Global Security Priorities Resolution
H.R. 1045
The Global Security Priorities Resolution (H.R 1045) is bipartisan legislation calling on the U.S. president to take steps to reduce the number of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons. The savings resulting from these reductions would be used to prevent the further spread of these dangerous weapons to other nations or terrorists and for funding of critical child survival, hunger, and education programs around the world.
Nuclear weapons remain a great and immediate threat to our world and our communities. The Union of Concerned Scientists is engaged in an ambitious campaign for a thorough re-assessment of the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy. Our goal is to stimulate a sustained and visible dialogue in the United States about nuclear weapons that will build political will and broad public support for policies that will lead to a world free of nuclear weapons.
By calling on the president to pursue additional reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, the Global Security Priorities Resolution can play a critical role in building that political will and bipartisan support. UCS is particularly encouraged that Representative Dan Lungren, a Republican, has joined up with Representative James McGovern, a Democrat, to sponsor this resolution.
Currently, the bill has more than 30 Republican and Democratic co-sponsors and has the active support of a number of national religious, development, and peace and security non-governmental organizations. Click here for a copy of H Res 1045, Global Security Priorities Resolution.
Further nuclear reductions will put the United States and the world on the path toward a world without nuclear weapons. In January 2007, and again in January 2008, former Republican Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, joined with Democrats, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn, and called for U.S. leadership toward a "World Free of Nuclear Weapons." They wrote that, without urgent action, the United States and the world is on the brink of a "dangerous nuclear era" in which many more nations or terrorists would possess nuclear weapons and the ability to use them. Click here to read their statement (pdf).
Earlier this year, UCS released Toward True Security: Ten Steps the Next President Should Take to Transform U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy. The report—a revised and updated version of a report first published in 2001—is jointly authored by a number of leading experts, including former officials and analysts from the Federation of American Scientists, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and UCS. It examines a number of key aspects of nuclear weapons policy and doctrine and outlines a series of specific, unilateral policy steps the United States can and should urgently take to improve U.S. and international security.
