TWQ: New Nuclear Realities - Winter 2008

What factors influence nations to decide to develop and deploy nuclear weapons? What can be done to prevent or inhibit further proliferation? Can existing nuclear weapons stockpiles be reduced? Can they be made less dangerous, less likely to be used through "accident, or folly, or madness?" Would the world not be better off if we made nuclear weapons just go away? Can we do that? Why not just do it? The United States
would be more secure in a world without nuclear weapons, and some former officials and presidential aspirants have called for the adoption of a nuclear weapons–free world as a concrete goal. Yet, the lessons of
history warn that such an approach could instead divert from or distort counterproliferation efforts, harming U.S. and global security. Instead, U.S. policy should be directed at engaging the international security issues that underlie nuclear proliferation.