Here’s a suggestion that already has the support of more than 140 countries: Join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
As long as nuclear weapons are perceived as valuable, they will be coveted. As long as nuclear weapons exist, they will pose a threat to more than just the nations that have them. They threaten, as an August study in Nature Food pointed out, more than 5 billion people.
The strategy of the United States and its allies is to grant these weapons legitimacy and claim they are necessary for self-defense. That inspires others, including China, North Korea and possibly Iran, to follow suit and claim they are necessary for themselves.
Since the invention of the atomic bomb, various ideas have been floated on how to break this cycle, but none has proved successful. The only sure way to rid the world of the nuclear threat is to eliminate nuclear weapons for good.
That is what the TPNW is there to do. It includes timelines for weapons (and weapons production facilities) to be dismantled and destroyed and mandates support for victims of nuclear use and testing, and it has widespread global support.
As my organization said in its Nobel Peace Prize speech, the TPNW provides the path forward at a moment of growing global crisis.
It is time the United States, its allies and other nuclear-armed states engaged with the treaty and worked together to achieve true security through eliminating nuclear weapons.
Daniel Högsta, Geneva
The writer is interim executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
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