The New Arms Race

Nuclear weapons do nothing to protect us from 21st century threats. Yet the US government is planning to spend over $2 trillion during the next 30 years to rebuild its arsenal – plans that could push Russia, China and other countries to build even more nuclear weapons. In short, the world is on the brink of a new nuclear arms race that will only accelerate if current plans stay on track. 

Every dollar spent on re-building our arsenal is a dollar less for our true defense needs. We need to end wasteful nuclear programs and to realign our spending priorities with today’s threats.

Latest News and Analysis on the New Nuclear Arms Race

  • Reduce the US Nuclear Arsenal, with or without Russia

    Speaking in Berlin in 2013, President Barack Obama offered to reduce US deployed strategic nuclear forces to about 1,000 warheads, or one-third below the limits of the 2010 New START Treaty. This is sound policy, as the US military has determined that it can ensure the security of the United...

    November 15, 2016 - By Ploughshares Fund
  • Break with Cold War Thinking

    Dear 45th President, welcome to the White House. You now have an opportunity to make a lasting impact on national and international policy. But whatever your priorities may be — national security, education, immigration, the deficit or the environment — one issue can trump them all: nuclear...

    November 15, 2016 - By Ploughshares Fund
  • New Report: 10 Big Nuclear Ideas for the Next President

    President-elect Donald Trump will soon have to focus seriously on nuclear policy. With this in mind, Ploughshares Fund invited some of the best thinkers in the field to come up with ten bold ideas to help make America safer and more secure. ...

    November 14, 2016 - By Tom Collina
  • The Future of the Command and Control of Our Nuclear Weapons

    Right now the world faces two existential threats: climate change and nuclear weapons. While climate change gets a great deal of attention in the press, the grave danger posed by nuclear weapons is too often forgotten. And yet former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry argues that the risk of a...

    November 9, 2016 - By Ploughshares Fund
  • 10 Big Nuclear Ideas Launch Event

    We are releasing our new report, "10 Big Nuclear Ideas for the Next President" at an event you can watch on Facebook via livestream. At this event, Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 12:45pm ET / 9:45 am PT, you can see these ideas discussed...

    November 8, 2016 - By Ploughshares Fund
  • The UN Makes History on a Nuclear Weapons Ban. Does the US Care?

    This is the situation confronting proponents of the process begun October 27, when—by a vote of 123 for, 38 against, and 16 abstaining—the First Committee of the UN agreed “to convene in 2017 a United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons.”

    November 3, 2016 - By Joe Cirincione
  • Historic UN Vote on Banning Nuclear Weapons

    For the first time in its 71 years, the global body voted to begin negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. All nine nations with nuclear arms (the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) opposed the resolution. However, with a...

    October 27, 2016 - By Joe Cirincione
  • Beyond Clinton or Trump: Nuclear Weapons and Democracy

    In November, US citizens will head to the ballot box to elect a new president - yet among the American populace, the necessity of elections is increasingly up for debate. Data from the World Values Survey...

    September 27, 2016 - By Anonymous
  • Daryl Kimball Reddit AMA

    Arms Control Association director Daryl G. Kimball hosted an AMA (‘Ask me Anything’) session on Reddit, the 25th most visited web site in the world. Reddit’s AMA regularly features noteworthy individuals with unique expertise to take questions from...

    September 21, 2016 - By Derek Zender
  • It's Time to Retire the ICBM

    In January 2016, in an interview published by the Arms Control Association, William J. Perry, the US Secretary of Defense in the...

    August 2, 2016 - By Will Lowry