My Blog Posts

• Resources for 2009-2010 College Debate on Nuclear Weapons
  09/15/2009 04:40:42 PM EST
  For the 2009-2010 school year, the college debate topic is on nuclear weapons. The resolution states:

  Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal, and/or substantially reduce and restrict the role and/or missions of its nuclear weapons arsenal.

  To help debaters prepare, we put together a resource guide to background materials, publications, and organizations. Access the guide here. Included is information on START; force posture; CTBT; cost; blast effects; Iran; missile defense; NPT; North Korea; public opinion; scientific and technical skills; stockpiles; U.S. policy; a world free of nuclear weapons; and much more.
• Statement on Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy
  08/27/2009 12:15:23 PM EST
  Council for a Livable World and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation mourn the passing of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). For many years, Kennedy was a leader of progressive causes, including the Council’s core mission of the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. In 2007, the Council and Center honored Kennedy by awarding him the second annual Father Robert F. Drinan Peace and Human Rights award. The first recipient of the award was Father Drinan himself. Kennedy was a leader in the movement to end the Vietnam War. In the 1980s, he rallied opposition to America’s involvement in conflicts in Central America. In recent years he has been the leader of opposition to the war in Iraq, first taking a bold stand against launching the invasion and then leading efforts to begin a responsible withdrawal. Kennedy called his vote against the authorization of the use of force in Iraq “the best vote I've made in my 44 years in the United States Senate.” Kennedy was also a prominent advocate of nuclear disarmament. In 1982, he and Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR) introduced the Nuclear Freeze Amendment, which called for a verifiable and mutual nuclear weapons freeze between the United States and the Soviet Union. Though the amendment was not passed, the popular support it received resulted in the eventual negotiation and ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Following a trip to Russia in 1986, Kennedy relayed to President Reagan that the Soviets were willing to negotiate a separate treaty on nuclear weapons in Europe. This resulted in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. During the Clinton administration, Kennedy led the fight for ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Though this fight was unsuccessful, President Obama has promised to resubmit the treaty for approval in 2010. The youngest son in a family of political icons, Edward Kennedy’s life and work dominate the political history of the second half of the 20th century. We dedicated ourselves to the fulfillment of his dream of a world at peace, free of the terrible danger of nuclear weapons.
• Video: Sestak Endorsement
  08/21/2009 09:39:15 AM EST
  At a press conference yesterday in Philadelphia, Council for a Livable World board member Brig. Gen. John Johns (USA, ret.) appeared alongside Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA) to announce the Council’s endorsement of Sestak for the Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Here’s the video:
• Council Featured in NY Times on Evolution of Obama’s Nuclear Policies
  07/06/2009 09:18:25 AM EST
  Yesterday, the New York Times ran a 2,600-word front page article that explored the evolution of President Obama’s thinking about nuclear weapons. Council for a Livable World was featured prominently in the article for our endorsement of Obama in his 2004 Senate race. Here are the four paragraphs about us:

  But in 2003 Mr. Obama began his unlikely campaign for the United States Senate and answered a detailed questionnaire from the Council for a Livable World, an advocacy organization in Washington that evaluates candidates on arms control issues.

  “He opposes building a new generation of nuclear weapons,” the organization said in a fund-raising letter supporting Mr. Obama’s candidacy. At the time, the Bush administration had proposed developing nuclear arms that could shatter deeply buried enemy bunkers.

  “The United States has far more nuclear weapons than it needs,” the organization quoted Mr. Obama as saying, “and any attempt by the U.S. government to develop or produce new nuclear weapons only undermines U.S. nonproliferation efforts around the world.”

  The organization said Mr. Obama also supported an American-financed effort to secure Russian nuclear arms, as well as ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, still in limbo two decades after Mr. Obama wrote about it.

• Poll Shows Support for Obama’s Nuke Policies, But...
  05/22/2009 12:01:45 PM EST
  On Tuesday, May 19, a new Democracy Corps poll was released by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. The poll included an in-depth examination of the American public’s views on the nuclear weapons policies of President Obama. Key findings from the poll ought to be taken into consideration by political activists and policy analysts. The words we use to talk about the issues we care about can have an enormous impact on public opinion. The poll shows that while there is widespread support for Obama’s nuclear policies, Americans harbor doubt about the “nuclear weapons free world” formulation. This formulation, which is extremely popular among disarmament activists, may not always be the best way to communicate with the public at large unless it is made clear that we want to “take steps on the path” to a world without nukes. If it appears at all like we are talking about unilateral U.S. disarmament, the American public gets freaked out and may reject things such as the START follow-on treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Were such failures to occur, we would never forgive ourselves if the root cause was that we were not willing to vary our message depending on our audience.