"I find hope in the work of long-established groups such as the Arms Control Association...[and] I find hope in younger anti-nuclear activists and the movement around the world to formally ban the bomb."
Editor's Note
The Obama administration has embarked on an ambitious nuclear arms control and nonproliferation agenda. That point came across clearly when Arms Control Today sat down with Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher for an interview on October 21.
A recurring theme in Tauscher’s comments was the interplay between U.S. actions and the actions of other countries. She emphasized the need for U.S. leadership on efforts such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and a new strategic arms treaty, but, reiterating a point that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made during a speech earlier that day, Tauscher said that it is not only the nuclear-weapon states that are responsible for dealing with nuclear weapons issues. As participants in the global nonproliferation regime, all countries have “responsibilities and things that they have to invest in, pay attention to,” she said.
The interaction between the United States and a prominent non-nuclear-weapon state, Japan, is the subject of one of our features. Masa Takubo examines the complex relationship between the two countries and finds that the current Japanese-U.S. arrangement, centered on the U.S. “nuclear umbrella,” has “come to function as a barrier to global nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.”
In discussing U.S. policies and their repercussions, Clinton and Tauscher put considerable emphasis on the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review and what it will say about the way the United States views nuclear weapons. In a news analysis, Tom Z. Collina examines one key issue in that review: where the United States draws the line in “modernizing” its nuclear arsenal.
Elsewhere in the news section, our writers examine non-nuclear weapons and efforts to contain them. Oliver Meier reports on the election of a new director-general for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and Jeff Abramson describes a change in the U.S. position on an arms trade treaty. That change could significantly boost prospects for concluding a treaty to tighten the rules on international arms transfers, he reports.
David Elliott’s feature article looks at a “weapon” that is drawing increasing attention and concern: cyberattack. Elliott carefully weighs the costs and benefits for the United States of adhering to an international convention limiting cyberwarfare and offers suggestions on how such a convention might be structured.