To Seek A Safer World

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and President of the United States Barack Obama took forceful and successful steps in the past week to control a major threat to human civilization: nuclear weapons.

These accomplishments, resulting from quiet diplomacy over the past months, were completed and announced in quick succession. Though any one of them would be of great importance, the combination is an amazing culmination, with more to come.

Momentous in itself, the signing of the arms reduction treaty with Russia that cut another third from both nuclear arsenals was a necessary prelude to actions on controlling nuclear weapons and the material needed to make them, worldwide.

As a result of an international meeting President Obama convened in Washington this week, today The leaders of almost 50 countries have pledged to secure all vulnerable nuclear material within four years. Some other deals were announced, including an agreement by the United States, Canada and Mexico agreed to work to convert the fuel at Mexico's nuclear research reactor to a lower grade of uranium unsuitable for nuclear weapons...[this] would eliminate all highly enriched uranium in Mexico.

There are two goals of the Obama policy: to secure existing nuclear material and prevent it from being used by terrorists, and to move expeditiously towards a non-nuclear world. That second goal is addressed dramatically in an agreement between the U.S. and Russia to eliminate weapons-grade plutonium in their military, commiting each country to "irreversibly and transparently" dispose of at least 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium... enough for 17,000 nuclear weapons... the agreement prevents any future military use of the plutonium."

The dangers posed by nuclear weapons are still substantial. Apparently there is not yet a formal agreement by the U.S., Russia and China on how to deal with Iran's possible nuclear weapons program, although news stories the other day said that China had agreed to stronger sanctions. Besides the possibility of terrorists or rogue states obtaining and using such weapons, there is the always-present danger of states that have these weapons using them against their neighbors. This is particularly acute involving Pakistan, India and Israel. The simmering conflicts in those regions are only going to be pushed further by effects of the climate crisis.

But President Obama has provided the international leadership to get trends moving in the right direction, fulfilling the promise recognized by his Nobel Prize. Despite the domestic insanity that U.S. media prefers to emphasize, this is solid achievement towards a less dangerous world. This is change I believe in.