The Nuclear Threat

One of the most crucial issues that next generation leaders must address is the new security environment surrounding nuclear weapons.  Our nuclear security reality has changed since the Cold War era: terrorists are seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and nuclear waste material while unguarded nuclear material can seep into the hands of criminal networks.  The nuclear nonproliferation regime has broken down: Iran has refused to stop uranium enrichment programs, North Korea has tested nuclear weapons, and, of course, India and Pakistan both have extremist groups attempting to catalyze war between the two nuclear-armed countries. 

In January 2007, George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn published a groundbreaking op-ed.  These four security leaders from Republican and Democratic administrations wrote, “Reliance on nuclear weapons for [deterrence] is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.  U.S…  leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage -- to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.” They quoted Ronald Reagan, who “called for the abolishment of "all nuclear weapons."  And they laid out a strategy for moving to an approach we term “getting to zero.”

The path is difficult.  It requires a deep understanding of nuclear policy, the nuts-and-bolts issues surrounding nuclear positions worldwide, and an understanding of the science that drives these programs.  It requires equal attention to communicating the message to the American public that weapon proliferation is a greater security threat than weapon reduction.

A generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation has enabled the Truman National Security Project Educational Institute to create a curriculum on these issues across all of our training programs.  Program development and deployment will take place in 2009-2010, and will be assisted by a Scoville Fellow.