On Feb. 5, the New START Treaty regulating nuclear weapons arsenals and other relevant transparency agreements was allowed to expire, with nothing to replace. For the first time in over fifty years, there is no regulatory framework between the nuclear capabilities of the world’s two largest nuclear superpowers.
The same day, independent presidential candidate Diane Sare held a press conference, titled “For a New, New START,” where she and others discussed the strategic crisis the world faces, and laid out a pathway for how the world can get out of it. Talk show host Garland Nixon moderated the event, which also featured arms control expert Scott Ritter, who was the first American weapons inspector on the ground in the Soviet Union as part of the American INF Treaty verification team in 1988. The event took place over Zoom and fielded questions from around the world.
The event marked a significant display of moral courage, not only in addressing the importance arms control agreements hold for the sake of world peace, but also in terms of the higher vision required to elevate mankind’s thinking if we hope to overcome the childhood disease of war itself.
