L'avenir des armes nucléaires

Christophe Soulé discusses the development of the American stance on this issue, based upon the ideas of Richard Garwin, for many years a strong supporter of arms control. In particular, he demonstrates how far the Republicans (and, above all, the administration of George W. Bush) tend to renege on agreements signed in earlier decades to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons. Not only is there no longer any question of negotiating a new reduction of weapons at global level, the nuclear armaments already subject to an agreement will not after all be destroyed but simply “put on standby”.
Moreover, this new strategic stance is declared unilaterally and without consultation -as is more and more often the case. However, this could well boomerang: the US, by depriving itself of one of the few means of negotiating a reduction in nuclear proliferation, Soulé argues, will be putting its own security at risk.