WMD Threats 2001: Critical Choices for the Bush Administration

Abstract

The George W. Bush Administration confronts a daunting array of challenges ensuing from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which pose grave threats to the United States at home and to its allies and friends abroad. Increasingly, national policies and international institutions designed to cope with WMD threats are being outpaced by technical and political changes that undermine the effectiveness of existing measures to reduce WMD risks. Moreover, domestic pressures in key states notably China, France, India, Russia, and the United States make it increasingly difficult to reach consensus and generate political will for effective collaboration against WMD proliferation. Fortunately, however, the new administration can rely in part upon the military alliances, diplomatic arrangements, and other political and economic instruments developed by the last ten U.S. presidents, who have labored since 1945 to constrain the spread of dangerous technologies in order to defend the United States and help construct a safer world...