November 11, 2014 Watch Laicie Heeley give her analysis of the diplomatic nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 on Voice of America. View the video on Voice of America. Laicie Heeley 202-546-0795 ext. 2105 lheeley@armscontrolcenter.org Laicie Heeley is the Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, where her work focuses on […]
U.S. Leading the Way on Nuclear Weapons Conference
Today, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation issued praise for the Obama Administration’s announcement that the U.S. will participate in the December 2014 Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. This comes as a sign of renewed commitment on behalf of the President toward making good on his Prague promises of reducing the threat of nuclear weapons.
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LA Times Quotes Board Member Phil Coyle on Rising Costs of Nuclear Weapons
Aging Nuclear Arsenal Grows Ever More Costly November 09, 2014 By Ralph Vartabedian and W.J. Hennigan Another major cost is maintaining parts for the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Of 70,000 nuclear weapons that the U.S. built, only about 4,800 remain in service. But the government must still maintain a costly inventory of old parts. Those parts, […]
U.S. will attend Vienna Conference
The U.S. announced this evening that it will attend the third Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.
The Conference, set to take place on December 8-9, 2014 in Vienna, Austria, aims to strengthen the global nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regime, highlight the health and environmental dangers of nuclear weapons use, and underscore the urgency for progress on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) action plan.
Up to this point, the “P5” nuclear weapons countries (Russia, China, U.S., U.K., and France) have boycotted the conferences, fearing that they might be used as a forum to push for the elimination of their stockpiles. North Korea and Israel also skipped the two previous events, while India and Pakistan attended the second.
What the U.K. or the rest of the P5 will choose to do, however, is still an open question.
No other P5 countries have confirmed attendance at the December conference, but they could be influenced by the U.S. move. At an Arms Control Association event in October, Lord Des Browne, Secretary of State for Defence under the previous British Labour government, said that, “From the point of view of the United Kingdom, if the U.S. agrees to go, we will go.” He continued on to say that it was “no coincidence that we have not made up our mind for each of the last two conferences until immediately after the United States made its decision.”
For its part, the U.S. has made clear that its participation in no way implies that the country supports the beginning of a diplomatic process that would lead to a ban on nuclear weapons or a convention on their elimination. Rather, U.S. participation in the Vienna Conference will help to reaffirm American commitment to the process laid out in the NPT.