Highlights from the article: On 5 April 2009 in Prague, US President Barack Obama asserted the United States’ commitment to ‘seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons’. He was adding his voice and the efforts of his administration to the growing number of world leaders, citizens and civil society organisations seeking the elimination of such weapons. Banning the bomb has been a passionate and often popular crusade since its creation and first use, but in all that time it has never been a serious strategic objective for any state that possessed nuclear weapons. Why would a sitting US president take the political and strategic risk of declaring that progress towards this goal was a key element of America’s national security policy?
Obama, and others who seek a world without nuclear weapons, are right. Eliminating nuclear weapons is profoundly in the national-security interest of the United States and its allies and friends. Without major progress towards the elimination of nuclear arms, moreover, it is unlikely that the world will be able to avoid nuclear use for a prolonged period or respond adequately to security challenges related to climate change, resource scarcity and environmental degradation. The international community must reject the myths and expose the risks of the ideology of nuclear deterrence if it is to successfully meet the mutual global challenges of the twenty-first century.