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Nuclear Proliferation Is Still Greatest Existential Threat We Face: Valerie Plame Wilson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-plame-wilson/nuclear-proliferation-existential-threat_b_7118460.html
Looking Forward, Nuclear Proliferation Is Still Greatest Existential Threat We Face
Valerie Plame Wilson
Fmr. CIA covert operations officer
Posted: 05/13/2015
As a former covert CIA operative, specializing in counter-proliferation, I still believe that the spread of nuclear weapons and the risk of their use is the greatest existential threat we face. Twenty-six years after the end of the Cold War, the world still has more than 15,000 nuclear weapons. Whatever other issues people care about -- poverty, the environment, inequality and so many others -- if we don't get this one right, and soon, nothing else will matter.
We are at a crossroads on this issue and the decisions we make over the next 10 years will set us on a course either toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons or toward expanding arsenals and proliferation.
<snip>
A final agreement with Iran would verifiably prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb. It would negate a long-standing leading argument of opponents to Global Zero -- that Iran and countries like it would never agree to forgo nuclear weapons. And it provides a model -- multilateral negotiations and intrusive verification -- for pursuing global reductions in nuclear arsenals.
<snip>
At the same time, we need to focus on building a grassroots movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons. More than anything, we will need public pressure to get to zero.
Global Zero has been systematically laying the groundwork for such a movement for several years, educating and training students and establishing hundreds of campus chapters worldwide, assembling a first-rate team of campaigners and testing innovative new approaches to grassroots organizing. All of this is now being dramatically scaled up with the launch of the Global Zero Action Corps -- an exciting new initiative to build a large-scale and sustained global grassroots movement.
<snip>
Looking Forward, Nuclear Proliferation Is Still Greatest Existential Threat We Face
Valerie Plame Wilson
Fmr. CIA covert operations officer
Posted: 05/13/2015
As a former covert CIA operative, specializing in counter-proliferation, I still believe that the spread of nuclear weapons and the risk of their use is the greatest existential threat we face. Twenty-six years after the end of the Cold War, the world still has more than 15,000 nuclear weapons. Whatever other issues people care about -- poverty, the environment, inequality and so many others -- if we don't get this one right, and soon, nothing else will matter.
We are at a crossroads on this issue and the decisions we make over the next 10 years will set us on a course either toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons or toward expanding arsenals and proliferation.
<snip>
A final agreement with Iran would verifiably prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb. It would negate a long-standing leading argument of opponents to Global Zero -- that Iran and countries like it would never agree to forgo nuclear weapons. And it provides a model -- multilateral negotiations and intrusive verification -- for pursuing global reductions in nuclear arsenals.
<snip>
At the same time, we need to focus on building a grassroots movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons. More than anything, we will need public pressure to get to zero.
Global Zero has been systematically laying the groundwork for such a movement for several years, educating and training students and establishing hundreds of campus chapters worldwide, assembling a first-rate team of campaigners and testing innovative new approaches to grassroots organizing. All of this is now being dramatically scaled up with the launch of the Global Zero Action Corps -- an exciting new initiative to build a large-scale and sustained global grassroots movement.
<snip>