Why Nuclear Arms Control Matters Today
The Foreign Service Journal > May 2020
In this time of new strains in great-power relations, nuclear arms control agreements are an essential component of national security.
BY THOMAS COUNTRYMAN
Before 2017, every U.S. president dating back to John F. Kennedy proposed and pursued negotiations with Moscow as a means to regulate destabilizing nuclear arms competition and reduce the risk of the United States and its allies being destroyed in a nuclear war. With their diplomatic and military advisers, they sought and concluded a series of treaties, most with strong bipartisan support, that have made the United States and the world much safer, and reduced U.S. and Russian arsenals by 85 percent from Cold War peaks.
The current administration, however, is veering off course from the approach to nuclear risk reduction and arms control pursued by previous Republican and Democratic administrations. Worse, President Donald Trump’s team has not presented a coherent alternative road map to reduce the threats posed by nuclear weapons.
This departure from proven and effective nuclear risk reduction and arms control strategies is a matter of urgent concern, because, among other things, we face a higher risk of a U.S.-Russian nuclear war than at any time since the end of the Cold War.
http://www.afsa.org/why-nuclear-arms-control-matters-today
