Getting to Zero Timeline: 2007

December 20, 2007: U.S. Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation, Christopher Ford, spoke at the UK Foreign Office Wilton Park conference about the goal of zero nuclear weapons:

“So this is where we are today, with the United States engaged in broad diplomatic outreach efforts and ongoing dialogue not just about numbers, doctrine, and treaty interpretation, but also about our vision for the future – and about how one might actually hope to achieve nuclear disarmament. The United States has reaffirmed its commitment to disarmament, offered a vision of a zero-weapons future, and engaged in unprecedented discussion of how actually to achieve this.” [emphasis added]

The full text of Ford’s presentation may be found here. He also delivered a presentation on “Nuclear Disarmament and the ‘Legalization’ of Policy Discourse in the NPT Regime,” at an event hosted by The Nonproliferation Review on November 29 in Washington, DC.

December 19, 2007: U.S. President George Bush announces a reduction by 15 percent in the active US nuclear weapons arsenal, which is scheduled to be completed by 2012.

December 5, 2007: U.N. General Assembly adopts numerous resolutions related to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. One resolution calls for the Conference on Disarmament to begin negotiations toward a ban on the production of military fissile materials and also calls on members to make deep cuts to nuclear weapons arsenals, with the overall goal of elimination. Another resolution calls on members to decrease the operational readiness of their nuclear weapons.

November 9, 2007: A new poll, conducted in the United States and Russia, finds robust support for a series of cooperative steps to reduce nuclear dangers and move toward the global elimination of nuclear weapons.

November 1, 2007: U.N. General Assembly’s disarmament committee approved a resolution calling for all nuclear weapons to be taken off high alert, despite objections from the United States, Britain and France.

October 28, 2007: Russia and the United States urge all countries to destroy medium range nuclear-capable missiles, in a joint declaration published by the Russian foreign ministry.

October 24, 2007: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Nuclear Disarmament Remarks, Hoover Institution, California.

June 25, 2007: Keynote Address: A World Free of Nuclear Weapons?, Remarks by Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, United Kingdom, Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference.

January 31, 2007: The Nuclear Threat, Mikhail Gorbachev, Wall Street Journal

January 4, 2007: A World Free of Nuclear Weapons, George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn, Wall Street Journal.

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