Are they for real?

If we go by their pronouncements, both Barack Obama and John McCain will represent a sea change from the current Administration when it comes to nuclear weapons.

In a speech July 16, Obama said that, if elected, he would "make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy." He was unequivocal. "It's time," he said, "to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons."

He has sounded this theme before. Last October, he proposed at a speech at DePaul University that the world rid itself of nuclear arms and that the United States set the course by sharply reducing its arsenal.

What is more surprising is that McCain also has good proposals on the subject, although he doesn’t go as far down the road as Obama. McCain advocated in a speech in May that the United States negotiate a treaty with Russia to eliminate tactical nuclear weapons from Europe and that it talk with China to halt the production of nuclear material. He also suggested revisiting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (which the Bush Administration has sidelined) and conferring with Russia about the two countries notifying each other on missile launches and sharing early warning data. He even invoked JFK and Reagan on the need to eliminate nuclear weapons, though he didn’t quite come out and say that he would do that himself if he were President.

Still, wow! Both the candidates are outlining far-reaching measures on such an important subject. So much so that John Isaacs, head of the Council for a Livable World, a progressive disarmament group, feels that there isn’t much difference between the two candidates on this issue. "We'll have major progress on nuclear issues no matter who is elected," he says.

What a contrast with the Bush Administration, with its dreadful record. The only achievement that it can claim (other than its belated negotiations with North Korea) is the lame Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty that it signed with Russia in 2002. Though the treaty mandates cuts in the strategic arsenals from 6,000 to roughly 2,000 by 2012, these weapons are not to be destroyed, but just kept in storage. And the treaty expires in 2012, unless both sides agree to extend it, meaning that there is a good chance that the stored weapons will be deployed back up again.

In its Nuclear Posture Review (the major policy statement on the subject of nuclear weapons), the Bush Administration, far from taking steps to get rid of its reliance on nuclear arms, revealed a more aggressive attitude in its willingness to utilize them. The Nuclear Posture Review recommended "greater flexibility" in using nuclear weapons and stated that they can be used to "hold at risk a wide range of target types." It even named seven countries as potential targets. A subsequent presidential directive said that the United States could retaliate with nuclear arms against a chemical or biological weapons attack, and that it could even strike against countries suspected of having nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

The Bush Administration abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in its futile search for a workable national missile defense shield. It showed few signs of starting global talks on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which would prohibit the manufacture of new fissile materials for nuclear weapons. It all but abandoned the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. And it blew a hole in global nonproliferation efforts when it made a special exception for India, agreeing to supply it nuclear technology and know-how despite India’s nuclear arsenal.

Obama and McCain both seem to signify a world of difference from the Bush Administration’s belligerent approach on nuclear weapons. Whoever is elected, we’ll need to hold him to his word on making the world a safer place.