President Obama's misplaced nuclear priorities

The recent crisis in Ukraine highlights how important it is to work with our international partners to keep nuclear material safe and to ensure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Two decades ago, the US cooperated with Russia to remove nuclear weapons from Ukrainian soil - just imagine how different today's standoff might be if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons on its territory. Indeed, President Obama says that the fear of "loose nukes," or unsecured nuclear material, is what keeps him up at night.

But his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2015 tells a different story.

The President's budget makes major cuts to nonproliferation programs that curb threats like loose nukes. At the same time, it increases funding for nuclear weapons by hundreds of millions of dollars.

A recent Mother Jones article cites the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation's research on the troubling trends in the nuclear budget. Take a look at this chart, which illustrates how funding for nuclear weapons is going up - while funding for non-proliferation and nuclear security is going down:

Then, make sure you read the entire Mother Jones piece, which quotes the Center's James Lewis.

You might also be interested in:

• A fact sheet by Kingston Reif with more detail on the President's proposed budget for nonproliferation and nuclear security;
• Also by Kingston Reif, a column in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about how the crisis in Ukraine will affect the future of nuclear non-proliferation;
• To mark the 5th anniversary of President Obama's speech in Prague about his vision of a nuclear-free world, an analysis on Nukes of Hazard by Andrew Szarejko on how the President's nuclear agenda is progressing five years on.

Thank you for your interest in the Center's work.

Sincerely,

John Isaacs
Executive Director, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation