This Proliferation Roundtable assessed the potential for de-alerting Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals, and offered perspectives on the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review in advance of the State of the Union Speech. The panel also considered the connection between terrorism and nuclear weapons on high-alert.

Panel:
Vladimir Semyonovich Belous, Ph.D., Leading Research Associate of the Institute of International Economy and Foreign Relations (IMEMO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor of the Military Sciences Academy, Major General (Ret.), Veteran of Soviet Union's elite nuclear-strike forces.

Alexander Pikayev - Director of the IMEMO Non-Proliferation and Arms Reduction Center, Russian Academy of Sciences; a military analyst with Carnegie Moscow; Assistant State Duma Deputy.

Dr. Bruce Blair - President of the Center for Defense Information, former Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, former Minuteman ICBM launch control officer, and founding board member of Back From the Brink.

Chair:
Dr. Arjun Makhijani - President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, and founding board member of Back From the Brink. An expert on nuclear weapons issues, he has served as consultant to the Tennessee Valley Authority, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and several agencies of the United Nations.

Additional Resources

"De-Alerting Russian-U.S. Nuclear Forces and the Path to Lowering the Nuclear Threat" by Project Leader Alexander Pikayev in cooperation with the Institute of Global Economics and International Relations and the Back From the Brink Campaign, October 31, 2001.

"Short Fuse to Catastrophe: The Case for Taking Nuclear Weapons Off Hair-trigger Alert" A joint report of the Back from the Brink Campaign and the Project for Participatory Democracy, February 2001. (pdf file, requires Adobe Acrobat)

Back from the Brink a Campaign to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger altert.