Strategic Initiatives

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ELIMINITION INITIATIVE

The Gorbachev Foundation/USA, the precursor to the State of the World Forum, in partnership with the Gorbachev Foundation/Moscow and the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation for Contemporary Studies developed a Global Security Program in 1993 comprised of forty specialists from around the world. Mr. Gorbachev, Senator Alan Cranston, and a number of dignitaries met in Moscow in September 1993; in Washington in May 1994; and in New Delhi in October 1994, where the Global Security Program was adopted. A report was published by the Rajiv Gandhi Institute and released in October, 1994.

The Global Security Programme Report’s findings were then presented by Mikhail Gorbachev to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in October, 1994. This report was distributed widely to policy-makers in Washington DC and 600 copies were presented to national leaders and experts in scores of countries.

As a result of this early work, the Forum launched the Nuclear Weapons Elimination Initiative in 1995, which continued as a major Initiative of the Forum until 1999, when it spun-off and became its own organization, the Global Security Institute, fulfilling a life-long dream of Senator Cranston’s.

The Nuclear Weapons Elimination Initiative, directed by Senator Alan Cranston, addressed the ongoing dangers which the existence of nuclear weapons pose. The heart of its task, though international in scope, was to lead the U.S., the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons, and the pre-eminent world power, to lead the way internationally to reduce nuclear dangers and finally to end them through abolition.

The Initiative contributed significantly to the creation of a new serious national and global debate on nuclear weapons through high-level discussions with the governments of the U.S., Russia, U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Korea, and India. The purpose was to sustain and expand that debate and to educate policy makers on the necessity of taking steps toward the clearly avowed goal of abolition.

The Initiative developed and launched a series of public statements by public leaders which stimulated the rising discussion of the role of nuclear weapons after the Cold War. The Initiative organized the public release of two abolition statements:

A second statement signed by 130 international leaders from 48 countries - including 52 presidents and prime ministers, was made public on February 2, 1998 at a Washington press conference by General Lee Butler, former Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Strategic Air Command. Another statement was made by Mayors of the U.S. and the world's greatest cities.

The Initiative also sponsored a broadcast of an unprecedented documentary on nuclear dangers and related town hall meetings which fostered widespread public discussion.

A network of abolition organizations, in close cooperation with the Forum's Initiative, organized the Middle Powers Initiative to work with governments of key nations - such as Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Japan, Mexico, Slovenia, South Africa, and Sweden - to encourage the leaders of the Nuclear Weapons States to break free from their Cold War mindset and move rapidly to a nuclear weapon free world.
Additionally, a collaborative effort, Global Action to Prevent War, sought to build new strength in the international peace movement by developing cooperation among the various non-government organizations working separately on various approaches to reducing the frequency and violence of war.

After the 1999 State of the World Forum, in which General Lee Butler spoke to those gathered, and after more than five years in development, the Nuclear Weapons Elimination Initiative spun-off and became its own organization, the Global Security Institute.