No nuclear weapons. Why not?

Letters to the editor by several Ploughshares grantees appeared in the New York Times rebutting Philip Taubman’s recent piece that questioned the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. Bill Hartung of the New America Foundation commented, “Nuclear weapons serve no military purpose, and the use of even one — whether intentionally or by accident — would cause unparalleled destruction. That is why their elimination is being demanded not only by a growing roster of former diplomats, but by former secretaries of defense and retired generals as well.”

Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association suggested that Taubman “should have stressed that the nuclear weapon states’ lackluster progress in meeting their Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty commitments on disarmament has eroded the willingness of the other states to fulfill their obligations to help strengthen the treaty.” In a similar vein, Peter Weiss and Elizabeth J. Shafer of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy add that Taubman’s article neglects to mention that “a major cause of this stalemate has been the continuing lack of compliance by the United States, and the other nuclear weapon states, with the obligation of Article VI of the treaty to negotiate in good faith toward complete nuclear disarmament.”

They conclude that President Obama’s assurances of his dedication to a nuclear-free world constitute “a significant change from the past.”