Prevention Is the Only Cure

We were looking forward to seeing many of you in person today, the original date for our 2020 Annual Meeting. While the immediate focus of the world's attention is, appropriately, on the national and global response to COVID-19 pandemic, the many weapons-related challenges we work on with your support have not gone away.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas noted at a virtual conference held earlier this month, "While we are fighting against the coronavirus, we must not neglect our work on other global issues. Arms control and disarmament are crucial for global peace and stability."

Here at the Arms Control Association, our team continues to work hard to defend, reinforce, and build up the arms control and disarmament measures that help protect us all from the world’s most dangerous weapons.

When it comes to these weapons, mitigation and vaccines are not an option. Prevention is the only cure.

• Earlier this month, in op-eds published in Just Security and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists we drew attention to the importance of extending New START. A new Q&A video short summarizes the case for the treaty’s extension and the actions you can take. On April 29, we will host a briefing for the press and the public on the future of New START with the former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the chief negotiator of the treaty.
   
• We are working with former senior officials, members of Congress, and key U.S. allies to push back on the administration’s possible withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty.
   
• The NPT Review Conference has been postponed, likely into 2021. We are collaborating with several other NGOs to put together a joint statement May 11, the 25th anniversary of the decisions leading to the indefinite extension of the treaty. We continue to encourage key states to work together on a common action plan to fulfill key nuclear disarmament goals and objectives. 

We invite our Arms Control Association members and friends to stay informed and engaged through online conversations and briefings in the days, weeks, and months ahead, including our special Zoom video call for members May 6 (see details below) and a virtual annual meeting this fall.

And, if you can, we hope you will consider making a financial contribution to the Arms Control Association because our work does depend on your support. 

Thank you and stay safe,

Daryl G. Kimball,
Executive Director

Members Video Call on New Global Challenges

SAVE THE DATE: May 6 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time (via Zoom Meeting)

The COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping thinking about national security and geopolitics. Understanding these changes is crucial to how we—as advocates, analysts, educators, and concerned citizens—respond.

Arms Control Association members are invited to join a video briefing and discussion with Colin Kahl, the former National Security Advisor to Vice President Joseph Biden, who is now co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

All members will receive a separate email invitation to register for the Zoom meeting event. If you are not currently a member and would like to join the video call, we invite you to become a member of the Arms Control Association today.

Questions? Please contact [email protected] or 202-463-8270 x105.

New Q & A Video Series Launches

This month, the Arms Control Association rolled out its first of a planned series of video shorts featuring our staff experts and board members answering questions regarding timely arms control challenges. In our inaugural video, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy Kingston Reif answered questions on “New START at 10 Years.”

The Newest Member of the Board of Directors

The Arms Control Association welcomes Lilly Adams as our newest elected member of the board of directors.

Lilly works to foster public support and advocacy for policies to reduce nuclear weapons risk, such as a no-first-use policy. She also works with nuclear front-line communities (those who have been directly harmed by nuclear weapons production and testing) to seek justice for the health, environmental, and cultural harms they face from U.S. nuclear weapons activities.

Lilly is currently an outreach consultant with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program. As a 2019 grantee of the Ploughshares Fund Women’s Initiative, Lilly led a project to establish a database of organizations in nuclear front-line communities to establish connections among such communities across the United States and to amplify issues of nuclear justice. Lilly is a 2019 alumna of IGCC’s Public Policy and Nuclear Threats Boot Camp at the University of California - San Diego, and previously ran the anti-nuclear weapons program at Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility.

In Case You Missed It...

• Our dedicated website on U.S. Nuclear Excess was cited in William Hartung's op-ed in Defense News, "Now isn't the time to push for nuclear modernization," April 21, 2020.
• Executive director Daryl Kimball discussed the need for CTBT ratification in the Wall Street Journal, "Possible Chinese Nuclear Testing Stirs U.S. Concern," April 15, 2020.
• Director for disarmament policy Kingston Reif and research assistant Shannon Bugos authored an op-ed, "Extend New START—The World Can't Afford a U.S.-Russia Nuclear Arms Race Too," for Just Security, April 10, 2020.
• Kimball’s oped "Prevent the outbreak of another global security threat. Extend New START," appeared in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, April 8, 2020.
• Kimball was quoted in a story in The Guardian, April 5, 2020, "Trump administration determined to exit treaty reducing risk of war." 
• Shannon Bugos and fellow research assistant Julia Masterson updated factsheets on U.S. and Russian nuclear strategic forces under the status of chemical and biological weapons, and the nuclear and missile diplomacy with North Korea.
• Kimball noted to TASS that "Russia, US halt inspections under New START due to coronavirus outbreak," March 29, 2020.
• In a new Issue Brief, Reif described how the U.S. nuclear weapons budget is a "ticking budget time bomb," March 18, 2020.
• Reif described in The National Interest how current U.S. missile defenses aren't capable of defending against hypersonic glide vehicles, March 6, 2020.
• Director for nonproliferation policy Kelsey Davenport and Kimball describe the Risks and Realities of Extending the UN Arms Embargo on Iran in a March 5 Issue Brief.
• Kimball questioned the choice of Marshall Billingslea as a special envoy for nuclear talks in The Guardian story "Trump picks official involved in Bush-era torture program as his nuclear envoy," March 4, 2020.
• Reif offered alternatives to the administration's nuclear spending plans in "The two most controversial national security items in Trump's new budget," in Vox, February 10, 2020.

In Memoriam: Aron Bernstein (1931-2020)

It is with sadness that we note the death of Aron Bernstein, professor emeritus of physics and longtime anti-nuclear weapons activist, and a loyal friend and member of the Arms Control Association. He died Jan. 14 after a short battle with cancer. He was 88.

Aron earned his Ph.D. in 1958 and joined the faculty at MIT in 1961 where he taught and conducted research for 40 years. He was also active with the Council for a Livable World, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Federation of American Scientists.

From the beginning to the end of his career, he recognized and acted upon the connection between his professional work and global threats. For example, according to MIT News, in 1969, Bernstein helped form the Union of Concerned Scientists and participated in its “Scientists Strike for Peace,” which disrupted research and classes to protest U.S. and MIT involvement in the Vietnam War. The strike led MIT to end its association with a U.S. Department of Defense contractor. His work in the nuclear arms control, disarmament, and peace field continued for decades more.

“Aron was one of those rare beings — a thoughtful scholar, a good and cheerful person, and someone who worked with a lightness of being to make the world a better place,” said Jim Walsh, a senior research associate in MIT’s Security Studies Program.