President Obama's visit to Hiroshima this morning was a piece of history. He rose to the occasion in his remarks, speaking eloquently not only of the need to eliminate nuclear weapons but also questioning the institution of war itself, all with a clear focus on the devastating human consequences of armed conflict. Now the President must use the visit as a starting point for taking concrete steps that will hasten the creation of a world free of nuclear weapons. He has eight months left to make a difference.
Regardless of what one thinks about the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we should all be able to agree that these awful weapons should never be used again. Conservative estimates put the number of people killed and wounded as a result of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima at over 140,000. The full death count may never be known.
A use of a nuclear weapon today could have even worse consequences than the Hiroshima attack, in part due to the superior explosive power of today's bombs and in part due to the population density in some of the potential target cities. As Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund has pointed out, the current U.S. arsenal has 22,000 times the destructive power of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. And a December 2013 study by Physicians for Social Responsibility found that a "limited" nuclear war in South Asia could disrupt the climate and spark a "nuclear famine" that could put two billion people at risk of starvation.
President Obama started strong in his efforts to curb the nuclear danger. In his April 2009 speech in Prague - just three months into his presidency - he called for "the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." The President followed up his words with action by negotiating the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia and the initiating a series of global summits on the subject of how to keep nuclear bomb-making materials out of the hands of terrorists and other groups or nations that might seek to acquire and use them.
More recently, President Obama and U.S negotiators deserve credit for helping to craft a multilateral agreement that will limit Iran's nuclear program. Contrary to the rhetoric of the agreement's detractors, the deal has already achieved a great deal. Iran has reduced its stockpile of highly enriched uranium - one possible fuel for a nuclear bomb - by 98%. The Iran deal can be expected to accomplish even more moving forward. It is far preferable to running the risk of another Mideast war, an option that many of the deal's opponents advocated.
That's the positive side of President Obama's nuclear scorecard. Unfortunately, in many respects his early commitment to nuclear arms reductions has lagged. Part of this has to do with the loss of a willing partner in Russia. But there are things the president could have done - and can still do - to help keep nuclear weapons reductions on the global agenda.
For starters, the President could invest more in nonproliferation programs, which are designed to lock up or destroy loose nuclear bombs and nuclear materials. He could also pledge to take long-range nuclear-armed missiles off of hair trigger alert, as a way to reduce the possibility of an accidental nuclear exchange.
In addition, the President could reduce current deployed nuclear weapons by at least one-third, a figure that even the Pentagon admits would leave the United States with more than enough weapons to deter a nuclear attack. Independent studies have gone further. An analysis by Gary Schaub and James Forsyth, of the Air War College and School of Advanced Air and Space Studies respectively, asserts that an arsenal of just 311 nuclear weapons would be enough to deter a nuclear attack on the United States. Instead we over fifteen times that amount.
President Obama can also embrace the global effort to focus attention on the dire humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, an initiative his administration has so far dismissed.
Finally, President Obama could put the ill-conceived $1 trillion effort to build and operate a new generation of nuclear-armed bombers, submarines, and land-based missiles on hold. In particular, he should cancel the dangerous and unnecessary program to build a new air-launched nuclear-armed cruise missile. The President should also pause the costly initiative to build new nuclear warheads and bomb-making facilities. These efforts have more to do with institutional inertia than they do with fulfilling the defense needs of the country. In fact, by signaling that the United States is prepared to build nuclear weapons ad infinitum, this expensive buildup threatens to spark a new nuclear arms race that could be even more dangerous than the one that was conducted during the Cold War.
The ball is in the President's court. Will he go beyond words to outline new agenda for nuclear disarmament? Or will he let this historic opportunity pass, to the detriment of our safety and the safety of our children and grandchildren?
William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.