There is still some doubt how comprehensive this treaty will be, since some of the nuclear-weapons states hold out for permitting a threshold of small explosions (equal to 500 tons of TNT or less).
Mr Obama wants to show he is honouring the central bargain of the treaty: that the five nuclear-weapons states would disarm in return for a vow by other countries not to seek nuclear weapons.
Since then, the five acknowledged nuclear-weapons states - Russia, the U.S., France, China and Britain - have conducted more than a thousand tests, from the Australian desert (Britain in the 1950s) and the frozen wastes of Siberia's Novaya Zemlya to subterranean Polynesia, where on Sept. 5 France began its latest series of tests at Mururoa Atoll.
Consider carefully the demands of states that now possess nuclear weapons such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan for positive security guarantees from the United States as a condition for their joining the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states.
In fact, it is now indisputable that so-called "non-nuclear" weapons states can make "deadly progress" in acquiring and improving nuclear weapons without testing them.
Joint Resolution 255 which was adopted at the time the Non-Proliferation Treaty was submitted and which provides positive security assurances to the non-nuclear weapons states that accede to that treaty.
This is a new policy position, and it is at variance with the US pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states contained in the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But two decades later, North Korea has a small and possibly growing stockpile of nuclear weapons - and the United States no longer contemplates going to war to stop it.
It cuts -- by about a third -- the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia will deploy.
And we recognized the value of national negative security assurances -- assurances that the United States and other nuclear powers have made that we will not threaten -- use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against other state -- non-nuclear weapon states who are in full compliance with their NPT, nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
The controversy comes against the backdrop of President Obama's determination to pursue "a world without nuclear weapons" - and to have the United States lead toward that goal by exemplary restraint and disarmament.
After nearly a full year of negotiations, we completed an agreement earlier this year that cuts by a third the number of long-range nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles that the United States and Russia can deploy, while ensuring that America retains a strong nuclear deterrent, and can put inspectors back on the ground in Russia.
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In effect, more nuclear weapons states today threaten to use nuclear weapons in non-nuclear conflicts than was the case during the Cold War.
"The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action, " Bush said.
Likewise, the administration's declaration that it would not unleash nukes on non-weapons states that lived by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was criticised either for being unwise (because it curtailed deterrence against biological and chemical weapons), or misleading (because it is so full of loopholes that it does not curtail deterrence much at all).
North Korea says it is developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles as a deterrent to keep the United States or South Korea from attacking it first.
But nuclear weapons are not simply an issue for the United States and Russia -- they threaten the common security of all nations.
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As both the only nation to have used nuclear weapons, and as a strong proponent of non-proliferation, the United States has long embodied a stark but inevitable contradiction.
And the spread of nuclear weapons to more states is also an unacceptable risk to global security -- raising the specter of arms races from the Middle East to East Asia.
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The Jewish state is suspected of possessing a small atomic arsenal, but it has never officially admitted to having a nuclear-weapons program and is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (nuclear states India, Pakistan and North Korea have also declined to sign).
The non-proliferation treaty has been signed and ratified by the United States - it is committed legally to get rid of its nuclear weapons - yet its policies go quite against this.
The danger is not simply the prospect one or more of these rogue states' nuclear weapons could be used to destroy an American city - or perhaps an allied capital in the Mideast or Europe.
Russian leaders cannot bring themselves to believe repeated Western assurances that plans to defend Europe against nuclear missiles are aimed solely at irrational states with a handful of weapons (diplomat-speak for Iran), and are not meant to blunt the effectiveness of Russia's array of nuclear weapons.
Given the ease with which the Soviets could cheat on an agreement and the incentive they would have to do so (given the considerable vulnerability of the U.S. fleet to nuclear attack) the only realistic option is for the United States to deploy a modest number of effective nuclear weapons for anti-ship, submarine and aircraft purposes.
Kerry said in the debate that "It doesn't make sense" for "the United States to pursue a new set of nuclear weapons" including "bunker-busting" ones.
And the PLA should be denied the considerable espionage opportunities that arise from so-called military-to-military contacts and should no longer be able to acquire nuclear weapons-relevant supercomputers, missile technology, and other potentially deadly equipment from the United States.
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Since then, Libya has declared all of its nuclear and chemical weapons programs and embarked on a three-phase disarmament program in which the United States and Britain have removed the majority of WMD material, about 1, 032 metric tons, from the country.
If tyrants elsewhere around the world perceive that Saddam Hussein's possession -- or imminent acquisition -- of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction enabled him to stand up to the United States and the rest of the world, they presumably will feel a powerful impetus to follow his lead.
There should be no doubt - the United States and the international community are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Under the leadership of the IRGC, the Iranian regime has waged a low-intensity war on the United States for over 30 years, developing a clandestine nuclear weapons program, producing increasingly advanced ballistic missiles, and sponsoring acts of terrorism abroad.
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