In my experience at the U.S. State Department, those working on nuclear arms control and those working on resolving violent conflicts could not be farther apart – literally. The Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability and my office in the Bureau of Conflict...
On Aug. 9, 2025, I attended a Memorial Mass at Nagasaki’s Urakami Cathedral, which was destroyed by the atomic bomb of 1945 dropped only 500 meters away. At 11:02 a.m. – the same time the bomb nearly leveled the cathedral 80 years prior – both bells in the rebuilt...
President Trump ordered the U.S. to “test” nuclear weapons. While the actual impact of his order is still unclear, it is an escalation of risk. We are at the highest risk of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis, when President Kennedy estimated we faced a 1 in 3...
Over the past 50 years, existing nonproliferation treaties and initiatives have proved remarkably effective in preventing the emergence of additional nuclear-armed states. But nonproliferation efforts are at an inflection point: the risk of additional states...
Shielding the population of a nation from the devastation of an adversary nuclear attack is unquestionably a laudable goal for a national leader. Former President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and now President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome Program...
Social movements – appealing to public concerns and ethics – have an essential role to play in halting the rebuilding and expansion of nuclear weapons systems today. They can fundamentally shape the public and political conversation around these issues. By reflecting...
“We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices,” warned the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in the January/February 2007 issue of its magazine of the same name.
Climate change and nuclear disarmament are two legacy issues for Pope Francis. Like the prophets of old, on each issue he has been characteristically outspoken in his blunt, provocative moral judgements.
Maryann Cusimano Love The nuclear weapons ban is the latest example of resurrection politics. Peace advocates, scientists, and churches have been trying to ban the bomb for over 70 years, with few successes. Resurrection politics takes issues thought previously “dead...
Gerard Powers The Vatican has long supported nuclear arms reduction and is seeking to build on the disarmament momentum generated by the United Nations treaty banning nuclear weapons. The Holy See’s efforts, like those of other pro-ban states, might seem quixotic...
David Cortright Critics of the UN treaty banning the bomb argue that nuclear weapons have helped to prevent World War III and are essential for international security. A world without nuclear weapons, they say, would be a world of greater war and military aggression....
Clara Portela is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Singapore Management University and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe. When the Iran nuclear deal was signed, it was celebrated as a diplomatic success, especially for the United States. Media...
Kelsey Davenport is Director for Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association. Donald Trump faces a tough array of foreign policy challenges, but noticeably absent from that list is the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. If Trump plays his cards right, he can...
George Lopez is the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Since the election of Donald Trump, members of the arms control community have argued that the new administration must...
Mary Ellen O'Connell Mary Ellen O’Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal...
Michael C. Desch Michael C. Desch is Professor of Political Science and Co-director of the Notre Dame International Security Program. Winston Churchill famously said of democracy that it was the worst form of government except for all the others. The same could be...
David Cortright David Cortright is Director of Policy Studies for the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The Iran nuclear deal resulted in part from the effective use of multilateral sanctions to apply persuasive pressure...
Gerard F. Powers Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Catholic bishops and other religious leaders have given much greater attention to the moral imperative of nuclear disarmament. But a gap exists in the ethical analysis needed to sustain this moral imperative....
Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. Fifty-one years ago, Pope John XXIII issued his encyclical Pacem in Terris, which declared that “the arms race should cease” and urged that “all come to an agreement on a fitting program of disarmament.” In revitalizing the Catholic voice...
Margaret Pfeil Over the last 30 years, the Catholic Church’s teaching on the morality of nuclear deterrence has developed in response to post-Cold War conditions, appealing to a vibrant, traditional value system. In their 1983 pastoral letter, The Challenge of Peace,...