Five years ago hopes were high that the world was at last seriously headed toward nuclear disarmament. In April 2009 the then exciting new U.S. President Barack Obama gave a stirring and inspiring speech in Prague in which he outlined his dream of a world freed of the existence and threat of nuclear weapons.
The United States and Russia negotiated a new strategic arms reduction treaty (New START) that cuts their deployed strategic nuclear warheads by one-third to 1,550 each. The inaugural Nuclear Security Summit in Washington attracted broad international buy-in to an ambitious new agenda.
In contrast to the total and scandalous failure of its 2005 predecessor, the Eighth Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference of May 2010 was a modest success.