We need new arms control agreements
Lessons learned by JFK and Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis, about the importance of diplomacy and open communication between nuclear superpowers, produced the first nuclear arms treaty. Continued diplomatic efforts subsequently produced agreements to limit missile defense and intermediate range missiles. Now, all but one of those treaties are gone — abrogated unilaterally by us. As a result, the world is less safe than at any time since the crisis.
Lessons about the necessity of dialogue and diplomacy to prevent nuclear war have been discarded and forgotten by the U.S. Terms like “evil” and “war criminal” are routinely applied to Russia and to its leader, Vladimir Putin, when they could as easily apply to our own. Disparaging and over-heated rhetoric from ideologues like Lindsay Graham is intended to prevent diplomacy before it happens, or wreck it after the fact. Only open communication between Russia and the U.S. can prevent miscalculations or mistakes that lead to nuclear war.
Most arms control experts believe the use of even one nuclear weapon in a regional war would soon escalate to a wider war. And in that event, all of human civilization could be wiped out in a matter of hours. It is vitally important that the U.S. initiate new arms control agreements to reduce the threat of nuclear war. As a sign of good faith, the U.S. should stop the flow of weapons to both Ukraine and Israel, and begin work to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone.