Arms Control Today - Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr StøreOn the 40th anniversary of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), there is a resurgence of interest in achieving the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. It is welcome. To be sure, the vision is not new. My government, along with many others, has been a stalwart advocate of the elimination of nuclear weapons for decades. Indeed, all parties to the NPT have committed to this objective.
Government policies in favor of a world free of nuclear weapons fall along a wide spectrum of commitment. Nonetheless, they share a fundamentally aspirational quality. Few if any government policies advocating elimination have fully reconciled themselves with countervailing realities, such as reliance on a nuclear umbrella or the difficult and complex challenges of transparency and verification in a world with only handfuls of nuclear weapons.
Thanks in no small measure to the courage and commitment of former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, and former Secretary of Defense William Perry, the prospects for reconciling aspiration with reality could be getting brighter. More >>>
