f all the threats to global security
and peace, the most dangerous
is the proliferation and potential
use of nuclear weapons. That’s
why, seven years ago in Prague, I
committed the United States to stopping
the spread of nuclear weapons and to
seeking a world without them. This vision
builds on the policies of presidents before
me, Democrat and Republican, including
Ronald Reagan, who said “we seek the
total elimination one day of nuclear
weapons from the face of the Earth.”
Thursday, I’ll welcome more than 50
world leaders to our fourth Nuclear Secu-
rity Summit to advance a central pillar of
our Prague Agenda: preventing terrorists
from obtaining and using a nuclear
weapon.We’ll review our progress, such as
successfully ridding more than a dozen
countries of highly enriched uranium and
plutonium. Nations, including the United
States, will make new commitments, and
we’ll continue strengthening the interna-
tional treaties and institutions that under-
pin nuclear security.
Given the continued threat posed by
organizations such as the terrorist group
we call ISIL, or ISIS, we’ll also join allies
and partners in reviewing our counterter-
rorism efforts, to prevent the world’s most
dangerous networks from obtaining the
world’s most dangerous weapons.
Beyond preventing nuclear terrorism,
we’ve made important progress toward
the broader vision I outlined in Prague.
First, we’re taking concrete steps toward
a world without nuclear weapons. The
United States and Russia remain on track
to meet our New START Treaty obligations
so that by 2018 the number of deployed
American and Russian nuclear warheads
will be at their lowest levels since the
1950s. Even as the United States maintains
a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal
to deter any adversary and ensure the se-
curity of our allies, I’ve reduced the num-
ber and role of nuclear weapons in our
national security strategy. I also have ruled
out developing new nuclear warheads and
narrowed the contingencies under which
the U.S would ever use or threaten to use
nuclear weapons.
Second, we’re strengthening the global
regime - including the Nuclear Non-Prolif-
eration Treaty - that prevents the spread of
nuclear weapons.We’ve succeeded in
uniting the international community
against the spread of nuclear weapons,
notably in Iran. A nuclear-armed Iran
would have constituted an unacceptable
threat to our national security and that of
our allies and partners. It could have trig-
gered a nuclear arms race in the Middle
East and begun to unravel the global non-
proliferation regime.
After Iran initially rejected a diplomatic
solution, the United States mobilized the
international community to impose sanc-
tions on Iran, demonstrating that nations
that fail to meet their nuclear obligations
will face consequences. After intense ne-
gotiations, Iran agreed to a nuclear deal
that closes every single one of its paths to
a nuclear weapon, and Iran is now being
subjected to the most comprehensive in-
spection regimen ever negotiated to mon-
itor a nuclear program. In other words,
under this deal, the world has prevented
yet another nation from getting a nuclear
bomb. And we’ll remain vigilant to ensure
that Iran fulfills its commitments.
Third, we’re pursuing a new framework
for civil nuclear cooperation so countries
that meet their responsibilities can have
access to peaceful nuclear energy. The in-
ternational fuel bank that I called for
seven years ago is now being built in Kaza-
khstan.With it, countries will be able to
realize the energy they seek without en-
riching uranium, which could be at risk of
diversion or theft.
Our progress notwithstanding, I’m the
first to acknowledge that we still have un-
finished business. Given its violations of
the INF Treaty, we continue to call on Rus-
sia to comply fully with its obligations.
Along with our military leadership, I con-
tinue to believe that our massive ColdWar
nuclear arsenal is poorly suited to today’s
threats. The United States and Russia -
which together hold more than 90 percent
of the world’s nuclear weapons - should
negotiate to reduce our stockpiles further.
The international community must re-
main united in the face of North Korea’s
continued provocations, including its re-
cent nuclear test and missile launches.
The additional sanctions recently im-
posed on Pyongyang by the U.N. Security
Council show that violations have conse-
quences. The U.S. will continue working
with allies and partners for the complete
and verifiable denuclearization of the Ko-
rean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.
More broadly, the security of the world
demands that nations – including the
United States – ratify the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty and conclude a new treaty
to end the production of fissile material
for nuclear weapons once and for all.
I said in Prague that achieving the secu-
rity and peace of a world without nuclear
weapons will not happen quickly, perhaps
not in my lifetime. But we have begun. As
the only nation ever to use nuclear
weapons, the United States has a moral
obligation to continue to lead the way in
eliminating them. Still, no one nation can
realize this vision alone. It must be the
work of the world.
We’re clear-eyed about the high hurdles
ahead, but I believe that we must never re-
sign ourselves to the fatalism that the
spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable.
Even as we deal with the realities of the
world as it is, we must continue to strive
for our vision of the world as it ought to
be.
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TheNext Steps InNuclear Security
As the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons, the United States has a moral obligation
to continue to lead the way in eliminating them
Opinion
News India Times
April 8, 2016
2
“The Silk Roads: A NewHistory of the
World” By Peter Frankopan, Bloomsbury
eter Frankopanmakes a com-
pelling case for replacing the usual
linear story of various (Western)
civilisations for an older and dy-
namic interplay of forces – eco-
nomic, cultural, military and
religious – across Asia, from the Mediter-
ranean to the Pacific, in shaping world his-
tory.
But it is not just the famed Silk Road of an-
tiquity that is his focus, but rather a series of
‘Silk Roads’ on “which flowed ideas, goods,
disease and death and empires were won
and lost”.
But the area they span – an expanse quite
close to what British academician Halford
Mackinder’s “Heartland” of the “World Is-
land” and American political scientist
Nicholas Spykman’s “Rimland” - has rarely
received the attention it merits.
As the author, an Oxford academician,
recalls when young, one of his most prized
possessions was a worldmap fromwhich
he hadmemorizedmany countries and
physical features but as a student, he grew
“uneasy about the relentlessly narrow geo-
graphic focus of my classes at school, which
concentrated solely on western Europe and
the United States and left most of the world
untouched”. Many of us, in various parts of
the world, may have correspondingly simi-
lar tales to relate and similar gaps that we
have been curious about.
But Frankopanmade an extensive effort
to assuage his curiosity - and the outcome
does not disappoint. In this masterful and
engrossing account, there is much to inform
and illuminate, and patterns we may have
never suspected are revealed – the connec-
tion between a Bengal famine and the
AmericanWar of Independence, between
the Taj Mahal and the Spanish empire in the
NewWorld, betweenWestern consumerism
and residual anti-Western sentiment in the
Middle East, as well as the first – much ear-
lier - appearance of trends like globalization
and of strategic choices currently bedev-
illing the world, like theWestern (particu-
larly American) penchant of striking
alliances with Islamists to tackle secular ad-
versaries.
All this andmuchmore is part of this
work’s broad and colorful pageant that
spans the era of Alexander the Great, who
Frankopan holds was not the “drunken ju-
venile thug” as some modern scholars dis-
miss himbut someone who genuinely tried
to co-opt traditions of conquered realms to
maintain control, to the Americans and
their misadventures in the Middle East from
the 1950s down to the present day. Adding
to the interest is a varied cast of rulers, sol-
diers, spies, merchants, explorers, religious
leaders, andmore fromnot only this re-
gion – and elsewhere.
Continued on page 12
Asia’sForgotten Impact InWorldHistory
By Vikas
Datta
P
