Slouching Towards Disarmament

Baker Spring / October 23, 2009

Secretary Clinton indicated in a speech at the U.S. Institute of Peace on Wednesday that the Administration’s efforts have been increasingly directed toward an arms control and non-proliferation agenda.

The Administration is hastily pursuing the ratification of a START follow-on treaty with Russia and, in addition, Secretary Clinton announced on Wednesday that the U.S. will reaffirm the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and commit to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT).

Clinton criticized the view held by some “pessimistic” experts that proliferation is inevitable and that the Administration’s proposals are futile. She admitted that their achievements may at times “seem incomplete and unsatisfying,” and that they may not be realized “in our lifetime or successive lifetimes,” but she proceeded nevertheless to articulate the hope that the world might possibly one day be persuaded to slouch towards disarmament if America takes the lead. (more…)