When the NAS had balls

AAAS’s blog ScienceInsider reported yesterday that Dr. John Holdren is about to be named as President Obama’s Science Advisor.

Prof. Holdren is a leading expert on nuclear non-proliferation and arms control.

In 1997, he chaired the National Academy of Sciences report “The Future of Nuclear Weapons Policy” which made recommendations that are as relevant today as they were then. This NAS report recommended:

· the adoption of a policy of minimum deterrence
· adoption of a no-first use policy
· taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert
· reducing U.S. and Russian nuclear forces to 1,000 total warheads
· and explored the issues related to reducing to a few hundred warheads.

Dr. Holdren summarized the findings and recommendations of the report in a 2005 Arms Control Today op-ed in which he noted the need to implement these important recommendations:

“The committee's advice has largely been ignored, however, first by the Clinton administration, which had no appetite for the internal battles that embracing the recommendations would have entailed, and then by the Bush administration, which appears untroubled by the logical disconnect between its expansive view of the role of U.S. nuclear forces and its expectation of nuclear restraint from everyone else … Notwithstanding the unfortunate fate of the 1997 recommendations to date, they continue to constitute a sensible blueprint for reducing the role of and dangers from nuclear weapons in the early 21st century”

and

“The status quo is not stable. If nuclear weapons roles and dangers are not deliberately and relentlessly made smaller, they will get bigger. The largest nuclear-weapon states must lead the way, not drag their feet. The United States and Russia have managed to dismantle thousands of nuclear warheads and delivery systems made obsolete by the end of the Cold War. Now it is time to get on with dismantling our equally obsolete nuclear weapons policies.”

Three cheers for Dr. Holdren’s appointment!