"...[A] primary goal in the next decades must be to remove this risk of near global self-destruction by drastically reducing nuclear forces to a level where this outcome is not possible, but where a deterrent value is preserved — in other words, to a level of minimum deterrence. This conception was widely discussed in the early years of the nuclear era, but it drowned in the Cold War flood of weaponry. No matter how remote the risk of civilization collapse may seem now — despite its being so vivid only a few decades ago — the elimination of this risk, for this century and centuries to come, must be a primary driver for radical reductions in nuclear weapons."

"Can nuclear strategy and morality be compatible....[and] can initiating the use of nuclear weapons ever be morally justified?"" asks Harvard University's Nuclear Study Group in a Christian Science Monitor op-ed released.

Writing in response to an op-ed published in the New York Times by Jeremy T. Stone, director of the Federation of American Scientists, Paul Doty, speaking on behalf of his F.A.S. colleagues, writes that "we do not believe that the goal of SALT, as purported by Stone, is the SALT process itself. We Believe that the objective of any SALT agreement must be the enhancement of security through progress in limiting strategic weapons. We are less concerned that the failure to ratify the SALT II treaty might have damaging effects of the SALT process than we are concerned that a failure to ratify will be an irreparable setback to the goal of getting the dangerous strategic arms race under control."

Defending SALT II against “the increasingly familiar catalog of half-truths and flawed analyses by which many hardliners are seeking to frighten Americans, defeat SALT and inaugurate a military buildup far beyond our needs,” Paul Doty, founder of the Belfer Center, argues that “perhaps the most underappreciated feature of SALT II is the agreement...to limit the number of warheads per missile to the maximum number thus far tested on that type of missile. This reduces by more than half the number of weapons the Soviets could eventually have mounted on the ICBM’s and by doing so makes protective measures, such as multiple aim point systems for our own ICBM’s, possible.

"Perhaps the most underappreciated feature of SALT II is the agreement recently reported to limit the number of war-heads per missile to the maximum number thus far tested on that type of missile," Belfer Center founder Paul Doty writes in a Washington Post op-ed. "This reduces by more than half the number of weapons the Soviets could eventually have mounted on their ICBMs, and by doing so makes protective measures such as multiple aim point systems (MAPS) for our own ICBMs possible."

"To speak of the community of science and the search for peace at this moment of history may seem anachronistic, if not actually pretentious. To many people, external suspicions and internal doubts seem to have robbed science of the self-confidence and sense of purpose that have given it the coherence of a community. To all who have for years striven to end the Vietnam War, the suggestion that peace requires only a search may seem empty and superficial," writes Paul Doty, founder of the Belfer Center, a biological scientist and proponent of international peace and security, "To contest these points and give substance to this title requires our stepping back into a larger frame of time and freeing ourselves from some of these moods of the moment"

“The passage from one millennium to the next is a powerful stimulus to reflect on our most vital problems. Top of the list must be the legacy that this century bequeaths to the next and to the millennium beyond — the risk that the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons left over from the Cold War will bring an end to civilization,” warns Belfer Center founder Paul Doty writing in Nature magazine. “While many informed people felt this threat during the Cold War, a sense of relief from imminent danger has been the hallmark of the first post-Cold War decade. As the concern over a global apocalypse has subsided it has been replaced by the threat of the use of one or a few weapons by accident, by terrorists or by ‘rogue’ nations.”

"Not since Franklin Roosevelt's draft law cleared the House of Representatives by one vote in the summer of 1941 had a President been put to so stern a challenge by Congress on a major question of national defense," Paul Doty writes. "Richard Nixon had staked his prestige on a no-compromise commitment to the view that a beginning on the Safeguard anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) system was " absolutely essential" to America's security. Precisely half the U.S. Senate said he was wrong. In the showdown last week, Mr. Nixon won . . . . But the hairbreadth margin of his victory--51 to 50 on the critical test vote—put the President and the military on notice that their will in defense matters, unchallenged for a generation, would no longer pass without question."