Reducing the Threat of Nuclear Weapons
UCS is working to fundamentally change U.S. nuclear weapons policy. U.S. security would be greatly enhanced by making deep, irreversible cuts in its nuclear arsenal, removing its weapons from hair-trigger alert, and then negotiating agreements with Russia to do the same. We promote steps that will de-legitimize nuclear weapons as instruments of national security and eventually lead to a world free of nuclear weapons. Unless the United States and other nuclear weapons states take steps in this direction, more countries—and eventually terrorists—will acquire nuclear weapons.
Specifically, the United States should:
Declare that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter and, if necessary, respond to the use of nuclear weapons by another country. Only a small arsenal would be required to fulfill this mission.
- Promptly and unilaterally reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to no more than 1,000 warheads, including deployed and reserve warheads.
- Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
- Cancel its programs to develop and produce new types of nuclear weapons.
- Focus the U.S. nuclear weapons complex on maintaining the safety, reliability, and security of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, dismantling nuclear weapons, and enhancing the security of nuclear weapons materials.
- Negotiate an extension of the U.S.-Russian Strategic Arms Reduction (START) Treaty, which includes important verification and confidence-building measures and is set to expire in December, 2009.
For more information see:
- Toward True Security: Ten Steps the Next President Should Take to Transform U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy (2008)
- Scientists' Statement on U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy
- The Cart before the Horse: DOE's Plan for the Future of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex
- In Support of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
