The New Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons

In an article in the Wall Street Journal on January 4, 2007, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” national security establishment icons George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn startled many people by calling for a campaign to ban nuclear weapons worldwide in a effort to avoid a new nuclear arms race and the growing possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons. Understanding the folly that nukes provide defense deterrence in a multipolar world of rogue states and non-state, terrorist organizations, they again reiterated their call one year later in another Journal article, “Toward a Nuclear-Free World.” Additional important figures in academia, government, and the media have worked for many years to advance such a ban along with similar campaigns to ban bio-chemical weapons, land mines, etc. (For example, Independent Institute fellows Robert Higgs and the late Murray Rothbard long called for the banning of all nuclear weapons on both moral and practical grounds, and Institute research analyst Anthony Gregory more recently highlights the need for such a ban here.)

One such key voice is Joseph Cirincione who is President of Ploughshares Fund (former Vice President for National Security at the Center for American Progress; former Director for Non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). Dr. Cirincione has spoken for the Independent Institute (see here) and hosts the following new video on the important, new campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide.