A Conservative Case Against Nuclear Weapons

The desire for the United States to abandon its nuclear weapons is one that is most often associated with the far left. Yet lately a number of fairly prominent conservatives appear to be reaching the same conclusion. Last year, for example, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons”:

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) envisioned the end of all nuclear weapons. It provides (a) that states that did not possess nuclear weapons as of 1967 agree not to obtain them, and (b) that states that do possess them agree to divest themselves of these weapons over time. Every president of both parties since Richard Nixon has reaffirmed these treaty obligations, but non-nuclear weapon states have grown increasingly skeptical of the sincerity of the nuclear powers.