David Cortright Old thinking retains its grip at the Pentagon. The vested interests that profit from excessive military spending remain a formidable lobby. Congress sustains nuclear postures that are inherited from the Cold War and continues to fund unneeded weapons...
Cardinal Roger Mahony Few challenges are more urgent for Catholic teaching on war and peace than the awesome and unprecedented power of nuclear weapons. In evaluating nuclear deterrence, the U.S. bishops have proposed an “interim ethic” whereby nuclear deterrence...
Kelsey Davenport President Obama has declared that the United States is committed to creating “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” but the policy debate in Washington often lags far behind this lofty vision. Some progress has been achieved in...
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite Four senior U.S. statesmen — George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn — captured world attention in January 2007 with their call for “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons” in the Wall Street Journal. Their premise is...
Kennette Benedict The end of the Cold War has made it possible to contemplate vast reductions in nuclear arsenals—and even their elimination. The United States and Russia already have reduced their nuclear weapons stocks from a high of nearly 70,000 in 1986 to fewer...
Stephen M. Colecchi Advocates for a world without nuclear weapons in the United States frequently lament the fact that the general public is not much interested in the issue of nuclear disarmament. People are legitimately concerned about more immediate issues like the...
An Interview with Hon. Margaret Beckett Former UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was a keynote speaker at a recent conference, “The NPT and a World Without Nuclear Weapons,” in Helsinki, Finland, co-sponsored by the Kroc Institute and the Finnish Institute of...
David Cortright This post includes video content. (4:20) A few years ago, the notion of a world without nuclear weapons was merely an aspiration. Today it has become a widely accepted goal of international policy. In September, U.S. President Barack Obama presided...
Gerard F. Powers In 1983, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter on nuclear weapons, The Challenge of Peace, which is still considered a seminal analysis of the ethics of nuclear weapons. The bishops concluded that most...