John Edwards won some fans in the arms control community this week. During a Q&A session at the Council on Foreign Relations, the presidential candidate said he does not support building new nuclear weapons and wants to see a nuclear weapons free world. This is in stark contrast to the Bush administration, which is pushing for the development of new nuclear weapons through the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program and Complex 2030.
Here is what Edwards said:
... we should aspire to a nuclear-free world. I agree with that. Now, there are a lot of steps that have to go between here and there. Some of them are pretty obvious, which is America should not be building new nuclear weapons. And then I think America should be doing things like leading an international effort to close the holes in the NPT. There are clearly serious flaws in the NPT.As I reported here, the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee axed all funding for the RRW program last week. The Senate is next to look at RRW in June, and is expected to increase funding beyond the requested $88.8 million.
We, your faithful bloggers, will continue to provide in-depth analysis on the national security positions of the candidates as we move toward the 2008 elections. Stay tuned.
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