January 30, 2009

Daring To Disarm

The thing about nuclear weapons is, nobody can easily afford to make a mistake. Odds are, the more nuclear weapons people have, the more likely a mistake, and the more likely that a warhead, equipment, or know-how goes astray. On the other side of it, arguments about how to "win" a nuclear war remain implausible. So it's hard to see how these particular weapons are good for anything. Frankly, they're too dangerous to keep. But having built them, how do we get rid of them? For some deep insight I turned to Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr. (USA, ret.), Chairman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He's got a lot of sensible suggestions that should be relatively easy to implement, provided, of course, that some Republican Senators can agree to new, and renewed, nuclear arms control treaties. We also talk about NATO, Afghanistan, the General's early combat experience in Korea and Vietnam, and several other topics. It was very gracious of General Gard to take the time and I much appreciate it. Total runtime an hour and ten minutes. It's an honor to serve.