Nuclear Issues

Over the past two decades, enormous progress has been made in securing nuclear weapons and fissile materials, Will Tobey writes. Complacency, however, would be a grave, perhaps fatal error.

"...Germany has an opportunity at the Washington summit — and thereafter — to step up and lend non-American leadership to the problem. Recognizing that in many of the world's capitals the threat of nuclear terrorism is not yet being taken seriously, and when in some of them the very notion is even considered an American pretext for an entirely different, potentially hostile political agenda, non-American leadership is most urgently needed."

The 47 heads of state who will assemble in Washington next week for the world's first Nuclear Security Summit should focus like a laser beam on the biggest potential threat to civilization.