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And yet I believe we do have a strong and solid basis for hope. Our attempts to
deal with weapons of mass destruction in the last century provide a shining
example of relinquishment for us to consider: the unilateral US abandonment,
without preconditions, of the development of biological weapons. This
relinquishment stemmed from the realization that while it would take an
enormous effort to create these terrible weapons, they could from then on easily
be duplicated and fall into the hands of rogue nations or terrorist groups.
The clear conclusion was that we would create additional threats to ourselves by
pursuing these weapons, and that we would be more secure if we did not pursue
them. We have embodied our relinquishment of biological and chemical weapons
in the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the 1993 Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC).12
As for the continuing sizable threat from nuclear weapons, which we have lived
with now for more than 50 years, the US Senate's recent rejection of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty makes it clear relinquishing nuclear weapons will
not be politically easy. But we have a unique opportunity, with the end of the
Cold War, to avert a multipolar arms race. Building on the BWC and CWC
relinquishments, successful abolition of nuclear weapons could help us build
toward a habit of relinquishing dangerous technologies. (Actually, by getting rid of
all but 100 nuclear weapons worldwide - roughly the total destructive power of
World War II and a considerably easier task - we could eliminate this extinction
threat
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