Obama's vision has turned into concrete victories

While most of us in DC saw nothing more of this week’s Nuclear Security Summit than clogged streets and backed up cars, the United States saw major progress in reducing the likelihood that nuclear weapons will ever fall into terrorist hands. President Obama has devoted a major portion of his presidency to dealing with the threat of nuclear proliferation – the Prague speech, successful meetings at the United Nations, new negotiations on arms reductions with Russia – but it is the last two weeks where Obama’s vision has turned into concrete victories.

First up was the long anticipated Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). The NPR highlighted the 21st century threat of nuclear terrorism and made it clear that the US will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states in good standing with their nonproliferation obligations, which served to further isolate outliers like Iran and North Korea.

Second on deck were the 23,000 nuclear weapons that still exist around the globe.  As a first step in tackling this, President Obama signed the New START treaty with Russia that will reduce excess nuclear weapons in the US and Russia, while leaving the US and its allies with a safe and robust deterrent.

The administration finished by hosting 47 world leaders at the Nuclear Security Summit.  Noting that nuclear terrorism is the gravest threat America faces, the US led the charge to lock down all the vulnerable nuclear material in the world.  There are already successes from the summit with Ukraine Argentina Chile and Mexico all committing to getting rid of their own nuclear materials, while the United States and Russia have agreed to get dispose of 68 metric tons of plutonium. That is enough material to build more than 17,000 nuclear weapons!

Indeed, without the benefit of outside-the-beltway accolades – let alone a widespread “reduce the nukes!” movement – Obama has laid out a pragmatic, strong nuclear policy roadmap that can revamp and revitalize the nonproliferation regime that has been on the edge of collapse for a decade.  Not too bad for a former community organizer.

Alexandra Bell is a Project Manager at the Ploughshares Fund, where she focuses on US nuclear weapons policy.