We believe the next two years offer a unique opportunity to build a new bipartisan consensus around a dramatically reduced role for nuclear weapons in US security policy and a renewed emphasis on building international institutions to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative seeks to empower President Obama to announce major revisions to US nuclear weapons policy that are valuable on their own merits and undertake a diplomatic campaign to strengthen international nonproliferation institutions based on the enhanced legitimacy that would arise from those dramatic changes.
Our project is organized around creating a draft Presidential guidance on nuclear weapons, along with a report that will outline the practical challenges associated with implementation. We have convened a ten-person bipartisan steering committee with individuals who have served in the Administration of every President since Lyndon Johnson. These individuals represent organizations including the Open Society Institute, Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Center for American Progress, College of William and Mary, and others.
Update - November 2010: This initiative is no longer active at the New America Foundation. Jeffrey Lewis, the founder and director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative, is now with the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
