Why are Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn writing opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons? 

Keep in mind, these four people are not just major defense hawks.  

People like Kissinger and Nunn helped push through the single most dangerous and destabilizing innovation in nuclear weaponry, the arming of missiles with multiple warheads.  

All four have supported every conflict the United States has engaged in since World War II, all have enthusiastically supported nuclear weapons, and none has suddenly gone kumbaya on us.  

When 181 nations signed the 1968 NPT they thought they were taking the first step toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.  

In short, they took the Treaty seriously. Article VI of the NPT, for instance, states: “Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measure relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international controls.” 

This is the heart of the NPT.  

The smaller countries agreed to forgo nuclear weapons only because the nuclear powers agreed to scrap theirs and, further, disarm their conventional forces.  

Instead, the Big Five increased the number of warheads in their arsenals and raised their military budgets.  

Finally, when they threatened non-nuclear countries with nuclear weapons, they were violating a 1978 addendum to the NPT (which was reaffirmed in 1995). 

President George W. Bush used such threats against Iraq, Syria, and the Sudan, and in 2006, former French President Jacques Chirac warned “states who would use terrorist means against us” risk a “conventional” response, but “it could also be of a different kind.” 

As for the section of Article VI that requires disarmament: the official U.S. military budget for fiscal 2009 will be $522 billion, but that figure doesn’t include nuclear weapons, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and a host of military programs in the State Department, Justice Department, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  

Excluding the interest we pay on past military debts ($207 billion), the real figure is $728 billion. 

Even using the faux $522 figure, however, U.S. military spending makes up 47% of the world’s total.  

Adds the military expenditures of our NATO allies and that figure jumps to 70%. 

In comparison, our “enemies” — Cuba, Syria, North Korea, Iran, and Sudan — make up one percent of the world’s arms spending. Iran, which President Bush calls the most dangerous country in the world, spends $5 billion on armaments, what one might find rummaging through the couch pillows at the Pentagon.  

Teheran’s entire budget would max out at 2.5 B-2 bombers. 

An Uncomfortable Conversation About Nukes