Notes on a podcast

I listened to the following podcast:

Can we eliminate nuclear weapons?


Speaker: Ambassador Richard Burt, Kate Hudson, Professor Mary Kaldor, HM Queen Noor


This event was recorded on 20 November 2009 in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall is the time finally right to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons? Leading proponents of nuclear disarmament discuss why achieving Global Zero – a world without nuclear weapons – is both necessary and realistic.

Notes:

• We are no longer in the Cold War:
• Now conservatives as well as liberals are supporting the elimination of nuclear weapons.
• U.S. and Russia have agreed for the first time that the total elimination of nuclear weapons is a constructive goal. Both have about 10,000 weapons a piece (90 to 95 percent of the worlds stockpile)
• President Hu of has called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. China is calling for the U.S. and Russia to make deep cuts. This could lead to a sort of reverse domino effect. (U.S. and Russia --> China --> India and Pakistan, etc.)
• U.S. does not need nuclear weapons because it can depend on conventional weapons. This is different from the Cold War.
• The possibility of failed states present a greater threat than we had in the cold war. What if Pakistan, for example, were to be taken over by the Taliban?
• We cannot stay where we are. Either the countries that have nuclear weapons eliminate them or more countries will acquire them. Moreover, it may still be possible to move toward elimination now, but it is likely to be more and more difficult as the number of nuclear powers increase.
• It may be possible to hide nuclear weapons that have already been make but it is probably impossible to develop a nuclear program today without detection.