Earlier this week, President Obama met with more than forty of the world’s leaders to launch a new global effort to prevent nuclear terrorism. To discuss the threat of nuclear war, Jonathan Schell, Nation Institute fellow and author of "Reaching Zero," is a guest on the Brian Lehrer Show with David Hoffman, Foreign Policy contributing editor and winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for his book The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy.
As Hoffman alludes to the end of the cold war between the United States and Russia, Schell responds that US nuclear strategy is out of step with reality. "In other words, there’s a compete lack of connection between the strategic reality of aiming," he says. "Even after the START treaty, it will be 1550 nuclear war heads at one another…. Our weaponry and even our nuclear strategy of mutually assured destruction which survives to this day is completely out of synchronization with the geopolitical reality." Although it may seem as if the non-nuclear proliferation movement is at a standstill, Schell is somewhat optimistic, as President Obama moves slowly toward fulfilling the dream of a world without nuclear weapons.
–Clarissa Léon
