About the campaign 

Since taking office, the Bush administration has pursued an aggressive US nuclear weapons policy. Instead of moving toward a reduction in our stockpiles, the Bush administration has attempted to update and expand our nuclear arsenal, and expand US first strike options to include nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the risk of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands, and the possibility of accidental launches pose grave threats to the world.

We are now at a crossroads for nuclear weapons policy. In January of 2007, four unlikely figures took up the cause of nuclear abolition: former US Senator Sam Nunn, President Clinton’s Secretary of Defense, William Perry, President Reagan’s Secretary of State, George P. Shultz, and President Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. This “Gang of Four” has contributed to growing bipartisan momentum for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Congress has consistently cut funding for new nuclear weapons programs and the next administration is slated to reexamine US nuclear weapon’s policy.

The Peace Education Fund is seizing this window of opportunity to halt new nuclear weapons while laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive call for policies that favor nuclear disarmament. Using the momentum we create this year, we will encourage the new administration in 2009 to take proactive leadership towards a nuclear weapons free world and non-proliferation commitments. Our work contributes to the national Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World, which represents a wide variety of grassroots groups, religious groups, and advocacy organizations calling for the US to lead global efforts towards disarmament. The ad below is an example of this collaboration.

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