very tall mountain.  From the vantage point of our troubled world today, we can't even see the top of the mountain, and it is tempting and easy to say we can't get there from here,” they wrote.  “But the risks from continuing to go down the mountain or standing pat are too real to ignore.  We must chart a course to higher ground where the mountaintop becomes more visible.”

To aid progress toward the ultimate goal of nuclear abolition, the authors urged the United States and Russia to take a number of interim steps, including:

— extending the verification provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, due to expire in late 2009 (see GSN, Dec. 12, 2007);

— reducing the risk of accidental missile launches (see GSN, Nov. 2, 2007);

— speeding security improvements to prevent the theft of nuclear weapons and materials (see GSN, Sept. 27, 2007);

— exploring ways to bring the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty into force (see GSN, Sept. 18, 2007); and

— negotiating further strategic nuclear reductions (see GSN, Nov. 6, 2007).

These and other steps would ease the path toward a nuclear-weapon-free world, the four wrote.

“Progress must be facilitated by a clear statement of our ultimate goal.  Indeed, this is the only way to build the kind of international trust and broad cooperation that will be required to effectively address today's threats,” they wrote.  “Without the vision of moving toward zero, we will not find the essential cooperation required to stop our downward spiral” (Wall Street Journal, Jan. 15).

[Editor’s Note: Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.  NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]

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