Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Arguments for Nuclear Weapons Reductions

by John Isaacs [contact information]

March 10, 2009

• Nuclear weapons create risk in today’s world, rather than reduce it. According to many military and security experts, the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal is now a security liability rather than a security asset. Nuclear weapons now make us less, rather than more, safe. The world has changed: Nuclear weapons were designed for dealing with the Soviet Union, but don’t help against current threats like terrorism. Today, more nuclear weapons mean more risk of accident or theft.

• Negotiations aimed at a mutual, verifiable, balanced plan that cuts the American and Russian nuclear stockpiles to 1,000 nuclear weapons per side will make us all safer. With fewer nuclear weapons on both sides to maintain and secure, we will reduce the chances of accidents or terrorists stealing nuclear materials.

• We must prevent nuclear terrorism, which is the gravest danger we face. Cutting both American and Russian nuclear arsenals will encourage other countries to join us in steps to prevent terrorists or rogue states from ever getting their hands on nuclear materials or weapons.

• Cutting our nuclear arsenals has broad bipartisan support. Over two dozen former Secretaries of Defense and State and National Security Advisers from both Democratic and Republican administrations have endorsed reducing nuclear weapons because the U.S. arsenal will still be strong enough to withstand and deter any future attacks.

• Former Secretaries of State Kissinger and Shultz, former Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Nunn, and former Secretary of Defense Perry say that reducing our nuclear arsenal will strengthen our leverage in global arms talks, so we can negotiate tougher nonproliferation agreements and restrain the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

• With our economy in crisis, we should retire and dismantle expensive excess weapons. By reducing our nuclear stockpile to 1,000 weapons, we will save 20 billion dollars while still having a sufficient nuclear deterrent for all possible threats.

• The United States can maintain a strong nuclear deterrent with fewer weapons as long as these weapons exist. The United States seeks reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons and material, but not unilaterally and only in stages after other nuclear states reduce their arsenals as well.

• Both the United States and Russia, many years after the Cold War, have too many nuclear weapons.