Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Arms

As the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis approaches, nuclear arms control has received scant attention in the current U.S. presidential campaign. Yet the future of arms control has major implications for U.S. national security, and no matter who is elected on November 6, the next president will have an opportunity to use arms control to enhance domestic and global security. In their new Brookings Focus Book, The Opportunity: Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Arms (Brookings Press, 2012), Brookings Senior Fellows Steven Pifer and Michael O’Hanlon make a strong case for further steps in nuclear arms control, explain in clear and straightforward prose the background to complex arms control issues, and offer practical and realistic proposals for action by the administration in 2013 and beyond.

On October 19, the Arms Control Initiative and 21st Century Defense Initiative at Brookings hosted a discussion to explore the possibilities for next steps on arms control and place them in a broader foreign policy context. They related the issues to the Pentagon’s budget situation and the longer-term vision of trying to move to a world without nuclear weapons. Pifer and O’Hanlon were joined by Brookings President Strobe Talbott. Vice President Martin Indyk, director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, moderated the discussion.

Watch both authors discuss arms control, the priority this issue should take in U.S. national security, and the opportunity to advance American security and prevent the threat of proliferation. 

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