Nuclear Disarmament

In Prague on April 5, 2009, President Barack Obama proclaimed "clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." The core of Obama’s action on nuclear disarmament has been negotiations with Russia to move towards renewing the Strategic arms reduction treaty, and hopefully reducing Russian and US stockpiles to 1000 nuclear weapons. Negotiations however are likely to be long and drawn out despite both sides having incentives to reduce their stockpiles.[[Ian Taylor, Luke Harding, The Guardian, 6th Feb., 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/06/nuclear-disarmament-russia-us]] Cooperation with Russia however has not been the entire agenda, in saying agenda: “as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon,” he said, “the United States has a moral responsibility Thus to act.” Obama was accepting that it should be the USA to should take the lead in nuclear disarmament. As such Obama has been pledging some unilateral actions; action; reducing the reliance on nuclear weapons in US military policy, commiting to not developing any new nuclear weapons (unlike the Bush administration that actively pursued them), ratifying the comprehensive test ban treaty and attempting to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and materials.[[David Krieger, A 100 Day Nuclear Disarmament Agenda, President Obama Scores High, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 16th April 2009, http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2009/04/16_krieger_100_day.php?krieger]]

Obama has not yet done anything on missile defence, this is something that irritated Russia, costs a lot of money, and may well never prove an effective defence. The Senate is unlikely to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty as it would require two thirds support that at the moment the democrats do not have. While Obama has stated his ambitions in this area he has not done much to address how they are to be achieved beyond the CTBT and a new round of START, this is unlikely to address the problem of nuclear weapons being seen as a prestige technology and for rogue states being seen as something that will prevent US attack.[[ Lawrence S. Wittner, How feasible is Obama’s Nuclear Disarmament agend?, 20th April 2009, http://hnn.us/articles/76303.html]] So far it is just a vision with one meeting with Demitri Medvedev to start up talks, so little action so far... these things take time!