Sam Nunn
Founding Chair, NTI
For the past 15 years, the three of us and a distinguished group of American and international former officials and experts have been deftly and passionately led by our late friend and colleague, George Shultz. Our mission: reversing the world’s reliance on nuclear weapons, to prevent their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world. Without a bold vision, practical actions toward that goal won’t be perceived as fair or urgent. Without action, the vision won’t be perceived as realistic or possible.
George led this charge with the tenacity of a U.S. Marine and the wisdom of a man who held four cabinet positions for two presidents, including secretary of state for Ronald Reagan. Reagan considered nuclear weapons to be “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” He took that view and his most trusted advocate for it, George Shultz, to a summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986.
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Despite the high stakes, the economic and financial considerations of nuclear weapons use remain underexplored. This paper examines several decades of research on economic and financial effects of nuclear weapons use, and explores the key gaps in our understanding of effects in today’s interconnected world.
NTI breaks down the nuclear themes in "A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE," a new film from Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, opening in theaters October 10, 2025 and available on Netflix on October 24.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group (EASLG), Asia-Pacific Leadership Network (APLN), and European Leadership Network (ELN) have worked since March 2020 to highlight the benefits of independent, internal “fail-safe” reviews in nuclear-armed states.
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