We believe an important space in the Nuclear abolition discourse has been opened by the coming into force of the landmark Treaty for The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on January 22, 2021. The opening has been further widened by the evident increase in risk from military escalations worldwide, many of them directly resulting from the harmful U.S. foreign policy of “full spectrum dominance.”
This combined with other destabilizing actions have enhanced the public’s recognition globally that, whether by design, miscalculation or accident, the probability of a nuclear weapon’s being detonated is no longer a statistical question of whether, but only of when. The presence of the nuclear arsenals, and the severely damaged treaty limits, mean that even with a more savvy president, unless major changes in the international, and especially the US, dialog occur immediately, such an event becomes inevitable.
We choose to begin the campaign with what we judge to be the most achievable public policy: a congressional resolution coupled with a presidential statement that the United States will never be a “First Strike” or First Use country.
“Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change.” — John Mecklin for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
People created nuclear weapons and designed the systems governing their use — and people can work to eliminate them.
As residents of, by far, the biggest military power in the world, we must continually press our leaders to take the actions necessary to ensure nuclear weapons are never used again, and to negotiate in good faith the global elimination of these most devastating weapons of mass destruction.
As the only country to use nuclear weapons in conflict, the United States has a moral obligation to lead the world in ending this threat and to remember all those who were harmed in their detonation, testing and development.
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