Nuclear weapons remain a great and immediate threat to human civilization. The Union of Concerned Scientists is engaged in an ambitious advocacy effort to call for a thorough re-assessment of the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy. Our goals 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.

We are calling on the next president to take steps that will put the United States and the world on the path toward a world without nuclear weapons. That should begin with policies that will reduce our nation’s reliance on nuclear weapons and the size of the U.S. arsenal, limit the development of nuclear weapons by other countries, consolidate the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, and strengthen non-proliferation efforts.

Read Toward True Security: A New Nuclear Posture for the Next Decade.

UCS is not alone in this effort. In January 2007, former Republican Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn 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.

Read their statement (pdf).

The Bush administration has pursued policies that are more likely to increase, rather than decrease, the threat from nuclear weapons. Its policies view nuclear weapons as legitimate instruments of military power which could be used preemptively against non-nuclear weapon states or terrorists. Through the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, it is seeking to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal. This is unnecessary. The current U.S. arsenal of 5,000 deployed weapons and 4,000 more in reserve is safe and reliable, and the RRW program is an unneeded and expensive provocation to the rest of the world.

Read the UCS fact sheet about the RRW program.

Fortunately, change is afoot. In 2007, consensus began to emerge within Congress and among outside experts that the time is long past due for a fundamental review of nuclear weapons policies and doctrine. A number of leading policy makers, including Representative Peter Visclosky (D-IN), Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Representative David Hobson (R-OH) have led the effort to curtail the administration’s plan for a new generation of nuclear weapons until this review is undertaken.

Introduced in August 2007, the Nuclear Policy and Posture Review Act (S 1914) calls on the president to conduct a nuclear policy review to consider the role of nuclear weapons in our security policy, and upon the review’s completion, authorizes the secretary of defense to conduct a “nuclear posture review” to set U.S. nuclear deterrence policy and strategy. The bill would prohibit funding for the RRW program until the policy review and posture review reports have been submitted to Congress. 

UCS and other organizations will be working to build bipartisan support and co-sponsorship of the Nuclear Policy and Posture Review Act, an ideal legislative vehicle to reinforce the growing demand and political consensus that a comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear weapons policy is needed. 

Read Senator Feinstein’s press release.

Read the Nuclear Policy and Posture Review Act text.