Sen. Lugar keeps spotlight on nuclear reduction program

Congress added $80 million in additional funding to the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in December to continue the success of reducing nuclear weapons globally.\nThe program is a bipartisan initiative started by Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar at the end of the Cold War. It initially received only $12.9 million in 1992, but funding has now surpassed $6 billion. \nHowever, IU professor Sumit Ganguly, director of research for the Center on American and Global Security, put this in perspective when citing that the U.S. spends $35 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan each month.\n“This is small change,” Ganguly said. “It’s a very small cost to the taxpayer.”\nThe program was originally implemented after the breakup of the Soviet Union, when Russian generals came to the U.S. and asked for help to consolidate weapons spread across the various states of the former Soviet Union, said Mark Hayes, deputy press secretary for Lugar. \nThe program successfully gathered weapons from sites across the nation and stored them in fewer, more secure locations that were easier to monitor, Hayes said. In addition, it prevented seepage of nuclear technology into the wrong hands and provided opportunities for unemployed scientists. After the success in Russia, Lugar called for the expansion of the program to other countries. \n“Albania had chemical weapons and came to our country and said, ‘We didn’t know we have these; we don’t want them; we don’t want anyone else to get them. Can you help us destroy them?’” Hayes said. \nUkraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan are nuclear weapon-free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program. Those countries were the third, fourth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers in the world. \nThe program is currently working toward nuclear-reduction goals it set to be achieved by 2012. Hayes said the program has already met about 80 percent of the goals and is close on many others. Though Hayes acknowledged that these are significant achievements, he stressed the importance of keeping the program in the spotlight.\n“The threat is still there and there is still a long way to go,” Hayes said. “These programs, people forget about them or put them on the backburner. This is not one of those programs you want to do that with.”\nWhile the U.S. faces many problems, national security should be a top priority, Ganguly said. Reducing the amount of nuclear weapons present across the globe is necessary in securing the safety of not just U.S. citizens, but all free people. \n“Unchecked nuclear power in any country can be a threat,” said IU freshman Kaitlyn Esther. “Health care, social security and taxes no longer matter when the U.S. is exposed to nuclear power.”\nWith the current focus on the possible recession in the economy, legislators must assess all use of government funds. However, regardless of the economy, terrorists groups will still exist, Hayes said. The threat of nuclear weapons and terrorists won’t subside just because the economy is going down. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is one of the most dangerous threats to the country and requires continuous attention, he said.\n“The last thing we want is these weapons dispersed willy-nilly into the hands of unstable countries or terrorists,” Ganguly said. “Preventing the dispersion of this extremely dangerous technology into the wrong hands is definitely in our national interest, and something that should transcend this very tragic and deep partisan divide.”