Disarmament

Martin Fleck
Retired June 28, 2007. Thanks, Martin, for 16 years of exemplary service and leadership. Martin can still be reached at rootcauses@gmail.com A decade after the end of the Cold War, the world carried the burden of over 30,000 nuclear weapons into the new millennium. These weapons — especially several thousand on hair-trigger alert — constitute a profound threat to public health. The United States alone has spent over $5.5 trillion on nuclear weapons since 1940, and taxpayers continue to pay billions of dollars per year to maintain them.

PSR, WPSR, and many allied organizations advocate abolition of nuclear weapons. This can and will be achieved through adherence to existing treaties — most notably the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which calls for complete and general nuclear disarmament worldwide. As vital steps toward abolition of nuclear weapons, we advocate United States ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (signed by the US in 1996), and multilateral, negotiated nuclear weapons "de-alerting" and arsenal reductions by the nuclear weapons states.

In 2007, we are focusing upon effective ways to prevent nuclear terrorism, a profound public health risk, and ways to eliminate nuclear weapons, still the gravest danger to human civilization. PSR has broadened the discourse about disarmament to include a discussion of the policy of preemption and military spending with the SMART Security Campaign: A Sensible, Multilateral, American Response to Terrorism. As a key element of SMART Security for the future, WPSR advocates for research and development of alternative energy options--as well as spending on new transportation networks--to reduce reliance upon imported fossil fuels.