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The independent Arms Control Association (ACA) today released a report that concludes ambitious nuclear weapons reductions by the United States would help lessen distrust with Russia and aid global efforts to curb the spread of nuclear arms. Such cuts could be implemented without imperiling U.S. security, argue the report’s authors, who recommend a total U.S. force of 1,000 nuclear warheads in 2012. Current U.S. plans envision at that time a stockpile between 5,000 to 6,000 nuclear warheads. Drell and Goodby also say that “each of the dejure and de facto nuclear-weapon states will have to be involved in some fashion in the effort to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons in international security relations.”

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Since Iran’s leaders two years ago rejected a multilateral package of incentives to halt their uranium-enrichment program, the United States and Europe have adopted a strategy of targeted sanctions. But this effort has failed to slow progress on Iran’s most worrisome nuclear projects. Rather than engage Iran in a broad-based dialogue, the Bush administration has said it will only negotiate if Iran complies with UN Security Council calls to suspend its nuclear program. At the same time, the president and vice president have suggested that they may be willing to use military force to prevent Iran from “acquiring the knowledge to make nuclear weapons.”

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The theory of punctuated equilibrium posits that life on Earth has evolved not in constant, linear fashion but through long periods of stasis, interrupted by catastrophic events, such as meteor impacts, which suddenly push it in new, adaptive directions. Without stretching the metaphor too far, the evolution of nuclear safeguards can be viewed in this way. It has been characterized by long periods of continuity, interrupted by extraordinary events that have changed its nature and direction.

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The United States has been a leader in promoting gradual nuclear disarmament and garnering broad support for international efforts to destroy dangerous stockpiles of small arms and light artillery. On the nuclear side, the United States long has supported multilateral solutions to the challenges posed by Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons development. At the same time, U.S. officials have emphasized their commitment to working with international partners to find diplomatic solutions to these twin challenges.

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On Aug. 3, President George W. Bush signed into law measures designed to strengthen U.S. nuclear nonproliferation programs. Congress had approved the measures in late July as part of broader legislation aimed at implementing recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. In 2004, that panel had proposed several initiatives to bolster efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

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The House of Representatives approved several nonproliferation initiatives in January as part of a broader bill to fully implement the recommendations of an independent commission that investigated the September 11 terrorist attacks. Implementing a campaign pledge of new Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House approved the measure 299-128 on Jan. 9 in one of the first pieces of legislation of the new Democratic-controlled Congress. Congressional aides said that they expect the measure eventually to be reconciled in a House-Senate conference committee with similarly broad legislation approved Feb. 15 by the Senate Governmental Affairs and Homeland Security Committee.

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President George W. Bush’s 2008 fiscal year budget request calls for more cuts in programs related to nonproliferation activities in the former Soviet Union, although some individual threat reduction programs would see gains or maintain funding. Some proposed reductions reflect the winding down or closure of programs, while other cuts may reflect a shift in priorities away from traditional U.S.-Russian programs such as Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) to more regional or international programs.

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In its nuclear negotiations with the rest of the world, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been pursuing a strategy of “heads you lose, tails we win.” In its carefully crafted and creatively ambiguous response to UN Security Council Resolution 1696, the Iranian regime claims that it is willing to negotiate on all issues, including suspension of enrichment activities, but will not accept any precondition for such negotiations. Their strategy is clear: delay, obfuscate, and prevaricate to buy time to race ahead with technical efforts to master the complex uranium-enrichment process. At the same time, by appearing flexible, they offer China and Russia enough ammunition to impede the West, the United States in particular, from pursuing any serious coercive action endorsed by the United Nations.

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President George W. Bush Dec. 18 signed into law legislation making India eligible for broad U.S. civil nuclear exports for the first time in roughly three decades. But commencement of such trade still hinges on a series of negotiations that India’s leader warned would be “difficult.” At a White House signing ceremony, Bush hailed the act as “one of the most important steps” toward reviving U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation. U.S. nuclear trade with India essentially ceased after New Delhi’s 1974 test of a nuclear device derived partially from Canadian and U.S. technologies transferred for peaceful purposes.

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The Bush administration recently released a new space policy that eschews future binding measures to regulate space activities in favor of keeping open all U.S. options, including space-based anti-missile systems, to promote and protect U.S. security and space assets. Dated Aug. 31 but issued Oct. 5, the new policy replaces a September 1996 Clinton administration version. The October document was a slimmer, unclassified version of the actual policy.

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The effort to constrain the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons is perhaps the most ambitious attempt ever made to extend the civilizing reach of the rule of law over humankind’s destructive capacity. The United States, the Soviet Union, and other states laid the foundation for this mission in the 1960s with the negotiation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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During an impromptu April 18 press conference, President George W. Bush was asked if his assertion that "all options are on the table" regarding Iran included the possibility of a nuclear strike. Bush reiterated, "All options are on the table. We want to solve this issue diplomatically, and we're working hard to do so." In no uncertain words, the president of the United States directly threatened Iran with a preemptive nuclear strike. It is hard to read his reply in any other way.

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America’s most acute national security threat is a catastrophic attack with nuclear weapons. Yet the United States has lacked a coherent and vigorous strategy to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to states and terrorist groups. Unmet priorities include bolstering leadership and funding for threat-reduction programs and negotiating a new bargain to close the loopholes within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which must be substantially strengthened to meet today’s challenges. To accomplish these goals, the nuclear weapons states must revive the old bargain embodied in the NPT: leveraging deep and verifiable cuts in existing arsenals to achieve more stringent controls on nuclear materials and technologies.