The New Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons

By  •  Monday April 5, 2010 7:32 AM PDT  •  5 Comments

In an article in the Wall Street Journal on January 4, 2007, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” national security establishment icons George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn startled many people by calling for a campaign to ban nuclear weapons worldwide in a effort to avoid a new nuclear arms race and the growing possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons. Understanding the folly that nukes provide defense deterrence in a multipolar world of rogue states and non-state, terrorist organizations, they again reiterated their call one year later in another Journal article, “Toward a Nuclear-Free World.” Additional important figures in academia, government, and the media have worked for many years to advance such a ban along with similar campaigns to ban bio-chemical weapons, land mines, etc. (For example, Independent Institute fellows Robert Higgs and the late Murray Rothbard long called for the banning of all nuclear weapons on both moral and practical grounds, and Institute research analyst Anthony Gregory more recently highlights the need for such a ban here.)

One such key voice is Joseph Cirincione who is President of Ploughshares Fund (former Vice President for National Security at the Center for American Progress; former Director for Non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). Dr. Cirincione has spoken for the Independent Institute (see here) and hosts the following new video on the important, new campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide.

Tags: American History, Civil Society, Military, Morality, Nuclear Weapons, Peace, The State, War, Weapons

5 Comment(s)

  1. This worries me. What is your opinion, Mr. Theroux? I mean, it’s a no-brainer that the world would be better off without nuclear weapons, but how do we accomplish it? I could find no strategy in the video other than “patriotic consensus” (empty promises?).

    Kdaunt | Apr 6, 2010 | Reply

  2. All sane people desire to abolish nuclear weapons, but a precondition is to first abolish warfare and that requires powerful international laws that bear on individual political leaders. The US is a very militant country and would probably not accept such restraint. If countries agreed to scrap all existing nuclear weapons without abolishing war, then some states would simply keep the components of nuclear weapons ready to assemble them in, say, one hour if needed. Therefore, it is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to effectively abolish nukes without abolishing warfare.

    Ross Milburn | Apr 6, 2010 | Reply

  3. Kdaunt and Ross,

    I would recommend your examining the articles I have linked to in my blog posting.

    David Theroux | Apr 6, 2010 | Reply

  4. The fact is that to have a vision of a nuclear free world is indeed a praiseworthy conjecturing; yet one has to remember the fact that those who once remained the creators/attackers of the nuclear bombs are now advocating for its abandonment.

    chumanist | Apr 6, 2010 | Reply

  5. Sadly, Dr. Cirincione lost his cool (beginning at 3:20) in this recent TV interview.

    J. Andrews | Apr 9, 2010 | Reply

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