Vice President Biden Reaffirms America's Commitment to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World
Vice President Joe Biden delivered a speech today to a packed auditorium at the National Defense University, reiterating the President’s commitment to a nuclear security strategy that will protect Americans by providing our military with the tools it needs to combat today’s threats.
Secretary of Defense Bob Gates introduced the Vice President and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher were also in attendance. The presence of these officials illustrates the lockstep support across the bureaucracy for the President’s nuclear security agenda.
Biden asserted America’s commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons, but noted that as long as we need nuclear weapons, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal. Biden then outlined the Obama Administration’s comprehensive approach to implementing the nuclear security agenda, beginning with keeping our nuclear arsenal safe and reliable through a commitment to the stockpile stewardship program and by pursuing a follow-on agreement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). He noted:
The new START treaty will promote strategic stability and bolster global efforts to prevent proliferation by showing that the world’s leading nuclear powers are committed to reducing their arsenals.
Biden reaffirmed the administration’s desire to pursue the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty after its defeat ten years ago.
We led this effort to negotiate this treaty in order to keep emerging nuclear states from perfecting their arsenals and to prevent our rivals from pursuing ever more advanced weapons.
We are confident that all reasonable concerns raised about the treaty back then – concerns about verification and the reliability of our own arsenal - have now been addressed. The test ban treaty is as important as ever.
The Vice President added that the Lab Directors at our nuclear facilities confirm that they know more about our nuclear weapons today without testing, than in the years when they exploded them in the desert.
In summing up his argument, the Vice President lauded the growing bipartisan consensus of military and national security leaders who understand that in order to combat the threat posed by nuclear weapons in the 21st century, we must reduce their number to ensure they don’t fall into the hands of dangerous and often unpredictable enemies.
He asked the audience and indeed, the nation, to remember the awful, destructive power of these weapons and in doing so, made his case:
Robert Oppenheimer famously lamented, after watching the first mushroom cloud erupt from a device he helped design, that he had become “the destroyer of worlds.”
Well, folks, President Obama's determined, I'm determined, Secretary Gates is determined, General Cartwright is determined, our entire government is determined that the destroyed world Oppenheimer feared must never become and will not become a reality. That's why we are pursuing the peace and security of the world without nuclear weapons.
