Disarmament Scenarios

Steps toward Abolition: De-alerting

Commission Recommendations on De-alerting

A variety of commissions, study groups, panels of experts, religious bodies, and other organizations have recommended de-alerting of the global nuclear arsenal. They have used differing terms and offered varied details, but the basic idea is similar. Our Archives contains recommendations from military leaders, civic sector advocates, commissions, and religious organizations prior to 2005. Here are some of them with an up-to-date listing.

Here is a sample.

The Canberra Commission (1996) recommended:

Taking nuclear forces off alert.
Removal of warheads from delivery vehicles.

The Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences (1997) called upon the United States and Russia to:

Eliminate the practice of maintaining nuclear forces on continuous alert status so that the launch sequence for nuclear weapons would require hours, days, or even weeks rather than minutes. Such a provision would have to be accompanied by reliable means of determining compliance.

The New Agenda Commission (1998) proposed:

Abandoning present hair-trigger postures by proceeding to de-alerting and de-activating their weapons.

The Tokyo Forum (1999) favored:

Zero nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.

The Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1999 issued “A Moral Call to Eliminate the Threat of Nuclear Weapons” pledging to make efforts to persuade the governments of the nuclear weapons states, among other things, to:

Remove all nuclear weapons from hair trigger alert status.

The 2000 Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty offered “13 Practical Steps” that included:

Concrete agreed measures to further reduce the operational status of nuclear weapons systems.

In 2004 the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches in a “Statement on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty” asked the nuclear weapon states to:

Permanently remove their nuclear weapons from high-alert status.

The 2004 General Conference of the United Methodist Church in a resolution on “Saying No to Nuclear Deterrence” called upon nuclear weapon states to:

Immediately take all nuclear weapons off alert by separating warheads from delivery vehicles and by other means.

In 2006 the 9th Assembly of the World Council of Churches reaffirmed its policy to have all nuclear weapon states

Remove their weapons from high alert status.

In a Wall Street Journal article (January 4, 2007) on “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons” George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn outlined steps that would include:

Changing the Cold War posture of deployed nuclear weapons to increase warning time and thereby reduce the danger of an accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon.