Digests and Blog

By Daryl G. Kimball Today in Hiroshima, the 11th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates concluded with the reading of "The Hiroshima Declaration on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons" by 1997 Nobel prize recipient Jody Williams. The declaration notes that since the end of the Cold War, enormous progress toward the goal of a world without nuclear weapons has been achieved but " ... there are still enough nuclear weapons to destroy life on Earth many times over. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and the possibility of their use for acts of terrorism are additional causes for deep concern.…

By Daryl G. Kimball The United States Senate reconvenes next week for its post-election lame duck session and has an opportunity to overcome the partisan divide of the election season to support ratification of the New START. If they can agree to set aside two to three days for debate and a vote, the White House and Senate Republicans agree the treaty would be approved. Why? Because New START makes sense for U.S. national and international security in any language. Avis Bohlen, former George W. Bush administration assistant secretary of state for arms control, and I wrote an op-ed for the…

By Matt Sugrue There are certain openings that let you know that you're in for an experience: the first five minutes of the first Lord of the Rings film, Eli "Paperboy" Reed's soul scream at the start of the song "Come and Get It," or the first page of any Terry Pratchett novel. Added to that list is the introductory paragraph of the new John Bolton and John Yoo New York Times op-ed, The sweeping Democratic midterm losses last week raise serious questions for President Obama and a lame-duck Congress. Voters want government brought closer to the vision the framers outlined in the Constitution…

H. E. Mr. Nawaf Salam, Ambassador and Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative of Lebanon, deposits Lebanon's instrument of ratification at the United Nations. Photo credit: UN Photo By Jeff Abramson Starting today, the country most affected by cluster munitions – Laos – will play host to the first meeting of states-parties on the Convention on Cluster Munitions. And last week, Lebanon--the country in which the use of cluster munitions helped galvanize the movement that led to the treaty--ratified the convention just in time to attend as a full partner. Both countries may face challenges*…

During the final panel of ACA's "Next Steps in Arms Control" conference today, the discussion turned to missile defense. Panelists discussed the upcoming NATO summit in Lisbon, the Obama administration's Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA), and the prospects for NATO-Russia cooperation on missile defense. Eric Desautels, Senior Advisor to Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher, began by striking an upbeat tone on the Lisbon summit. He said that U.S. efforts to convince NATO to adopt a comprehensive missile defense program had been very well received by America's allies in Europe. He described the…

At today's ACA / Böll Foundation event, Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller delivered the keynote address. She focused on the New START agreement, both making the case for its prompt ratification in the post-election session and providing an assessment of where the process stands now. Among the points she raised were: New START does not limit missile defenses. Here, Gottemoeller quoted Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. General Patrick O'Reilly, who stated that compared to the original START accord, New START actually reduces constraints on America's missile…

Today, the Arms Control Association, along with Heinrich Böll Stiftung, is hosting a conference on "Next Steps in Arms Control: Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense, and NATO" at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. Arms Control Now will feature some of the conference's highlights. __ So far, one of the major topics has been the broader state of the US-Russian bilateral relationship. In the first panel, Ambassador Richard Burt was especially direct on this point. He noted that over the past two years, Presidents Obama and Medvedev have built a very close working…

By Daryl G. Kimball Today in Mumbai, President Barack Obama told U.S.-Indian business leaders that he would seek India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)--the nuclear technology control organization established in 1975 in response to India's first nuclear weapon test blast, which used plutonium produced with nuclear technology from Canada and the United States. According the official NSG Web site, India's 1974 test explosion "demonstrated that peaceful nuclear technology transferred for peaceful purposes could be misused." U.S. support for Indian membership in the NSG undermines U…

By Daryl G. Kimball A 21st Century version of Lyndon Johnson's 1964 "Daisy Girl" campaign ad has been produced by the American Values Network in an effort to urge the Senate to provide its advice and consent for ratification of New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Like its predecessor, the new commercial features a young girl plucking petals off a daisy. Her petal counting shifts to a missile launch countdown with the camera zooming into her eye to show a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion. The ad comes on the eve of a new push for New START approval during the Senate's post-election…

By Daryl G. Kimball Following the Nov. 2 U.S. mid-term election, Congressional leaders and the White House now must shift from campaign mode to governing mode. That will be tough for many, but is necessary for the health and security of the nation. Congress will reconvene on November 15 for a post-election "lame duck" session. Senators might start working together on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), one of the few domestic or foreign policy issues upon which there is a modicum of bipartisan agreement consensus. If Senate leaders agree to spare 2-3 days for floor debate and…